Daikokuten

Daikokuten
Other Names	East Asian Buddhism' Mahākāla (prototype), Daikokuten, Makakara, Makakaraten, Daikokutenjin, Daikokusonten, Daikoku-san, Daikoku-sama
First Appearance	Shinbutsu-shūgō Theology
Created by	Shinbutsu-shūgō Theology

Origin

Daikokuten Sculpture

Daikokuten is a syncretic Japanese deity of fortune and wealth. Daikokuten originated from Mahākāla, the Buddhist version of the Hindu deity Shiva, conflated with the native Shinto god Ōkuninushi.

The Sanskrit term 'Mahākāla' ("Great Black [One]", "Great Time" or "Great Death") was originally one of the epithets of the Hindu god Shiva in his aspect as time (kāla), the ultimate destroyer of all things. This title and aspect of Shiva was eventually adopted by Buddhism, where Mahākāla became reinterpreted as a dharmapāla or a protector of the Buddhist dharma but also as a terrifying deity who roams the forests at night with hordes of ghouls and demons in his train.

Mahākāla is mentioned in many Chinese Buddhist texts, although iconographic depictions of him in China were rare during the Tang and Song periods. He eventually became the center of a flourishing cult after the 9th century in the kingdoms of Nanzhao and Dali in what is now the province of Yunnan, a region bordering Tibet, where his cult was also widespread. Due to Tibetan influence, his importance further increased during the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, with his likeness being displayed in the imperial palace and in Buddhist temples inside and outside the capital. The deity's name was both transcribed as Makakara / Makakyara and translated as Daikokuten, 'Great Black Deva', with kāla being understood to mean 'black'.

In some texts, Mahākāla is described as a fearsome god, a "demon who steals the vital essence (of people)" and who feeds on flesh and blood, though he is also said to only devour those who committed sins against the Three Jewels of Buddhism. One story found in the monk Yi Xing's commentary on the Mahāvairocana Tantra portrays Mahākāla as a manifestation of the buddha Vairocana who subjugated the ḍākinīs, a race of flesh-eating female demons, by swallowing them. Mahākāla released them on the condition that they no longer kill humans, decreeing that they could only eat the heart – believed to contain the vital essence of humans known as 'human yellow' – of those who were near death. A tale found in Amoghavajra's translation of the Humane King Sūtra relates how a heterodox (i.e. non-Buddhist) master instructed Prince Kalmāṣapāda to offer the heads of a thousand kings to Mahākāla, the "great black god of the graveyard", if he wished to ascend the throne of his kingdom.

As time went by, Mahākāla also became seen as a guardian of Buddhist monasteries, especially its kitchens. The monk Yijing, who traveled to Srivijaya and India during the late 7th century, claimed that images of Mahākāla were to be found in the kitchens and porches of Indian Buddhist monasteries, before which offerings of food were made. Yijing then relates an anecdote about how the deity once miraculously provided food for five hundred monks who came to visit the monastery of Makuṭabandhana in Kushinagar after one of the female servants prayed and made offerings before his image. This idea of Mahākāla as one who brought prosperity to monasteries and granted wishes may have contributed to the identification of the deity as a god of wealth and fortune in Japan.

In China, the god was also associated with fertility and sexuality: during the Qixi Festival (a.k.a. the Double Seventh Festival) held on the 7th day of the 7th month of the Chinese calendar, married women traditionally bought dolls or figurines called 'Móhéluó' or 'Móhóuluó' – the term probably deriving from 'Mahākāla' – in the hopes of giving birth to a child. Ritual texts also prescribe the worship of Mahākāla to women looking for a male partner or to pregnant women.

Upon being introduced to Japan via the esoteric Tendai and Shingon sects, Mahākāla (as 'Daikokuten') gradually transformed into a jovial, beneficent figure as his positive qualities (such as being the purveyor of wealth and fertility) increasingly came to the fore – mostly at the expense of his darker traits. Whereas earlier images of Daikokuten showed him as wrathful (or at least stern-faced), later artworks consistently came to portray him as smiling. Saichō, the founder of the Tendai school, is credited with bringing the cult of Mahākāla-Daikokuten to Japan. Legend claims that when he first climbed Mount Hiei, Mahākāla appeared to him in the form of an old man and offered to become the guardian of the monastic community envisioned by Saichō, what would become known as Enryaku-ji.

By the medieval period, when Buddhism and native Japanese beliefs (Shinto) were becoming syncretized, Daikokuten became conflated with the native kami Ōkuninushi, as the first two characters of the latter's name (in Japanese) can also be read as 'Daikoku'. Daikokuten's status as patron of Enryaku-ji also influenced this connection: he was identified with Sannō Gongen, the deity enshrined in Hiyoshi Taisha at the eastern foot of Mount Hiei, who in turn was identified with Ōkuninushi or Ōmononushi (Miwa Myōjin, the god of Mount Miwa in Nara Prefecture who is also interpreted as Ōkuninushi under another name or an aspect of his).

