Expositions temporaires thématiques

Some of the explanations for this exhibit are in English.

Exhibition Overview
Foreword In moments of encounter between the beliefs and cultures of established religious traditions, sacred and revered beings within a community can undergo profound transformations. In the case of the Shinto deities of Japan (kami), their origins are described as stemming from “a recognition of their spiritual presence in the workings of nature.” Yet, as various religions, philosophies, and cultural forms—including the Buddhist tradition transmitted from the Asian continent—took root and evolved in the Japanese archipelago, the local deities depicted in classical texts and worshiped at shrines were deeply impacted and changed in significant ways. These transformations can be observed in the narrative tales on the origins of shrines and miraculous powers of these deities, in two and three-dimensional visual representations resembling Buddhas and Buddhist deities, and in esoteric texts transmitted within select groups. From these sources, one can discover aspects of the Japanese deities that differ from present-day conceptions of kami—a vision that reveals Buddhist reinterpretations of ancient Japanese myths, a dynamic relationship between Japanese deities and Buddhas, and deities who are depicted as experiencing human suffering. Far from assumptions that claim Japanese deities remained unchanged since ancient times, one can see in these objects that they constantly evolved in response to the distinctive contexts of each era throughout the history of Japan.
This exhibition explores how Japanese deities were transformed over time through encounters with diverse ideas, beliefs, and religious systems, using materials from the collections of Kokugakuin University.