1.
Higashiizumo, Shimane
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Higashiizumo was a town located in Yatsuka District, Shimane Prefecture, Japan. As of 2003, the town had an population of 13,817. The total area was 42.64 km², on August 1,2011, Higashiizumo was merged into the expanded city of Matsue and no longer exists as an independent municipality. Yatsuka District was dissolved as a result of this merger
2.
Shimane Prefecture
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Shimane Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region on the main Honshu island. It is the second least populous prefecture in Japan, after its eastern neighbor Tottori, the prefecture has an area elongated from east to west facing the Chūgoku Mountain Range on the south side and to the Sea of Japan on the north side. It is divided into the Izumo Region in the East, the Iwami Region in the West and the Oki Region, most of the cities are near the shoreline of the Sea of Japan. Izumo Taisha in Izumo City is one of the oldest Shinto shrines in Japan, the Oki Islands in the Sea of Japan are also part of Shimane Prefecture, which also claims to have jurisdiction over the South Korea-controlled island of Liancourt Rocks. The history of Shimane starts with Japanese mythology, the Shinto god Ōkuninushi was believed to live in Izumo, an old province in Shimane. Izumo Shrine, which is in the city of Izumo, honors the god. At that time and that lasted until the abolition of the han system took place in 1871. During the Nara period, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro read a poem on Shimanes nature when he was sent as the Royal governor, later on in the Kamakura period, Kamakura Shogunate forced emperors Gotoba and Godaigo into exile in Oki. Emperor Godaigo later escaped away from Oki and began rallying supporters against the shogunate, during the Muromachi period, Izumo and Oki were controlled by the Kyogoku clan. However, after the Ōnin War, the Amago clan expanded power based in Gassantoda Castle, the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine was located between Amago territory and Masuda territory, so there were many battles between these clans for the silver. However, in 1566 Mori Motonari conquered Izumo, Iwami, after over 30 years of Mori control, in 1600 Horio Yoshiharu entered Izumo and Oki as the result of Battle of Sekigahara, which Mori lost. Following the change, Horio Yoshiharu decided to move to build Matsue Castle instead of Gassan-Toda, later in 1638, the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Matsudaira Naomasa became the ruler because the Horio clan had no heir, and his family ruled until the abolition of the han system. The Iwami area was split into three regions, the district, under the direct control of the Shogunate, the Hamada clan region. The Iwami Ginzan, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site produced silver and was one of the nations largest silver mine by the early 17th century, the Hamada clan was on the shogunates side in the Meiji Restoration, and the castle was burned down. The Tsuwano clan, despite then being ruled by the Matsudaira, was on the side in the restoration. In 1871, the abolition of the han system placed the old Shimane, later that year, Oki became part of Tottori. In 1876, Hamada Prefecture was merged into the Shimane Prefecture, also, Tottori Prefecture was added in the same year. However, five years later, in 1881, the current portion of Tottori Prefecture was separated, Shimane Prefecture is situated on the Sea of Japan side of the Chugoku region. Because of its mountainous landscape, rice farming is mostly in the Izumo plain where the city of Izumo is located
3.
Japanese language
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Japanese is an East Asian language spoken by about 125 million speakers, primarily in Japan, where it is the national language. It is a member of the Japonic language family, whose relation to language groups, particularly to Korean. Little is known of the prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words, during the Heian period, Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese saw changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language, the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region in the Early Modern Japanese period. Following the end in 1853 of Japans self-imposed isolation, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, English loanwords in particular have become frequent, and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Nouns have no number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person, Japanese equivalents of adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a system of honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener. Japanese has no relationship with Chinese, but it makes extensive use of Chinese characters, or kanji, in its writing system. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system uses two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana. Latin script is used in a fashion, such as for imported acronyms. Very little is known about the Japanese of this period, Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language. Through the spread of Buddhism, the Chinese writing system was imported to Japan, the earliest texts found in Japan are written in Classical Chinese, but they may have been meant to be read as Japanese by the kanbun method. Some of these Chinese texts show the influences of Japanese grammar, in these hybrid texts, Chinese characters are also occasionally used phonetically to represent Japanese particles. The earliest text, the Kojiki, dates to the early 8th century, the end of Old Japanese coincides with the end of the Nara period in 794
4.
