Kami

Kami
Taikan Yokoyama, Mount Penglai, 1948, Adachi Museum of Art

Kami is a religious term originating from the native Japanese religion of Shinto. Kami is notoriously difficult to translate into English, having no equivalent English term. Basil Hall Chamberlain, one of the foremost Japanologists of the 19th century, once wrote:

"Of all the words for which it is hard to find a suitable English equivalent, Kami is the hardest."

Kami is typically translated into English as "gods, deities, or spirits," but can also be used to describe deified mortals, ancestors, natural phenomena, and supernatural powers.

Description of Kami

"The Handbook of Japanese Mythology" by Michael Ashkenazi (2003)

"A spiritual power or deity. The concept, under different names (kamui in Ainu, kang in Ryukyuan), is pervasive throughout Japanese mythology. At its basis, it refers to the numinous power that is spread unevenly throughout the world. Potent, pure, and essentially nonpersonalized, kami may mean power and maybe dissipated or aggregated, according to human (or divine) actions. Pollution repels kami, whereas purity attracts it. Actions and objects that have this purity may attract kami or imbue kami on their own.

Personalized deities are called kami as well. The term kami is used as a title appended to the names of certain deities, thus Amaterasu-ō-mikami. The Japanese kami tend to be highly personalized, sometimes having distinct and identifiable personae and preferences. There are also numerous unnamed and attributeless deities. The totality of kami is expected to be too numerous to count and is referred to as yaoyorozu-no-kamigami (the eight million various kami). Deities associated particularly with the state cult and national Shintō are usually carefully defined, named, and provided with ranks and titles. Other kami (particularly those worshiped exclusively in smaller communities) are far less carefully delineated.

A similar situation exists for the Ainu kamui. Some, like the hearth goddess Kamui Fuchi, are carefully delineated, others less well so. The Ainu do not appear to have a general category such as yaoyorozu-no-kamigami. Ainu kamui tend to have very specific associations, such as the kamui of the undertow.

The reverse is true for Ryukyuan kang (the term varies between isles and island clusters in the archipelago). Although kang are viewed in almost all cases as individual beings, similar in form to humans, they are rarely provided with particular attributes, dress, or activities to distinguish them. They are, in fact, rarely well defined, and quite often almost incidental to the rituals Ryukyuans perform. With some few exceptions, most of which may better be described as “culture heroes” rather than worshiped deities, they are not associated with particular myths beyond “they are the ancestors/kang of our group (lineage or hamlet).”"

Jinja Honcho- Association of Shinto Shrines

"In order to comprehend the concept of kami, it is important to erase the preconception caused by the word god, an English translation that is often used for the word kami. In Shinto, there is no faith in the concept of an absolute god who is the creator of both human beings and nature.

It might be best to quote the opinion of Norinaga Motoori, a scholar in the late 18th century who wrote, “Whatever seemed strikingly impressive, possessed the quality of excellence and virtue, and inspired a feeling of awe was called kami.” Here “the quality of excellence” refers to an enormous power which has great influence over many things. It is beyond human power or human capability and brings good fortune and happiness to man but at the same time it may bring misfortune or evil as well."

Shinto Shrine Tsurugaoka Hachimangū

Kami is the Japanese word for Shinto deities. There are many different interpretations of the nature of kami, but the following are considered to be the basic characteristics of kami.

1. August Kami

Kami inspire people with feelings of the sacred, gratefulness, and awe. Motoori Norinaga, a scholar in the Edo period (1600-1868) clearly expressed the view that the “kami have extremely superb virtue”. Thus, people should approach the kami with profound reverence and admiration.

2. Incomprehensible Kami

Kami are beyond human comprehension, since humans have a limited power of reasoning, and kami transcend the power of human reason.

3. Emerging Kami

Kami exist through their unification with certain material objects, or other phenomena, and furthermore different names are given to kami in accordance with the object through which the kami appear. For example, some have names such as Futsunushi-no-kami (a sword), Haraedo-no-kami (the Harae, or purification, kami), or Ukano-mitama-no-kami (the grain kami). Thus, the kami of Shinto could be said to be polytheistic.

There is in Shinto no concept of an almighty or absolute god. Even Amaterasu Omikami, one of the major goddesses of the Shinto religion, is not considered a perfect kami. Kami show their sacredness through a material medium. It is in this way that we sense and believe in their existence.

4. Functional Kami

Kami are significantly involved in the everyday life of humankind. That is, since we humans seek divine blessings in some concrete form, kami are always engaged with the real lives of humans. Kami are not conceived metaphysically, but sensed through their divine functions or virtues.

5. Super-human Kami

Compared to human existence, kami are super-human.

6. Co-existing Kami

There is no discontinuity between kami and humankind. The kami that are the objects of people’s faith are united with the spirits of all human beings. This is fundamental to the reality of human existence. In Shinto, there exists everywhere and in all dimensions a tendency towards humanization. Shinto also exists as a type of ancestral or hero worship. For example, the Heian period  scholar and aristocrat, Sugawara Michizane became “Tenjin sama (the kami for study)” after his death, on account of his brilliance as a scholar.

Ancestral worship, which involves worshipping kami as one’s ancestors, shifted in quality and came to involve the reverence of human ancestors as kami. In the same way, hero worship involving the worship of kami as heroes came to involve the worship of heroes as kami. In both cases, the implication is that divine nature and the sublime human nature are equal.

People often say “a human becomes a kami after death.” This is a typical expression of the Japanese concept of kami. Having no discontinuity between the kami and the human, kami live within humans and humans live with the kami, so that humans are blessed for the duration of their lives."

External links

• Kami on yokai.com