Other Natural Religions

[Husky]

Accidentally came upon something and a mention is also there in wackypedia.



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto

Amenominakanushi



According to the Kojiki,[21] Amenominakanushi (天御中主 "All-Father of the Originating Hub", or 天之御中主神 "Heavenly Ancestral God of the Originating Heart of the Universe") is the first kami, and the concept of the source of the universe according to theologies.[22][23] In mythology he is described as a "god who came into being alone" (hitorigami), the first of the zōka sanshin ("three kami of creation"), and one of the five kotoamatsukami ("distinguished heavenly gods").[22]]



(1. "All-Father of the Originating Hub" "Heavenly Ancestral God of the Originating Heart of the Universe") is the first kami, and the concept of the source of the universe according to theologies. -> Reminiscent of how the origins of the Brahmandam is explained as the evolution of purushottama (also called Paramashiva Shiva and his Shakti).

2. The 3 kami of creation is not unlike the 3 Pure Ones that make up the Dao and from which evolved creation and all beings. The Dao is also the "Supreme Ultimate" which is the "Divine Parents" in Daoism, i.e. the "Male" and "Female" essence that make up the Dao.)



Amenominakanushi has been considered a concept developed under the influence of Chinese thought.[22] With the flourishing of kokugaku the concept was studied by scholars.[22] The theologian Hirata Atsutane identified Amenominakanushi as the spirit of the North Star, master of the seven stars of the Big Dipper.[22] The god was emphasised by the Daikyōin in the Meiji period, and worshiped by some Shinto sects.[22]

(IIRC, in Daoism, the Big Dipper is an Amman, not a male God.)



The god manifests in a duality, a male and a female function, respectively Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi.[23] In other mythical accounts the originating kami is called Umashiashikabihikoji ("God of the Ashi [Reed]") or Kuninotokotachi (the "God Founder of the Nation"), the latter used in the Nihon Shoki.

[24]

"The originating Kami is called Umashiashikabihikoji" -> Oh, what a coincidence :grin: Hindoos also call the originating Hindoo "Supreme Ultimate" as Umashiva for short, i.e UmaShiva, the Ardhanareeshwara (aka the complete puruShottama form), from which the cosmos originates as per the Hindoos.





"The god manifests in a duality, a male and a female function, respectively Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi."

The Supreme Ultimate as made up of the Yin and Yang parts is also there in Daoism.





Before leaping to the conclusion that Shinto must in origin be "Hindooism onlee" or "Taoism onlee", though Taoism certainly had an influence since the very formative stages, I rather think that a pre-existing similar understanding/perception of the universe by the ancient Japanese was followed in time by an acquaintance with other heathen religions that had a similar understanding of their own, and it is this acquaintance that could have led to an adoption of the other religions' terms (and some paraphernalia) for the already existing native perception. My own degree of understanding of the Taoist Supreme Ultimate is based on the Hindoos' Umashiva. And I even refer to the Hindoo Gods as the Supreme Ultimate and as the Divine Parents, borrowing these terms from the Daoists.

So why can't the Japanese have done something similar? They had Divine Parents and used - besides native names like Kuninotokotachi and Amenominakanushi - also a Hindoo-derived name for the same. Why not. They may have thought UmaShiva literally meant "Mother and Father/Ardhanaareeshwara" rather than realising that Uma and Shiva are the proper names of specific Divine Parents of Hindoos. But it's close enough. UmaShiva refers to the Mother and Father of the All in Hindoo cosmology and Shintos had recognised and understood what these meant and so applied it to the Mother and Father of the All in Shinto cosmology. Like I go about saying Divine Parents and Supreme Ultimate (which are English translations of literal Taoist epithets) and apply these to the Hindoo Gods.



In fact, the Rudra Hrudayopanishad identifies various (albeit Vedic, i.e. Hindoo) Gods with Shiva and identifies their Shaktis with Uma, so extending that to a fellow heathenism then: from the Hindoo POV too, why not Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi as UmaShiva? Hmmm.





Oh.

