Tengu

Tengu (天狗^?, "heavenly dogs") are a class of supernatural creatures found in Japanese folklore, art, theater, and literature. They are one of the best known yōkai (monster-spirits) and are sometimes worshipped as Shinto kami (revered spirits or gods). Although they take their name from a dog-likeChinese demon (Tiangou), the tengu were originally thought to take the forms of birds of prey, and they are traditionally depicted with both human and avian characteristics. The earliest tengu were pictured with beaks, but this feature has often been humanized as an unnaturally long nose, which today is practically the tengu's defining characteristic in the popular imagination.

Buddhism long held that the tengu were disruptive demons and harbingers of war. Their image gradually softened, however, into one of protective, if still dangerous, spirits of the mountains and forests. Tengu are associated with the ascetic practice known as Shugendō, and they are usually depicted in the distinctive garb of its followers, the yamabushi.

The tengu in art appears in a large number of shapes, but it usually falls somewhere between a large, monstrous bird and a wholly anthropomorphizedbeing, often with a red face or an unusually large or long nose. Early depictions of tengu show them as kite-like beings who can take a human-like form, often retaining avian wings, head or beak. The tengu's long nose seems to have been conceived in the 14th century, likely as a humanization of the original bird's bill. The tengu's long noses ally them with the Shinto deity Sarutahiko, who is described in the Japanese historical text, the Nihon Shoki, with a similar proboscis measuring seven hand-spans in length.In village festivals the two figures are often portrayed with identical red, phallic-nosed mask designs.

Some of the earliest representations of tengu appear in Japanese picture scrolls, such as the Tenguzōshi Emaki (天狗草子絵巻), painted ca. 1296, which parodies high-ranking priests by endowing them the hawk-like beaks of tengu demons. Tengu are often pictured as taking the shape of some sort of priest. Beginning in the 13th century, tengu came to be associated in particular with the yamabushi, the mountain ascetics who practice Shugendō. The association soon found its way into Japanese art, where tengu are most frequently depicted in the yamabushi's distinctive costume, which includes a small black cap (頭襟 tokin) and a pom-pommed sash (結袈裟 yuigesa). Due to their priestly aesthetic, they are often shown wielding the Shakujo, a distinct staff used by Buddhist monks.

Tengu are commonly depicted holding magical hauchiwa (羽団扇), fans made of feathers. In folk tales, these fans sometimes have the ability to grow or shrink a person's nose, but usually they are attributed the power to stir up great winds. Various other strange accessories may be associated with tengu, such as a type of tall, one-toothed geta sandal often called tengu-geta.

The term tengu and the characters used to write it are borrowed from the name of a fierce demon from Chinese folklore called tiāngoǔ. Chinese literature assigns this creature a variety of descriptions, but most often it is a fierce and anthropophagous canine monster that resembles a shooting star or comet. It makes a noise like thunder and brings war wherever it falls. One account from the Shù Yì Jì (述異記, "A Collection of Bizarre Stories"), written in 1791, describes a dog-like tiāngoǔ with a sharp beak and an upright posture, but usually tiāngoǔ bear little resemblance to their Japanese counterparts.

The 23rd chapter of the Nihon Shoki, written in 720 CE, is generally held to contain the first recorded mention oftengu in Japan. In this account a large shooting star appears and is identified by a Buddhist priest as a "heavenly dog", and much like the tiāngoǔ of China, the star precedes a military uprising. Although the Chinese characters for tengu are used in the text, accompanying phonetic furigana characters give the reading as amatsukitsune (heavenly fox). M.W. de Visser speculated that the early Japanese tengu may represent a conglomeration of two Chinese spirits: the tiāngoǔ and the fox spirits called huli jing.

How the tengu was transformed from a dog-meteor into a bird-man is not clear. Some Japanese scholars have supported the theory that the tengu's image derives from that of the Hindu eagle deity Garuda, who was pluralized in Buddhist scripture as one of the major races of non-human beings. Like the tengu, the garuda are often portrayed in a human-like form with wings and a bird's beak. The name tengu seems to be written in place of that of the garuda in a Japanese sutra called the Emmyō Jizō Kyō (延命地蔵経), but this was likely written in the Edo period, long after the tengu's image was established. At least one early story in the Konjaku Monogatari describes a tengu carrying off a dragon, which is reminiscent of the garuda's feud with the nāga serpents. In other respects, however, the tengu's original behavior differs markedly from that of the garuda, which is generally friendly towards Buddhism. De Visser has speculated that the tengu may be descended from an ancient Shinto bird-demon which was syncretized with both the garuda and the tiāngoǔ when Buddhism arrived in Japan. However, he found little evidence to support this idea.

A later version of the Kujiki, an ancient Japanese historical text, writes the name of Amanozako, a monstrous female deity born from the god Susanoo's spat-out ferocity, with characters meaning tengu deity (天狗神). The book describes Amanozako as a raging creature capable of flight, with the body of a human, the head of a beast, a long nose, long ears, and long teeth that can chew through swords. An 18th century book called the Tengu Meigikō (天狗名義考) suggests that this goddess may be the true predecessor of the tengu, but the date and authenticity of the Kujiki, and of that edition in particular, remain disputed.

