Kami in Shinto Kami play a central role in Shinto belief, but due to the different nature of animistic Shinto and modern Shinto is unclear as to what can be defined as a kami. While ancient animistic beliefs described kami as divine forces of nature who were worshipped in trees, boulders, waterfalls, mountains and fields, the written chronicles of the 8th century, the Kojiki (古事記) and the Nihon shoki (日本書紀), depicted more structured mythology and a complex pantheon of deities.īoth chronicles described the creation of the world through Izanagi-no-Mikoto (伊邪那岐) and Izanami-no-Mikoto (伊弉冉尊), the conflict between Amaterasu-ōmikami (天照大御神) and her brother Susanoo (須佐之男), the earthly rule of Susanoo’s descendants and the eventual conquest of the world by Amaterasu’s descendants, the dynasty of the Japanese tennō (天皇). Likewise, kami may refer to male and female deities, although Megami (女神) is sometimes used for female spirits.Īmatsu-kami and kunitsu-kamiShinto belief distinguished between celestial or heavenly deities (天津神 【あまつかみ】 amatsu-kami) and earthly deities (国津神 【くにつかみ ちぎ(地祇)】 kunitsu-kami). In the Japanese language, they are usually referred to by the suffix “-kami” (神) or “-kamisama” (神様). It is commonly said that there are eight million Shinto deities (八百万の神 【やおよろずのかみ】 yaoyorozu no kami), but “eight million” should not be taken too literal and rather be interpreted as “countless” or as a very large quantity. The Japanese scholar Motoori Norinaga (本居 宣長 1730-1801) defined them as “ anything or phenomenon that produces the emotions of fear and awe, with no distinction between good and evil.“ Kami encompass natural spirits, thus displaying animistic aspects, as well as human-like deities resembling the gods of ancient Greece or Rome. The Chinese 神 ( shin or jin) refers to traditional Chinese nature spirits and may have entered the Japanese language through the Ainu loanword “kamuy” (Ainu: カムイ, Japanese: 神威 or 神居, kamui), describing spiritual or divine being in Ainu mythology. Japan brutally occupied many parts of Asia before and during World War II, causing untold suffering and death to hundreds of thousands of innocent victims.In Shintoism, kami 神 describes all spirits of divine nature, of essence or natural forces. While Japan inwardly looks at the tragedies it had experienced at the end of World War II, historians and political minds of the international community have encouraged Japan to come to see themselves not as merely victims of the atomic bombings but also as the perpetrators who led to these tragic incidents to happen in the first place. 6, 1945, killing around 140,000 people by the end of the year.
local time, the exact moment a uranium bomb dropped from a U.S. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended the ceremony, warning that a new arms race is accelerating.Ī moment of silence was observed at 8:15 a.m.
"We must immediately render all nuclear buttons meaningless," he said. TEMPO.CO, Tokyo - Japan marked the 77th anniversary of the atomic bombing of its western city of Hiroshima on Saturday, August 6.Īt a memorial ceremony held at the Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui cautioned in the Peace Declaration that dependence on nuclear deterrence is gaining momentum in the world.
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