Myōjin (明神 'shining deity', 'illuminating deity', or 'apparent deity') or Daimyōjin (大明神 'great shining/apparent deity') was a title historically applied to Japanese (

Shinto , also called Shintoism, is a religion originating in Japan. Classified as an East Asian religions, East Asian religion by Religious studies, scholars of religion, it is often regarded by its practitioners as Japan's indigenous religion and as ...

)

deities A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...

(''kami'') and, by

metonymy Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something associated with that thing or concept. For example, the word " suit" may refer to a person from groups commonly wearing business attire, such as sales ...

, their

shrines A shrine ( "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor worship, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, Daemon (mythology), daemon, or similar figure of respect, wh ...

. The term is thought to have been derived from ''myōjin'' (名神 'notable deity'), a title once granted by the imperial court to ''kami'' deemed to have particularly impressive power and virtue and/or have eminent, well-established shrines and cults. This term is first attested in the ''

Shoku Nihongi The is an imperially-commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 797, it is the second of the '' Six National Histories'', coming directly after the and followed by ''Nihon Kōki''. Fujiwara no Tsugutada and Sugano no Mamichi served as t ...

'', where offerings from the kingdom of Bohai (

Balhae Balhae,, , ) also rendered as Bohai or Bohea, and called Jin (; ) early on, was a multiethnic kingdom established in 698 by Dae Joyeong (Da Zuorong). It was originally known as the Kingdom of Jin (震, Zhen) until 713 when its name was changed ...

) are stated to have been offered to "the eminent shrines (名神社 ''myōjin-sha'') in each

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

" in the year 730 ( Tenpyō 2). An epithet

homophonous A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...

with this imperially bestowed title, "shining/apparent ''kami''" (written with different

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

), was in popular usage from around the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

up until the end of the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, coexisting with titles with more explicit Buddhist overtones such as ''

gongen A , literally "incarnation", was believed to be the manifestation of a buddha in the form of an indigenous kami, an entity who had come to guide the people to salvation, during the era of shinbutsu-shūgō in premodern Japan.Encyclopedia of Shin ...

'' (権現 'incarnation')Encyclopedia of Shinto
''Gongen''
/ref> or ''daibosatsu'' (大菩薩 'great

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...

').

The earliest recorded usages of 'shining/apparent deity' are found in sources such as in the ''Sumiyoshi-taisha Jindaiki'' (住吉大社神代記, "The Sumiyoshi Grand Shrine's Records of the

Age of the Gods In Shinto chronology, the is the period preceding the accession of Jimmu, the first Emperor of Japan. The kamiyo myths are chronicled in the "upper roll" (''Kamitsumaki'') of the ''Kojiki'' and in the first and second chapters of the ''Nihon Sh ...

", supposedly compiled in the year 731 but thought to actually be of a much later date), which refers to the three Sumiyoshi deities as 'Sumiyoshi Daimyōjin' (住吉大明神),Nakamura (2009), p. 74. and the ''

Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku , abbreviated as Sandai Jitsuroku, is an officially commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 901, it is the sixth and final text in the Six National Histories series. It covers the years 858–887. Background Following the earlier nati ...

'' (completed in 901), which refers to ' Matsuo Daimyōjin' (松尾大明神). While at first this title did not yet seem to have the Buddhist connotations that would later be associated with it, the connection between ''daimyōjin'' with the concept of ''

honji suijaku The term in Japanese religious terminology refers to a theory widely accepted until the Meiji period according to which Indian Buddhist deities choose to appear in Japan as native ''kami'' to more easily convert and save the Japanese.Breen and Te ...

'' (i.e. that the native ''kami'' are actually manifestations of Buddhist deities) was reinforced by an apocryphal utterance of

the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist lege ...

often claimed to be derived from the ''Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka-sūtra'' (悲華經 "Compassionate Lotus

Sutra ''Sutra'' ()Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a ...

