kami

Examples

• All

• The famous Japanese scholar of the eighteenth century, Norinaga Motoori, wrote on Kami as follows: "Speaking in general, however, it may be said that Kami signifies, in the first place, the deities of heaven and earth that appear in the ancient records and also the spirits of the shrines where they are worshiped."

  Academic text (1990)

• Throughout history, the kami have been both human and superhuman, requiring a complex and fluid application of the sacred and profane opposition.

  Academic text (1991)

• To further understand what the emperors meant to the Japanese, I now turn to the Japanese notion of kami.

  Academic text (1991)

• The way the Japanese view the kami is responsible for the way the imperial system has undergone such dramatic changes and yet survived.

  Academic text (1991)

• Still, the emperors, like the kami, have superhuman powers.

  Academic text (1991)

• The term kami, as embodied in the emperors, is hardly what the English term, God, suggests.

  Academic text (1991)

• The notion of kami (deity/deities) is crucial, therefore, to an understanding of the imperial system.

  Academic text (1991)

• What remains constant throughout history is the emperor's identity as a deity (kami) in the Japanese sense.

  Academic text (1991)

• Two huge, ancient trees are hung with Shinto rice-straw garlands, declaring the presence of kami.

  Blog text (34)

• Officially, the Japanese tried to reconcile the two religions by claiming that the kami are manifestations of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, a theory known as honji suijaku.

  Academic text (1991)

Synonyms

J

Japanese deity

vskami

9.0

A god or spirit that people in Japan worship, for example in Shinto

is specific to Shinto and tied to natural forces, ancestors, or revered persons

Surface Forms

Etymology