Shinto
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Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written historical records of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki in the 8th century. Still, these earliest Japanese writings do not refer to a unified Shinto religion, practitioners express their diverse beliefs through a standard language and practice, adopting a similar style in dress and ritual, dating from around the time of the Nara and Heian periods. The word Shinto was adopted, originally as Jindō or Shindō, from the written Chinese Shendao, the oldest recorded usage of the word Shindo is from the second half of the 6th century. Kami are defined in English as spirits, essences or gods, Kami and people are not separate, they exist within the same world and share its interrelated complexity. Shinto is the largest religion in Japan, practiced by nearly 80% of the population, Shinto has 81,000 shrines and 85,000 priests in the country. According to Inoue, In modern scholarship, the term is used with reference to kami worship and related theologies, rituals. In these contexts, Shinto takes on the meaning of Japans traditional religion, as opposed to religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam. Shinto religious expressions have been distinguished by scholars into a series of categories, Shrine Shinto and it consists in taking part in worship practices and events at local shrines. Before the Meiji Restoration, shrines were disorganized institutions usually attached to Buddhist temples, the current successor to the imperial organization system, the Association of Shinto Shrines, oversees about 80,000 shrines nationwide. Folk Shinto includes the folk beliefs in deities and spirits. Practices include divination, spirit possession, and shamanic healing, some of their practices come from Buddhism, Taoism or Confucianism, but most come from ancient local traditions. Sect Shinto is a designation originally created in the 1890s to separate government-owned shrines from local organised religious communities. These communities originated especially in the Edo period, the basic difference between Shrine Shinto and Sect Shinto is that sects are a later development and grew self-consciously. They can identify a founder, a set of teachings. Sect Shinto groups are thirteen, and usually classified under five headings, pure Shinto sects, Confucian sects, mountain worship sects, purification sects, and faith-healing sects. Koshintō, literally Old Shinto, is a reconstructed Shinto from before the time of Buddhism, today based on Ainu religion and it continues the restoration movement begun by Hirata Atsutane. Many other sects and schools can be distinguished, Kami or shin is defined in English as god, spirit, spiritual essence, all these terms meaning the energy generating a thing. Since the Japanese language does not distinguish between singular and plural, kami refers to the divinity, or sacred essence, that manifests in multiple forms, rocks, trees, rivers, animals, places, and even people can be said to possess the nature of kami
5.
Kojiki
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Kojiki, also known as Furukotofumi, is the oldest extant chronicle in Japan, dating from the early 8th century and composed by Ō no Yasumaro at the request of Empress Genmei. The Kojiki is a collection of myths concerning the origin of the four islands of Japan. Along with the Nihon Shoki, the contained in the Kojiki are part of the inspiration behind many practices. Later, the myths were re-appropriated for Shinto practices including the misogi purification ritual, while the historical records and myths are written in a form of Chinese with a heavy mixture of Japanese elements, the songs are written with Chinese characters that are only used to convey sounds. This special use of Chinese characters is called Manyōgana, a knowledge of which is critical to understanding these songs, the Kojiki is divided into three parts, the Kamitsumaki, the Nakatsumaki and the Shimotsumaki. The Kamitsumaki also outlines the myths concerning the foundation of Japan, the Nakatsumaki begins with the story of Emperor Jimmu, the first Emperor, and his conquest of Japan, and ends with the 15th Emperor, Emperor Ōjin. Many of the stories in this volume are mythological, and the historical information in them is highly suspect. Recent studies support the view that these emperors were invented to push Jimmus reign further back to the year 660 BC, the Shimotsumaki covers the 16th to 33rd emperors and, unlike previous volumes, has very limited references to the interactions with deities. These interactions are very prominent in the first and second volumes, information about the 24th to the 33rd emperors are largely missing, as well. In the Edo period, Motoori Norinaga studied the Kojiki intensively and he produced a 44-volume study of the Kojiki called Kojiki-den. A translation of the Ko-ji-ki or Records of ancient matters, yokohama, Japan, R. Meiklejohn and Co. Princeton University Press and Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press, the Kojiki, An Account of Ancient Matters. There are two branches of Kojiki manuscripts, Ise and Urabe. The extant Urabe branch consists of 36 existing manuscripts all based on the 1522 copies by Urabe Kanenaga, the Ise branch may be subdivided into the Shinpukuji-bon manuscript of 1371–1372 and the Dōka-bon manuscripts. While divided into the Ise branch, it is actually a mixture of the two branches, the monk Kenyu based his copy on Ōnakatomi Sadayos copy. In 1266, Sadayo copied volumes one and three, but did not have access to the second volume, finally, in 1282, he obtained access to the second volume through a Urabe-branch manuscript that he used to transcribe. Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo International Research Center for Japanese Studies Japanese Historical Text Initiative Historiography of Japan Bentley, the Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi, A New Examination of Texts, With a Translation And Commentary. Japanese historians and the myths, 1600-1945, The Age of the Gods
6.
