11/7/2023 0 Comments Images japanese kami jade![]() This sculpture is not a representation of the deity, but simply a body in which the deity can reside. Even though this particular object is in human form, it doesn’t function any differently than other objects that were placed in shrines. Other objects, or “god-bodies,” created to house the kami included jade, jewels, mirrors, swords, and sword blades. ![]() But, influenced by Buddhism, they later came to include paintings and sculptures of human-like Shinto deities. The objects of Shinto worship were originally, in most cases, natural things like mountains, trees, and stones. Objects such as this sculpture were kept within the shrine and not seen by the worshippers-the kami were meant to be revered within the mind. Shrines served as the center of Shinto worship and helped maintain a harmonious unity between man and kami. There were kami dedicated to everything from rivers and food to creative abstract forces and exceptional people. There may even have been an attempt to do as little as possible to bring out the figure from that wood, rather than carving in every single detail and making it look natural or humanlike.”Ī Shinto kami was generally seen as a sustainer and protector of the people. As Denver Art Museum Curator Ronald Ostuka suggests, “If you think of the spirit of a tree itself, I think there probably was a definite intention not to cut the tree or segment it, but to use it in its natural state. The carver expressed respect for the natural material of the sculpture by carving out of a single piece of wood. This sculpture was crafted to be a body for a kami, and was not meant to be worshipped as an icon or a religious image. Shrines dedicated to specific kami housed objects like this sculpture in order to give the kami a physical object in which to reside. In Shintoism, natural phenomena-rocks, caves, waterfalls, springs, islands, trees, and mountains-are believed to be inhabited by nature spirits. ![]() This sculpture was probably carved by a follower of Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, in the 900s.
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