Creation of Japan

Main article: Japanese creation myth



Izanami-no-Mikoto and Izanagi-no-Mikoto, by Kobayashi Eitaku, late 19th century.The generation of the Japanese archipelago is expressed mythologically as the action of two gods: Izanagi ("He-who-invites") and Izanami ("She-who-is-invited").[23] The interaction of these two principles begets the islands of Japan and a further group of kami.[23]



[...] as early as the Nihon Shoki parts of the mythology were explicitly borrowed from Taoism doctrines. For example, the co-creator deities Izanami and Izanagi are explicitly compared to yin and yang.

Again, I don't see why one has to assume that the 3 originating Kami, or the 2 co-creator Deities being compared with Yin and Yang, has to imply that the view of 3 and 2 creator versions originally derive from Taoism or Hindu religions. It's true that Taoism has an equivalence of Tao=3 Pure Ones, and also the equivalence of Tao=Supreme Ultimate=Yin+Yang. And it's also true that Hindoo religion has Parabrahman=Trimoorti and Parabrahman=PuruShottama(Paramshiva)=Shiva+Shakti (i.e. UmaShiva, or else PuruSha and Prakriti, or Deva and its Devaatmashakti which can be applied to all the Gods). But then why not equally insist that Hindoo or Taoist religions must be derived one from the other, since the assumption is that for ideas to be original they must be unique? Ironically, these are some of The Oldest views in native Chinese religion. And also some of the oldest views in Hindoo religion. I've read lots of speculation donating much of Hindooism to Taoism and lots of speculation donating much Taoism to Hindooism, but I've never seen evidence that I can't argue away.



So why can't it rather be that the Japanese merely recognised/formed an identification between their own cosmological views and the Taoist Yin and Yang - and with the Hindoo Umashiva[...] - and so applied Taoist and Hindoo terminology to native Shinto views? Why not? Even logically speaking, the first natural conception for the birth of the universe would require the search for its Parents. And heathen religions tend to identify the Universe with the All (e.g. heelal means "whole all" and is the word for universe in NL), therefore the Divine Parents would be identified with the universe and consequently since the universe is not visible 2 but 1, the Divine Parents will also be "unified form"/unified version though possessed of the male and female constituents, at least for creation/origination.



Also, SO many heathen religions have Divine Parents who are regarded as the founding parents of the All. (Heathen religions all the way in Africa too. So - pre-emptively: oryanists can back down already.)



No one is denying that there has been both Taoist and Hindu presence in Japan, and significant Taoist (and some Hindu) influences on Shinto in an early period. But the essence of these views seems quite a common feature to many heathenisms. I mean, when I first read about the Magna Mater and the Paternal Intellect or Intelligence (sorry, forgot) of the Hellenes, I too thought of these two as the PuruShottama's two constituent parts. Especially as they are meant to bring forth the All and life.



Therefore why MUST the Japanese use of (the obviously Taoist, Chinese) Yin and Yang to describe the Japanese founding Divine Parents - who together constitute the originating God - necessarily imply that the very notion in Shinto "must have" come from Taoism?



This is useful:

Since Japanese language does not distinguish between singular and plural, kami refers to the divinity, or sacred essence, that manifests in multiple forms: rocks, trees, rivers, animals, places, and even people can be said to possess the nature of kami.[10] Kami and people are not separate; they exist within the same world and share its interrelated complexity.[6]



[...]

Shinto is the largest religion in Japan, practiced by nearly 80% of the population, yet only a small percentage of these identify themselves as "Shintoists" in surveys.[7][11] This is due to the fact that "Shinto" has different meanings in Japan: most of the Japanese attend Shinto shrines and beseech kami without belonging to an institutional "Shinto" religion,[12] and since there are no formal rituals to become a member of folk "Shinto", "Shinto membership" is often estimated counting those who join organised Shinto sects.[13] Shinto has 100,000 shrines and 20,000 priests in the country.[7]

[The irony is that any Japanese or Chinese who hold the Buddha in regard is automatically classed Buddhist, despite most of these Japanese and Chinese actually being Shinto and Taoist respectively. But by that logic, 99% to 100% of Hindus respect Buddha too and should be called Buddhists not Hindus :wah: That's another reason why Indians dubbing Taiwain, Japan and China as "Buddhist" is flawed. Shintos worship lots of Hindoo Gods. Doesn't mean Hindus should count them as Hindus in the next religion census.]



