is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

word meaning a ''

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

'' (or

deity A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...

) who is a human being. It first appears in the '' Nihon Shoki'' () as a words of

Yamato Takeru , originally , was a Japanese semi-legendary prince of the Yamato dynasty, son of Emperor Keikō, who is traditionally counted as the 12th Emperor of Japan. His name written in kanji can vary, in the '' Nihon Shoki'' it is spelled 日本武尊 a ...

saying "I am the son of an Arahitokami".'' Nihon Shoki'', Chapter 7 In 1946, at the request of the GHQ, the

Shōwa Emperor Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

(Hirohito) proclaimed in the

Humanity Declaration The , also known as the , , and ''Imperial Rescript Denying His Divinity'', is an imperial rescript issued by the Emperor Shōwa as part of a New Year's statement on 1 January 1946 at the request of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (als ...

that he had never been an , divinity in human form, and claimed his relation to the people did not rely on such a

mythological Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

idea but on a historically developed family-like reliance. However, the declaration excluded the word ''arahitogami''. In Shinto it is normal that a superior person is revered as a God especially after they died, like

Sugawara no Michizane was a scholar, poet, and politician of the Heian Period of Japan. He is regarded as an excellent poet, particularly in Kanshi poetry, and is today revered in Shinto as the god of learning, . In the poem anthology ''Hyakunin Isshu'', he is known ...

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

Difference between ''akitsumikami'' and ''arahitogami''

''Akitsumikami'' is often translated as "divine" or "divinity", but some Western scholars (including

John W. Dower John W. Dower (born June 21, 1938 in Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, Rhode Island) is an American author and historian. His 1999 book ''Embracing Defeat, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II'' won the U.S. National Book Awar ...

and

Herbert P. Bix Herbert P. Bix (born 1938) is an American historian. He wrote ''Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan'', an account of the Japanese Emperor and the events which shaped modern Japanese nationalism, Japanese imperialism, which won the Pulitzer Priz ...

) explained that its real meaning is "manifest

" (or, more generally, " incarnation of a god"), and that therefore the emperor would still be, according to the declaration, an ''arahitogami'' ("living god"), although not an ''akitsumikami'' ("manifest kami").

Jean Herbert Jean Herbert was one of the first generation of interpreters for the United Nations organization. He was a former chief interpreter of the United Nations interpretation service in New York City. Biography Herbert was one of the pioneer, veteran ...

explains that, according to the Japanese tradition, the figure of the emperor would be "the extension in time" of the goddess

Amaterasu Amaterasu, also known as Amaterasu Ōmikami () or Ōhirume no Muchi no Kami (), is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology. One of the major deities (''kami'') of Shinto, she is also portrayed in Japan's earliest literary texts, the ''Kojik ...

and the previous emperors, representing a ''naka ima'' (中今?). Consequently, it would be inadmissible to deny its divine origin.

Notes

Japanese folklore Political history of Japan Shinto kami {{Shinto-stub

Difference between ''akitsumikami'' and ''arahitogami''

See also

Notes