Satori (folklore) on:
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in Japanese folklore
Japanese folklore encompasses the informally learned folk traditions of Japan and the Japanese people as expressed in its oral traditions, customs, and material culture.
In Japanese, the term is used to describe folklore. The academic study ...
are mind-reading monkey
Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...
-like monsters ("yōkai
are a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore. The word is composed of the kanji for "attractive; calamity" and "apparition; mystery; suspicious." are also referred to as , or . Despite often being translated as suc ...
") said to dwell within the mountains of Hida and Mino Mino may refer to:
Places in Japan
* Mino, Gifu, a city in Gifu Prefecture
* Mino, Kagawa, a former town in Kagawa Prefecture
* Mino, Tokushima, a town in Tokushima Prefecture
* Mino, an alternate spelling of Minoh, a city in Osaka Prefecture
* Mi ...
(presently Gifu Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,991,390 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture to the northwest, F ...
).
Mythology
People are said to meet them while walking along mountain paths or resting in the mountains. Upon reading a person's mind, the satori would say the person's thoughts aloud faster than a human could. There is also a theory that they are the child incarnations ofmountain gods
Sacred mountains are central to certain religions, and are usually the subjects of many legends. For many, the most symbolic aspect of a mountain is the peak because it is believed that it is closest to heaven or other religious realms. Many rel ...
who have come to ruin and turned into a yōkai form.
They would appear before people at mountain huts, and are even said to try to eat and kill if they have a chance, but if something unexpectedly strikes the satori, they become stricken with fear and run away. There is also a theory that they do not present any danger to people and would not dare to harm those who work on the mountain, allowing people to coexist with satori.
A satori is depicted in Toriyama Sekien 200px, A Mikoshi-nyūdō, specifically a Miage-nyūdō, as portrayed by Toriyama">Miage-nyūdō.html" ;"title="Mikoshi-nyūdō, specifically a Miage-nyūdō">Mikoshi-nyūdō, specifically a Miage-nyūdō, as portrayed by Toriyama
, real name Sano ...
's ''Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki
is the second book of Japanese artist Toriyama Sekien's famous ''Gazu Hyakki Yagyō'' tetralogy, published c. 1779. A version of the tetralogy translated and annotated in English was published in 2016. These books are supernatural bestiaries, co ...
'', but since this was modeled after the yamako (玃) in the Wakan Sansai Zue
The is an illustrated Japanese ''leishu'' encyclopedia published in 1712 in the Edo period. It consists of 105 volumes in 81 books. Its compiler was Terashima or Terajima (), a doctor from Osaka. It describes and illustrates various activitie ...
and other works, and since it even said, "there are yamako (玃) deep in the mountains of Hida and Mino" in the text along with it, it is said that Toriyama Sekien gave it the name "satori" since they are able to read (satoru) people's minds. The yamako was an ape man from Chinese legends, but in the Wakan Sansai Zue, it was an animal that read people's minds in Hida and Mino, and since the character 玃 can also be pronounced "kaku", the character 覚 (also "kaku") was used as one that fit for a replacement, which was later misread as "satori", so there is the interpretation that this is what gave birth to the legend of "satori" as a different kind of yokai than the yamako. There is also the theory that satori are based on the yamabiko
The is a high-speed Shinkansen train service operated on the Tōhoku Shinkansen between and by East Japan Railway Company (JR East) in Japan.
Name
The word ''yamabiko'' is usually translated as 'echo', particularly one which is heard in the ...
found in the Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki and the Hyakkai Zukan
is a picture scroll by Edo period Japanese artist Sawaki Suushi. Completed in 1737, this scroll is a supernatural bestiary, a collections of ghosts, spirits and monsters (Yōkai), which Suushi based on literature, folklore, other artwork. These ...
and other collections, but according to the folklorist Kunio Yanagita
Kunio Yanagita (柳田 國男, Yanagita Kunio, July 31, 1875 – August 8, 1962) was a Japanese author, scholar, and folklorist. He began his career as a bureaucrat, but developed an interest in rural Japan and its folk traditions. This led to a ...
, from his work "Yokai Dangi", the folklore that satori would read people's minds, and the legend that yamabiko would imitate people's voices have the same origin.
Cultural impact
*TheTouhou Project
The , also known simply as , is a bullet hell shoot 'em up video game series created by one-man independent Japanese ''doujin'' soft developer Team Shanghai Alice. Since 1995, the team's member, Jun'ya "ZUN" Ōta, has independently developed ...
characters
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
Satori Komeiji and her younger sister Koishi Komeiji are both satori, although Koishi cannot read minds.
*In Kamen Rider Hibiki
is a Japanese tokusatsu superhero television series, serving as the fifteenth installment in the popular Kamen Rider Series of tokusatsu programs. It is a joint collaboration between Ishimori Productions and Toei Company, Toei. ''Kamen Rider Hibik ...
, a Makamou has the same name as this yōkai and is introduced as one of the final villains of the last episode of the TV series, albeit it does not feature a monkey.
*In The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist in Another World
is a Japanese light novel series written by Kiichi Kosuzu and illustrated by Shiso (first volume) and Kihiro Yuzuki (from second volume). It began serialization online in December 2018 on the user-generated novel publishing website Shōsets ...
one of the ayakashi that Seika Lamprogue summons to uncover information from a demon spy is a satori depicting it as a large ape like creature.
See also
*Bigfoot
Bigfoot, also commonly referred to as Sasquatch, is a purported ape-like creature said to inhabit the forest of North America. Many dubious articles have been offered in attempts to prove the existence of Bigfoot, including anecdotal claims o ...
* Hibagon
The or is the Japanese equivalent of the North American Bigfoot or the Himalayan Yeti. Sightings have been reported since the 1970s around Mount Hiba in the Hiroshima Prefecture.
History of the Hibagon
The Hibagon is described as a "black crea ...
* Yozakura Quartet
is a Japanese manga series created by Suzuhito Yasuda that began publishing by Kodansha in 2006, and was then published in the US by Del Rey in 2008. The anime adaptation aired from October 2 to December 18, 2008 in Japan and comprised 12 ...
References