Afterlife
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The afterlife is the concept of a realm, or the realm itself, in which an essential part of an individuals identity or consciousness continues to exist after the death of the body. Belief in an afterlife, which may be naturalistic or supernatural, is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death, in this latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again continuously until the individual gains entry to a spiritual realm or Otherworld. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics, in metaphysical models, theists generally believe some type of afterlife awaits people when they die. Members of some generally non-theistic religions, tend to believe in an afterlife, the Sadducees were an ancient Jewish sect that generally believed that there was a God but no afterlife. Reincarnation refers to a concept found among Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Rosicrucians, Theosophists, Spiritists. Reincarnation is also a belief described in Kabbalistic Judaism as gilgul neshamot and this succession leads toward an eventual liberation. One consequence of reincarnationist beliefs is that our current lives are both afterlife and a beforelife, according to those beliefs events in our current life are consequences of actions taken in previous lives, or Karma. In most denominations, heaven is a condition of reward for the righteous to go after they die, traditionally defined as eternal union with God. In contrast to heaven, hell is a condition of punishment and torment for the wicked, traditionally defined as eternal separation from God and confinement with other sinful souls and fallen angels. So they are seen as existing in a state of natural. In other Christian denominations it has described as an intermediate place or state of confinement in oblivion. The notion of purgatory is associated particularly with the Catholic Church, the tradition of the church, by reference to certain texts of scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire although it is not always called purgatory. Anglicans of the Anglo-Catholic tradition generally also hold to the belief, traditional African religions are diverse in their beliefs in an afterlife. For each soul remains distinct and each represents a new soul. In some societies like the Mende, multiple beliefs coexist, the Mende believe that people die twice, once during the process of joining the secret society, and again during biological death after which they become ancestors. However, some Mende also believe that people are created by God they live ten consecutive lives. One cross-cultural theme is that the ancestors are part of the world of the living, interacting with it regularly, the afterlife played an important role in Ancient Egyptian religion, and its belief system is one of the earliest known in recorded history. When the body died, parts of its known as ka
7.
Japanese mythology
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Japanese mythology embraces Shinto and Buddhist traditions as well as agriculturally-based folk religion. The Shinto pantheon comprises innumerable kami and this article will discuss only the typical elements present in Asian mythology, such as cosmogony, important deities, and the best-known Japanese stories. Japanese myths, as recognized in the mainstream today, are based on the Kojiki, the Nihon Shoki. The Kojiki, or Record of Ancient Matters, is the oldest surviving account of Japans myths, legends, the Shintōshū describes the origins of Japanese deities from a Buddhist perspective, while the Hotsuma Tsutae records a substantially different version of the mythology. One notable feature of Japanese mythology is its explanation of the origin of the Imperial Family, the title of the Emperor of Japan, tennō, means heavenly sovereign. Later, the seven generations of kami, known as Kamiyonanayo, emerged, following the formation of heaven and earth. The first two generations are individual deities called hitorigami, while the five that followed came into being as male/female pairs of kami, in this chronicle, the Kamiyonanayo comprise 12 deities in total. Japans creation narrative can be divided into the birth of the deities, to help them to achieve this, Izanagi and Izanami were given a naginata decorated with jewels, named Ame-no-nuboko. The two deities then went to the bridge between heaven and earth, Amenoukihashi and churned the sea below with the halberd, drops of salty water formed the island, Onogoro. The deities descended from the bridge of heaven and made their home on the island, eventually, they fell in love and wished to mate. So they built a pillar called Amenomihashira around which they built a palace called Yashirodono, Izanagi and Izanami circled the pillar in opposite directions, and when they met on the other side, Izanami, the female deity, spoke first in greeting. Izanagi didnt think that this was proper, but they mated anyway and they had two children, Hiruko and Awashima, but the children were badly formed and are not considered gods in their original form. The parents, who were dismayed at their misfortune, put the children into a boat and sent them to sea, so Izanagi and Izanami went around the pillar again, and this time, when they met, Izanagi spoke first. Izanami died giving birth to Kagutsuchi, also called Homusubi due to severe burns and she was then buried on Mount Hiba, at the border of the old provinces of Izumo and Hoki, near modern-day Yasugi of Shimane Prefecture. His death also created dozens of deities, the gods who were born from Izanagi and Izanami are symbolic aspects of nature and culture. Izanagi lamented the death of Izanami and undertook a journey to Yomi, Izanagi found little difference between Yomi and the land above, except for the eternal darkness. However, this suffocating darkness was enough to make him ache for light, quickly, he searched for Izanami and found her. At first, Izanagi could not see her for she was hidden in the shadows
8.
