By the Gods!
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Momotarou, which can be translated as “peach boy” or “peach first son”, is a popular hero in Japanese folklore.
The story goes like this:
There once was an elderly, childless couple who lived out in the country. One day, the wife was washing the clothes in the river when she came upon a large peach floating towards her. Well, the wife grabbed that peach and brought it back with her to the house. She and her husband decided to open the peach, to eat the flesh inside. And what do they find when they cut it open? A little boy! The child went on to tell them that he was sent from Heaven to be their son. They were overjoyed, and named him Momotarou.
Years pass by and Momotarou leaves his parents to go and fight this band of marauding oni’s (demons or ogres) on a distant island. While he’s on his way there, he happens to befriend a talking dog, monkey, and pheasant; who all agree to to help him on his quest. At the island, Momotarou and his talking animal friends are able to penetrate oni’s fort and literally beat those oni’s into surrendering! Momotarou and his friends return from the battle, with treasure and the oni leader as their captive.
Momotarou returns home to his parents with all his spoils, and they all live comfortably from then on.
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The Churning of the Ocean
In Indian mythology, the demons were older than their half-brothers, the Gods.
The Gods and the Demons knew that they could gain the Amrit, the Water of Life, if they churned up one of the seven oceans that, ring beyond ring, encircles the worlds. They came down to the Ocean of Milk. They took the Mountain Mandara for a churning-pole and the hundred-headed serpent Vasuki for a churning-rope.
For a thousand years the Gods and the demons churned the Ocean of Milk. All the time Vasuki, the serpent, from his hundred heads spat venom. The venom bit into the rocks and broke them up; it flowed down, destroying the worlds of Gods and men. Then all creation would have been destroyed in that flood of venom if it had not been for the act of Shiva
Shiva took up the venom in a cup and drank it. His throat became blue with that draught of bitterness.
Still they churned.
And then there appeared the sage Dhanvantri, and in his hands was the cup that held the Amrit, the Water of Life. The demons strove to seize it. They almost overpowered the Gods in their efforts to seize the Amrit. Then Vishnu changed himself into a ravishing form; he seemed to be the loveliest of the nymphs of Heaven. The demons went towards where the seeming nymph postured for them. Even as they fought amongst each other for the maiden, the Gods took the cup, and, sharing it, they drank the Amrit.
And now they were filled with such vigour that the demons could not overpower them. Many they drove down into hell. That was the beginning of the wars between the Gods and the Demons…wars that went on for ages.
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Alright, we don’t normally do stuff like this here at By the Gods!, but this video was brought to my attention, and it’s worth sharing (partly for lolz, partly for a slew of images and basic deity information). For more substantial Ganesh content, go here.
Please enjoy the song “Ganesh is Fresh.”
“If you think Ganesh is super-fresh, when I say ‘Jai’ you say ‘Ganesh.’”
Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha was the founding master of Buddhism and is regarded as the most perfect of holy men, rather than as a deity. He was born (by most accounts) in the 6th century BCE into the Kshatriya (warrior) caste at Kapilavastu, just inside the border of what is now Nepal. Gautama was the Buddha’s family name; his given name was Siddhartha. Gautama is venerated by all Buddhists, although for the “Pure Land” sect of Japanese and Chinese Buddhism, the Buddha Amitabha (or Amida) has supreme importance.
According to tradition, Gautama was chillin’ up in one of the Buddhist heavens when he realized it was time for him to descend to earth. The spirit of the Buddha appeared to Queen Maya, and entered her womb, causing an immaculate conception of sorts. The prophets predicted that the boy, when he was born, would be either a universal emperor or a buddha (spoiler: not the emperor one).
Gautama had a privileged upbringing, married a princess, and had son. In his late twenties, however, he set out to explore the land outside the palace, and discovered the suffering and sadness that ran rampant through the world. He became an ascetic, but after six years hadn’t had any enlightenment-breakthroughs. In Bodh Gaya, he sat down beneath the branches of a sacred tree, whereupon the earth shook six times as he meditated. The buddha was tested by the demon Mara (a buddhist equivalent of Satan), being subjected to fear and enticed by pleasure, but he remained unmoved. He then became aware of the “Four Noble Truths” which became the chief tenets of his teachings, and created the Eightfold Path.
The earth shook, breezes blew, flowers rained from heaven, the gods rejoiced, and all living things were happy. Quite the discovery! Gautama preached for 40 years more, performed miracles, and converted all who heard him. He even ascended to heaven and converted his mother, Queen Maya. Then he brought the gods back down to earth on a ladder, for the biggest party of all time. At the age of 80, he entered nirvana, the ultimate state of spiritual bliss.
Futakuchi-Onna
The Futakuchi-Onnas originated in Japanese folklore and are two-mouthed women. A futakuchi-onna is a beautiful, skinny woman with a serious scalp condition. Under her hair at the back of her head is a large mouth with a sharp tongue that eats as much as it can find. The woman’s long beautiful hair acts as the mouth’s hands, reaching out for food and positioning itself to cover and hide the mouth whenever company is present. The woman herself does nothing to please the mouth other than lay beside a rice patch or dawdle near the fridge.