But wow, 100,000 Shinto shrines. Dreamy. (Beats even Taiwan's 18,000 Taoist temples)

That's what India would be like without christoislam. Still, Hindoos are more fortunate than the Greeks and Romans who lost countless temples to christianism=terrorism.



"Since Japanese language does not distinguish between singular and plural, kami refers to the divinity, or sacred essence, that manifests in multiple forms" <---> Even in a literal sense, Shintos are not monopolytheists either. Their Supreme Ultimate is everywhere.



Hmm, I think the Shinto definition is very good for Hindoos to use.





The point of this post was "Umashiashikabihikoji" mentioned in the first quoteblock.



ADDED:

1. Only noticed the following after spam. From the same wackypedia link, the section on ritual purity:

In old Japanese legends, it is often claimed that the dead go to a place called yomi (黄泉), a gloomy underground realm with a river separating the living from the dead mentioned in the legend of Izanami and Izanagi. This yomi is very close to the Greek Hades; however, later myths include notions of resurrection and even Elysium-like descriptions such as in the legend of Okuninushi and Susanoo. Shinto tends to hold negative views on death and corpses as a source of pollution called kegare.

So the Japanese independently had a Hades-like and Elysium-like afterlife. Plus the view that corpses are a source of pollution is very much like that in Hellenismos too. Yet they did not influence nor were they influenced in this by the Greeks/Romans. (Like the Taoists, the Shintos are recognised by modern Roman reconstructionists and Hellenes as having lots in common with the native GrecoRoman religion.)

Though one imagines that if at some ancient time the Hellenes and Japanese had met, perhaps the Japanese may have included Greek- or Latin terminology for these pre-existing native Japanese views if they found them sufficiently similar. The way that Taoist Yin and Yang views found inclusion.





2. Regarding my wordgame on Umashiashikabihikoji, I should be made to take it back, since there are further details elsewhere - see below - such that the similarity of Umashiva to the prefix of Umashiashikabihikoji could well be pure coincidence. Though in my own defence, it was only when taken in combination with the other descriptive features (also at the wikipedia excerpt) - such as of originating the cosmos, and having both male and female aspects - that it seemed less of a coincidence. For instance, wacky stated in the section on the Kami Amenominakanushi that 'The god manifests in a duality, a male and a female function, respectively Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi. In other mythical accounts the originating kami is called Umashiashikabihikoji ("God of the Ashi [Reed]")'. Besides, the Tao starting with the 3 Pure Ones also manifests in stages to evolve the All, and since this always seemed to me [at surface level] to be not unlike the cosmological views that Hindoos have, and because Taoist cosmogony is regarded as somewhat akin to Shinto cosmogony, my randomly connecting Umashiva with the Japanese Kami did not seem improbable. (Further, several native Japanese Shintos chose to draw comparisons between certain features of their religions and Uma-Shiva - though only to further outsiders' understanding, supposing the Indian example to be "better-known" - but this had already made me inclined to leap to just such a conclusion.)





As it turns out, Japanese sources make brief mention but describe Umashiashikabihikoji as one of 5 originating Gods:

Umashiashikabihikoji

[Umashi ashikabi hikoji no kami](Kojiki)

Oher names: Umashi ashikabi hikoji no mikoto(Nihongi)

(Split is after Umashi. See, I'm still concluding "Umachi" in typical Husky fashion.)



A kami that appeared in the process of formation of heaven and earth. Acording to Kojiki and an "alternate writing" quoted in the Nihongi, when the land was first formed, it was uncongealed like floating oil, and drifted about like a jellyfish. From within this substance an object appeared and sprouted like a reed, becoming the kami Umashiashikabihikoji.