Hell
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Hell, in many mythological, folklore and religious traditions, is a place of torment and punishment in an afterlife. Religions with a divine history often depict hells as eternal destinations while Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations. Typically these traditions locate hell in another dimension or under the Earths surface, other afterlife destinations include Heaven, Purgatory, Paradise, and Limbo. Hell is sometimes portrayed as populated with demons who torment those dwelling there, many are ruled by a death god such as Nergal, Hades, Hel, Enma or Satan. Subsequently, the word was used to transfer a pagan concept to Christian theology, Some have theorized that English word hell is derived from Old Norse hel. However, this is unlikely as hel appears in Old English before the Viking invasions. Furthermore, the word has cognates in all the other Germanic languages and has a Proto-Germanic origin, Hell appears in several mythologies and religions. It is commonly inhabited by demons and the souls of dead people, a fable about hell which recurs in folklore across several cultures is the allegory of the long spoons. Hell is often depicted in art and literature, perhaps most famously in Dantes Divine Comedy, punishment in Hell typically corresponds to sins committed during life. In many religious cultures, including Christianity and Islam, Hell is often depicted as fiery, painful and harsh, despite these common depictions of Hell as a place of fire, some other traditions portray Hell as cold. Buddhist - and particularly Tibetan Buddhist - descriptions of hell feature a number of hot. Among Christian descriptions Dantes Inferno portrays the innermost circle of Hell as a lake of blood. At death a person faced judgment by a tribunal of forty-two divine judges, if they had led a life in conformance with the precepts of the Goddess Maat, who represented truth and right living, the person was welcomed into the Two Fields. If found guilty the person was thrown to a devourer and would be condemned to the lake of fire, the person taken by the devourer is subject first to terrifying punishment and then annihilated. These depictions of punishment may have influenced medieval perceptions of the inferno in hell via early Christian, purification for those considered justified appears in the descriptions of Flame Island, where humans experience the triumph over evil and rebirth. For the damned complete destruction into a state of non-being awaits but there is no suggestion of eternal torture, the weighing of the heart in Egyptian mythology can lead to annihilation. The Tale of Khaemwese describes the torment of a man, who lacked charity. Divine pardon at judgement always remained a concern for the Ancient Egyptians
9.
Sheol
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The inhabitants of Sheol are the shades, entities without personality or strength. Under some circumstances they are thought to be able to be contacted by the living, as the Witch of Endor contacts the shade of Samuel for Saul, but such practices are forbidden. While the Old Testament writings appear to describe Sheol as the permanent place of the dead, brichto, writing in Hebrew Union College Annual, the family tomb is the central concept in understanding biblical views of the afterlife. Although not well defined in the Tanakh, Sheol in this view was an underworld where the souls of the dead went after the body died. The Babylonians had a similar underworld called Aralu, and the Greeks had one known as Hades. For biblical references to Sheol see Genesis 42,38, Isaiah 14,11, Psalm 141,7, Daniel 12,2, Proverbs 7,27 and Job 10,21,22, the Hebrew Scriptures themselves have few references to existence after death. The notion of resurrection appears in two late biblical sources, Daniel 12 and Isaiah 25-26, the traditional biblical interpretations explain that Sheol is a grim and desolated land below, occupied by the dead who continue their colorless existence irrespective of their earthly conduct. Contrary to this however, the Hebrew Bible supports the descriptions of Sheol which suggest that it is something more than just a place. In terms of numbers the amount of anthropomorphic descriptions is significant. Sheol is either portrayed by means of human qualities or attributed with the elements of anatomy, womb, hand. Some additional support for this comes from the ancient Near Eastern literary materials. For example, the Akkadian plates mention the name shuwalu or suwala in reference to a deity responsible for ruling the abode of the dead, as such it might have been borrowed by the Hebrews and incorporated into their early belief system. What is more, some argue that Sheol understood anthropomorphically fits the semantic complex of the other ancient Near Eastern death deities such as Nergal, Ereshkigal or Mot. Barzakh Biblical cosmology Christian views on Hades Gehenna Hellenistic Judaism Limbo of the Patriarchs Spirit world Tartarus Aune, Westminster Dictionary of the New Testament and Early Christian Literature. The Formation of Hell, Death and Retribution in the Ancient, hess, Richard S. Israelite Religions, An Archeological and Biblical Survey. Hell with Purgatory and two Limbos, Hell and Its Afterlife, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, the Westminster Theological Wordbook of the Bible. In Metzger, Bruce Manning, Coogan, Michael David, the Oxford Guide to Ideas & Issues of the Bible