"; Japanese: ''Hikekyō'') quoted and alluded to in various medieval works, but which is not in the actual sutra's text: "After I have passed into ''nirvana'', during the

Latter Day of the Law The Decline of the Dharma or Ages of the Dharma, refers to traditional Buddhist accounts of how the Buddhist religion and the Buddha's teaching (Dharma) is believed to decline throughout history. It constitutes a key aspect of Buddhist eschatol ...

, I shall appear as a great shining/apparent deity (大明神) and save all sentient beings." Up until the early modern period, use of titles such as ''myōjin'' or ''gongen'' for many deities and their shrines were so widespread that these gods were rarely referred to by their proper names. For instance, both the god of

Kashima Shrine is a Shinto shrine located in Kashima, Ibaraki in the northern Kantō region of Japan. It is dedicated to , one of the patron deities of martial arts. Various dōjō of ''kenjutsu'' and ''kendō'' often display a hanging scroll emblazoned with t ...

and the shrine itself were known as 'Kashima Daimyōjin' (鹿島大明神); the deity enshrined in Suwa Grand Shrine was called 'Suwa Daimyōjin' (諏訪(大)明神), and so on. (cf. Hachiman-daibosatsu (八幡大菩薩) or Kumano Gongen (熊野権現)). After his death,

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

was deified under the name ' Toyokuni Daimyōjin' (豊国大明神). Under

Yoshida Shintō (), also frequently referred to as (, "One-and-only Shintō"), was a prominent sect of Shintō that arose during the Sengoku period through the teachings and work of Yoshida Kanetomo. The sect was originally an effort to organize Shintō teachi ...

, the conferral of ranks and titles like ''myōjin'' was institutionalized, with the sect issuing out authorization certificates to shrines for a fee. The sect considered the title to be higher than the overtly Buddhist ''gongen'' as part of the sect's inversion of ''honji suijaku'', an issue which became a point of contention with the

Sannō Ichijitsu Shintō Sannō Shintō(山王神道) was a syncretic shinto group with elements from Tendai buddhism of Enryaku-ji Temple. Sannō(山王) means“King of the Mountain,”, is a common name of the guardian deity of Tendai Buddhism.The roots of the Shintō- ...

(山王一実神道) sect spearheaded by the

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Dharma Flower School (天台法華宗, ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just ''Hokkeshū''), is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition with significant esoteric elements that was officially established in Japan in 806 by t ...

monk

Tenkai was an influential Japanese Tendai Buddhist monk of the Azuchi-Momoyama and early Edo periods. He achieved the rank of ''Daisōjō'', the highest rank of the Tendai priesthood and was an influential advisor to various Shoguns, including To ...

.Encyclopedia of Shinto
''Sannō Shintō''
/ref> When the Meiji government officially separated Shinto from Buddhism, official use of titles and terminology perceived as having Buddhist connotations such as ''(dai)myōjin'', ''(dai)gongen'' or ''daibosatsu'' by shrines were legally abolished and discouraged. However, a few deities/shrines are still often referred to as ''(dai)myōjin'' in popular usage even today. (E.g.

Kanda Myōjin , is a Shinto shrine located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The shrine dates back 1,270 years, but the current structure was rebuilt several times due to fire and earthquakes. It is situated in one of the most expensive estate areas of Tokyo. Kanda ...

Chiyoda, Tokyo , known as Chiyoda City in English,
." ''City of Chiyoda''. Retrieved on December 28, 2008. is a S ...

, enshrining the deified

vengeful spirit In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or crem ...

Taira no Masakado was a Heian period provincial magnate (''gōzoku'') and samurai based in eastern Japan, notable for leading the first recorded uprising against the central government in Kyōto. Along with Sugawara no Michizane and Emperor Sutoku, he is of ...

Notes

References

{{jmyth navbox long Buddhism in Japan Shinbutsu shūgō Shinto in Japan Japanese Vajrayana Buddhism

See also

Notes

References