The sack or bag Daikokuten carries (already attested in Yijing's description of portrayals of Mahākāla in India) served to further associate the god with Ōkuninushi: in the story of the Hare of Inaba (found in the Kojiki), the young Ōkuninushi is said to have originally been treated by his wicked elder brothers as their luggage carrier. Besides the sack, Daikokuten began to acquire other attributes such as the golden mallet called uchide no kozuchi (lit. "tap-appear little mallet", i.e. a mallet that strikes out anything the user desires) and two big bales of rice. He was also considered a god of fertility, and was thus also portrayed making the obscene fig sign, carrying a suggestively bifurcated daikon (sometimes called the "bride of Daikoku"), sporting a huge erect penis, or being entirely represented himself by a wooden phallus.

Mice and rats also became a part of Daikokuten's iconography, due to Mahākāla's association with Vaiśravaṇa (Bishamonten in Japanese), the Buddhist analogue to the Hindu Kubera, and Pañcika, Vaiśravaṇa's general and consort of the yakshini goddess Hārītī (known in Japan as Kishimojin), who were both associated with the northern direction – which corresponds to the sign of the Rat in the Chinese zodiac. (One of the twelve dikpālas or guardians of the directions in Buddhism is Īśāna, the guardian of the northeast who, like Mahākāla, is a Buddhicized form of Shiva.) This also contributed to the conflation of Daikokuten with Ōkuninushi, as mice also figured in the latter's mythology.

Medieval exegetes interpreted Mahākāla-Daikokuten in both a positive and a negative way: on the one hand he was seen as a symbol of fundamental ignorance (expressed by the name 'Daikoku', which can be interpreted as "great darkness"), but on the other hand he also represented the nonduality of ignorance (symbolized by the character 黒, 'black(ness) / dark(ness)') and enlightenment (designated by the character 大, 'great'). He was identified with Ichiji Kinrin (Ekākṣaroṣṇīṣacakra, a manifestation of both the cosmic buddha Vairocana – specifically, Vairocana's head knob or uṣṇīṣa – and the sacred syllable bhrūṃ) and thus a symbol of ultimate reality, but also with the directional deity Īśāna (who as noted earlier was another deity derived from Shiva), who is also considered to be a god of obstacles. Indeed, because of the stigma related to his origins, he was identified in some texts as a jissha ( lit. "true/real one", also known as jitsurui), a 'real' god considered inferior to deities who are provisional manifestations of enlightened buddhas and bodhisattvas (gongen). However, medieval esoteric Buddhism also posited the existence of a 'higher' Daikokuten, the conventional Daikokuten being but one of the various guises he takes. While the latter represented ignorance, the former was seen as transmuting ignorance into awakening.

Daikokuten was also linked or identified with other deities such as Ugajin, Benzaiten (the Buddhist version of Sarasvatī), Vaiśravana-Bishamonten, the earth god Kenrō Jijin (derived from the Indian earth goddess Pṛthivī, though the deity is also portrayed in Japan as male), or the wisdom king Acala (Fudō Myōō in Japanese). Indeed, Acala, like Mahākāla-Daikokuten, is credited in some sources with defeating and converting the ḍākinīs and is also considered to be a wrathful avatar of Vairocana. (Likewise, Acala is also thought by some scholars to be derived in one way or another from Shiva.) In popular belief, Daikokuten is also commonly paired with the folk deity Ebisu. Just as Daikokuten was conflated with Ōkuninushi, Ebisu was sometimes identified with Ōkuninushi's son Kotoshironushi or the dwarf god Sukunabikona, who assisted Ōkuninushi in developing the land of Japan. In homes, the two deities were enshrined in the kitchen or oven, while merchants worshiped them as patron deities of commercial success. Farmers meanwhile revered them as gods of the rice paddy (ta-no-kami).

The 17th-18th centuries (Edo period) marked the appearance of the cult of the Seven Lucky Gods (Shichifukujin), of which Daikokuten is a key member.

Public Domain Appearances

All published appearances of Daikokuten before January 1, 1929 are public domain.

Some Notable Appearances are listed below:

Public Domain Literary Appearances

• Vairocanābhisaṃbodhi Sūtra or Mahāvairocana Tantra
• Amoghavajra's translation of Humane King Sūtra
• Kojiki
• Hare of Inaba
• The Sound and Meaning of All Sutras by Huilin
• Yōson dōjōkan (Visualizations of the Ritual Spheres of the Essential Deities)
• Daikokutenjin-hō (The Tantra of Mahākāla)
• Asabashō

Notes

• In the manga One Piece, the character Daikoku, is named after Daikokuten.
• In the manga Naruto, the character Kokugan's Daikokuten technique, was named after the God Daikokuten.
• In the manga Nekogami Yaoyorozu, the character Meiko is the granddaughter of Daikokuten, even wielding his mallet.

See Also

• Wikipedia
• Gods & Goddess Wiki
• Mythopedia
• Myths in Media Wiki