Kumano Gongen

Kumano Gongen
Three-storied Pagoda of Seiganto-ji and Nachi Falls
Major cult centre	Kumano Kodō

Kumano Gongen (熊野権現), also known as Three Mountains of Kumano (熊野三山),^[1][2][3] is a Japanese deity associated with Kumano Shrines.^[1][4]

The god is made of 12 smaller gods. Each small god has a Shinto and a Buddhist part,.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]}

This idea is like the worship of Kasuga-no-Kami^[18][19] which inspired people to worship this god that way.^[20]

There are two common ways to group the gods:

• Kumano Gongen of the 12 places (熊野十二所権現, Kumano Junisho Gongen) – all 12 gods.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]}
• Kumano Gongen of the Three Places (熊野三所権現, Kumano Sansho Gongen) – just the three main gods.^{[7][12][13][21]}

People felt the Kumano area was holy even before written history.^[22] They went there to pray and to heal their bodies.^[22]

Originally each shrine first worshipped nature in its own way.^[22] In the 900s, under Buddhism, the three shrines joined their beliefs.^[22]

At that time Japanese people thought Shinto gods were forms of Buddhist buddhas. This mix of Shinto and Buddhism is called shinbutsu-shūgō.^[22]

Each Kumano god was linked to a buddha:^[21][23][24]

• Kumano Musubi → Thousand-Armed Kannon
• Hayatama → Medicine Buddha
• Ketsumi → Amida Buddha

The three mountains were linked to different Pure Lands

• Hongū is linked to the Western Pure Land.
• Shingū is linked to the Eastern Pure Land of Lapis Lazuli.^[a]
• Nachi is linked to the Southern Pure Land of Potalaka.^[b]

From the Heian period (794-1185) on, people started to see all Kumano as a Pure Land. Scholars still debate which gods the shrines first worshipped.

These are the 12 gods of Kumano

Some believers count Nachi Falls as a thirteenth holy spot and god.^[26]

Others believe the god Kumanokusubi is the main god, not Izanami. Kumanokusubi is the fifth son of Amaterasu and the god of Kumano-taisha.^[27]

There is a character of the same name in the game Tokyo Afterschool Summoners.^[28]

• Kasuga-no-Kami

• Tamura, Yoshiro (2000). Japanese Buddhism — A Cultural History (First ed.). Tokyo: Kosei Publishing Company. pp. 232 pages. ISBN 4-333-01684-3.
• Breen, John, Mark Teeuwen (editors) (July 2000). Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-2363-4. OCLC 43487317. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
• D. Max Moerman, Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan. Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN 0674013956
• Moerman, David (1997). The ideology of landscape and the theater of state: Insei pilgrimage to Kumano (1090–1220), Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24 (3-4), 347-374

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kumano shrines.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gongen.

• Tanabe City Kumano Tourism Bureau Archived 2011-09-25 at the Wayback Machine
• A traditional depiction of Kumano Gongen