The Konjaku Monogatari, a collection of stories published in the late Heian Period, contains some of the earliest tales of tengu, already characterized as they would be for centuries to come. These tengu are the troublesome opponents of Buddhism, who mislead the pious with false images of Buddha, carry off monks and drop them in remote places, possess women in an attempt to seduce holy men, rob temples, and endow those who worship them with unholy power. They often disguise themselves as priests or nuns, but their true form seems to be that of a kite.

Throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, accounts continued of tengu attempting to cause trouble in the world. They were now established as the ghosts of angry, vain, or heretical priests who had fallen on the "tengu-road" (天狗道, tengudō). They began to possess people, especially women and girls, and speak through their mouths (kitsunetsuki). Still the enemies of Buddhism, the demons also turned their attention to the royal family. The Kojidan tells of an Empress who was possessed, and the Ōkagami reports that Emperor Sanjō was made blind by a tengu, the ghost of a priest who resented the throne.

One notorious tengu from the 12th century was himself the ghost of an emperor. The Hōgen Monogatari tells the story of Emperor Sutoku, who was forced by his father to abandon the throne. When he later raised the Hōgen Rebellion to take back the country from Emperor Go-Shirakawa, he was defeated and exiled to Sanuki Province on Shikoku. According to legend he died in torment, having sworn to haunt the nation of Japan as a great demon, and thus became a fearsome tengu with long nails and eyes like a kite's.

In stories from the 13th century, tengu began to abduct young boys as well as the priests they had always targeted. The boys were often returned, while the priests would be found tied to the tops of trees or other high places. All of the tengu's victims, however, would come back in a state of near death or madness, sometimes after having been tricked into eating animal dung.

The tengu of this period were often conceived of as the ghosts of the arrogant, and as a result the creatures have become strongly associated with vanity and pride. Today the Japanese expression tengu ni naru, literally, "he is turning into a tengu", is still used to describe a conceited person.

In the Genpei Jōsuiki, written in the late Kamakura period, a god appears to Go-Shirakawa and gives a detailed account of tengu ghosts. He says that they fall onto the tengu road because, as Buddhists, they cannot go to Hell, yet as people with bad principles, they also cannot go to Heaven. He describes the appearance of different types of tengu: the ghosts of priests, nuns, ordinary men, and ordinary women, all of whom in life possessed excessive pride. The god introduces the notion that not all tengu are equal; knowledgeable men become daitengu (大天狗, great tengu), but ignorant ones become kotengu (小天狗, small tengu^?).

The philosopher Hayashi Razan lists the greatest of these daitengu as Sōjōbō of Kurama, Tarōbō of Atago, and Jirōbō of Hira. The demons of Kurama and Atago are among the most famoustengu.

A section of the Tengu Meigikō, later quoted by Inoue Enryō, lists the daitengu in this order:

• Sōjōbō (僧正坊) of Mount Kurama
• Tarōbō (太郎坊) of Mount Atago
• Jirōbō (二郎坊) of the Hira Mountains
• Sanjakubō (三尺坊) of Mount Akiba
• Ryūhōbō (笠鋒坊) of Mount Kōmyō
• Buzenbō (豊前坊) of Mount Hiko
• Hōkibō (伯耆坊) of Daisen (mountain)
• Myōgibō (妙義坊) of Mount Ueno (Ueno Park)
• Sankibō (三鬼坊) of Itsukushima
• Zenkibō (前鬼坊) of Mount Ōmine
• Kōtenbō (高天坊) of Katsuragi
• Tsukuba-hōin (筑波法印) of Hitachi Province
• Daranibō (陀羅尼坊) of Mount Fuji
• Naigubu (内供奉) of Mount Takao
• Sagamibō (相模坊) of Shiramine
• Saburō (三郎) of Mount Iizuna
• Ajari (阿闍梨) of Higo Province

Daitengu are often pictured in a more human-like form than their underlings, and due to their long noses, they may also called hanatakatengu (鼻高天狗, tall-nosed tengu). Kotengu may conversely be depicted as more bird-like. They are sometimes called Karasu-Tengu (烏天狗, crow tengu), or koppa- orkonoha-tengu (木葉天狗, 木の葉天狗foliage tengu). Inoue Enryō described two kinds oftengu in his Tenguron: the great daitengu, and the small, bird-like konoha-tengu who live in Cryptomeria trees. The konoha-tengu are noted in a book from 1746 called the Shokoku Rijin Dan (諸国里人談), as bird-like creatures with wings two meters across which were seen catching fish in the Ōi River, but this name rarely appears in literature otherwise.

Creatures that do not fit the classic bird or yamabushi image are sometimes called tengu. For example, tengu in the guise of wood-spirits may be called guhin (occasionally written kuhin) (狗賓 dog guests), but this word can also refer to tengu with canine mouths or other features. The people of Kōchi Prefecture on Shikoku believe in a creature called shibaten or shibatengu (シバテン, 芝天狗,lawn tengu), but this is a small child-like being who loves sumō wrestling and sometimes dwells in the water, and is generally considered one of the many kinds of kappa. Another water-dwellingtengu is the kawatengu (川天狗, river tengu) of the Greater Tokyo Area. This creature is rarely seen, but it is believed to create strange fireballs and be a nuisance to fishermen.