The mouth formed on the back of the head is normally connected to how little the woman eats. In many stories, the soon-to-be futakuchi-onna is a wife of a miser, so she rarely eats enough. To counteract this, a second mouth mysteriously appears on the back of the woman’s head. While little food passes through her normal lips, the mouth in the back of her head consumes twice what the other one would. Although these women eat so much unintentionally, they gain no weight. Where does the food go? If you don’t already know, I can’t tell you. (I don’t know.)
The most common story of the Futakuchi-onna goes a little like this: In a small village there lived a stingy miser who, because he could not bear the expense of properly feeding a wife, lived entirely by himself.
One day he met a woman who rarely ate anything, whom he immediately took for his wife. Though she never ate a thing, she was still a surprisingly hard worker. The old miser was thrilled with her, until his stores of rice started to slowly decrease. One day the miser pretended to leave for work, but instead stayed behind to spy on his new wife. To his horror, he saw his wife’s hair part on the back of her head, her skull split wide revealing a gaping mouth. She unbound her hair, which reached out like tentacles to grasp the rice and shovel it into the hungry mouth.
That is the whole story. I feel that we can safely surmise that Mr. Mouth was feeling a tad peckish that day and that the miser couldn’t run fast enough.
Note: When I say that this story is from “Japanese Mythology,” you might be wondering “well come on: which division of Japanese myth? Shinto? Buddhist? Agricultural folktales?” The correct answer seems to be a melding of the three. Buddhism did not simply override Shinto beliefs when it arrived in Japan, but adapted it, to give Japanese Buddhism its own individual flair. Folktales of this nature aren’t from any particular pantheon or belief set, but generate from the Japanese mythological identity as a whole, with all its subsets and separate communities and histories at play.
Fujin
One of the eldest of the Shinto deities, Fujin was the god of wind. He is said to have been present at the initial creation of the world, well before Izanagi and Izanami were sent to create the islands of Japan. During the world’s creation, Fujin released the wind from his bag, clearing out all the mists of the world, seemingly linking heaven with earth, allowing the gods to address the further creation of the world.
Fujin is portrayed as a distinctly freaky-looking demon. He wears animal skins and carries a large bag filled with the wind over his shoulders. The bag and the idea of wind being contained by the deity dates back to Greek mythology, specifically the depictions of the wind god Boreas, who wore a mantle similar to the representations of Fujin’s bag. There was a great degree of cultural diffusion and exchange between Greek, Chinese and Japanese beliefs in the Classical period, and so while he remained Fujin in Shinto mythology, the fusion of Fujin and Boreas was seen as Oado/Wardo in Chinese Buddhism. I don’t care what you call him, he’s scary as balls.
Oni
The Oni are giant horned demons said to have come to Japan from China with the arrival of Buddhism. Buddhist priests perform annual rites in order to expel them, but these evil brutes just keep coming back, it seems. The Oni are cruel and lecherous demons, said to swoop down from the sky to steal the souls of people about to die. They’re like otherworldly vultures, but uglier.
They appear in a variety of colours, and have three fingers, three toes and sometimes three eyes. Their depictions have changed and evolved a great deal over the years, as they are popular subjects for representation in pop culture. Some sources attribute them with the ability to shape-shift. The Oni of the Buddhist hell have the heads of oxen or horses, and hunt down sinners to take them away in their chariot of fire to Emma-O, the ruler of the underworld. Some Oni are held responsible fore illness and disease, and others are said to have been mortal women whose jealousy or grief transformed them into demons.
Bodhisattva
In Buddhism the Bodhisattvas are “enlightenment beings” who are destined to become buddhas. When the moment they finally achieve nirvana arrives, allowing them to escape the cycle of death and rebirth, they decline it. They do this that they might help others along the path to enlightenment. This is a big deal: these guys are sacrificing the ultimate goal of all Buddhists to lend their support to others on the path. Get it straight: they are nice guys.
They are shown robed as princes wearing five-leaved crowns, often sitting on a lotus. Two of the best known Bodhisattvas are Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri, pictured above. According to Mahayana Buddhism, human beings are sometimes able to enter paradise by means of a Bodhisattva’s merits and spiritual power rather than through their own, provided that they call on the Bodhisattva in faith. The Bodhisattvas give up their own chance at nirvana to help others along the path. That’s maybe the nicest spiritual being I’ve ever heard of.
Aizen-Myoo
Also known as Ragaraja, Aizen-Myoo is a deity from Mahayana Buddhism. He is regarded as the god of love in popular Japanese belief, and is one of the Wisdom Kings of Vajrayana traditions. He is a deity of both physical and intellectual desire and represents love transformed through the desire for enlightenment.
His body is completely red, and is usually shown sitting on a blossoming lotus. He has three eyes, the head of a lion for his hair, and has six arms, each holding a weapon. Why fearsome arsenal for this love-god? The better to love you with, silly. Despite his frightening appearance, Aizen-Myoo is renowned for his great compassion toward humankind.
Kodama
In Japanese folklore the Kodama are spirits that inhabit and represent trees. They aren’t believed to dwell in every tree, but rather occupy specific and significant trees. Cutting down a tree that houses a Kodama is thought to bring ill fortune, and in Japan any such trees are often marked with a special rope. Japanese folklore takes influence from both Shinto and Buddhist beliefs, so it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where and how these spirits originated.
Their depictions vary; some believe them to take the form of a regular-looking human when they wander about beyond their tree, though their most famous representation is seen in the film Princess Mononoke, wherein they are cute as balls. It’s not even fair how adorable those little guys are.
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