Kojiki states that this kami was the fourth of the five separate heavenly kami (kotoamatsukami) that were produced alone (hitorigami) and then hid themselves away (i.e., died). The second and third "alternate writings" describing this episode in Nihongi, however, state that Umashiashikabihikoji was the first kami to come into being, while the sixth account describes it as the second kami produced. This kami was not known as the ancestor of any clans.



-Mori Mizue

japan-101.com/culture/kotoamatsukami.htm

Kotoamatsukami - Term Used in Japanese Shintoism



In Japanese Shintoism, Kotoamatsukami (別天神, literally means "distinguishing heavenly kami") is the collective name for the first powers which came into existence at the time of the creation of the universe. They were born in Takamagahara, the world of Heaven at the time of the creation, as Amenominakanushi 天御中主 (Sky), Takamimusubi (High Producer), Kamimusubi (Divine Producer), and a bit later Umashiashikabihikoji (Reed) and Amenotokotachi (Heaven).



These forces then became gods and goddesses, the tenzai shoshin (heavenly kami) - Ame no minakanushi no kami; Takami-musubi no �kami; Kamimusubi no �kami; Umashiashikabihikoji no kami; Ame no Tokotachi no kami; Kuni no Tokotachi no kami; Toyokumono no kami; Uhijini no mikoto; Suhijini no kami; Tsunokuhi no kami; Ikukuhi no kami; �tonoji no kami; �tonobe no kami; Omodaru no kami; Kashikone no kami; Izanagi no kami; Izanami no kami; and Amaterasu �mikami.

Since I've been drawing random comparisons at will, may as well make one more, taking into account wackypedia's statements implying that the Kamigami evolved the universe sort of in stages and that there seem to be similarities with Daoism. "The first powers which came into existence at the time of the creation of the universe" being 5 in number reminds me loosely of what were said to be the 5 Shuddhatattvas of "ShaktyaNDa" in Kashmiri Shaivam/the 5 stages in the first evolution of Paramashiva into the All. Or something. Whatever.

Be that as it may, Shintoism certainly has cosmological views. And the very fact that comparisons are made with the Taoist cosmological perception means that Shinto cosmogony is likely to be far more intricate than straightforward reading. (Which I suppose was already indicated in this statement from wacky, as it refers to how Shinto cosmogony was a matter of study for Shinto scholars: "Amenominakanushi has been considered a concept developed under the influence of Chinese thought.[22] With the flourishing of kokugaku the concept was studied by scholars.[22]") Not that I ever thought Shinto to be any more trivial than Hindoo or Taoist religion - the very fact that there exist Shintos who understood matters pertaining to Uma-Shiva (and surprisingly well) in order for them to make their deep comparisons with their own religion's views and practices, clearly meant that they had naturally had deep insight and that their ancestral religion was at least as profound. Besides, Shintoists still interact directly with the Gods, which is proof in itself.





3. On this statement from the wackypedia article again:



"Since Japanese language does not distinguish between singular and plural, kami refers to the divinity, or sacred essence, that manifests in multiple forms: rocks, trees, rivers, animals, places, and even people can be said to possess the nature of kami."



Hmmm, Kami as a general/basic terminology could be a concept somewhat like Atman, also to be described as "sacred essence". In Hindoo religion too, there are Gods in or of trees and mountains/rocks, rivers, animals, places (e.g. forests, villages) etc. And the fact that Kami refers to "the divinity or sacred essence that manifests" (in all things) is not unlike the Paramaatman being found in all things. Am not meaning to force the issue or even submitting Atman as the term for translation, nor do I think that these two terms are equivalent, but heathen religions tend to have some notion of fundamental essence(s) - which they tend to regard as sacred and ubiquitous - and I think in Shinto religion it is Kami and in Hindoos' religion it is Atman. Also, other native Shintoists had explained that "Kami" had a monist meaning too, hence akin to Parabrahman but also like the Tao. (This last also seems to be alluded to in some of the above English-language descriptions of their cosmogony.)