Bishamonten

The wood is carved to look like iron. A plated coat hangs to the knees, a belt bites at the waist, and the sleeves flare as if a wind had caught them. One hand grips a long spear. The other is lifted, palm up, and on it sits a pagoda no bigger than a lantern. Under the boots a squat demon lies flat on its belly with its eyes bulging. The warrior does not look down at it. He looks north.

This is Bishamonten, and almost every old temple hall in Japan has him somewhere near the door or at a corner of the altar. He is one of four. The Four Heavenly Kings stand at the corners of the Buddhist world and each one guards a direction. When he stands with the other three he goes by the name Tamonten, the one who hears much, because he keeps watch over the place where the Buddha teaches and so hears every word. When he stands alone, as a god people pray to in his own right, he is Bishamonten. He is the only one of the four who has a following of his own.

He did not start in Japan. He began in India as Kubera, a god of wealth and lord of the north, whose second name was Vaiśravaṇa. Buddhism took him in and gave him a post: guard the northern side of the world mountain and keep the law safe. He carried that post across Central Asia and China, changing his armour as he went, and he reached Japan with the first Buddhist images in the sixth century. The Japanese name is simply the sound of the Sanskrit one worn smooth by three languages.

Two kinds of spirit serve under him. The yasha are rough nature spirits who guard buried treasure. The rasetsu are man-eating demons. In his service both are soldiers. The little figure pinned under his feet in the statues is one of these creatures, held down and kept there.

The pagoda in his hand is a treasure house. It holds the riches of the Buddhist teaching, and Bishamonten is both its guard and the one who hands its contents out. That double job explains everything that happened to him later. A god who guards treasure is a soldier. A god who gives treasure away is a god of luck.

His first great moment in Japan is a battle. In 587 the court was split over the new religion, and the Soga clan went to war with Mononobe no Moriya, who wanted the Buddha gone. A boy prince rode with the Soga army. The old chronicle says that when the fight was going badly he cut a piece of wood from a sumac tree, carved small figures of the Four Heavenly Kings, tied them into his hair and swore to build them a temple if he lived. An arrow knocked Moriya out of a tree soon after. The prince was Shōtoku, and the temple he built stands in Osaka. The monks of Mount Shigi tell it more closely. In their version the prince prayed on their mountain and Bishamonten himself appeared, in the year of the tiger, on the day of the tiger, at the hour of the tiger. Tigers have been the sign of that temple ever since.

Mount Shigi has a better story than that one, and it is painted on three long scrolls from the twelfth century. A monk named Myōren lived on the mountain in a small chapel to Bishamonten. He was too busy praying to beg for food, so he sent his bowl. It flew down the valley each day to a rich farmer’s house and came back full. One day the farmer grew tired of it and shut the bowl inside his rice store. The store shook. Then the whole building lifted off the ground, with the bowl beneath it, and sailed off toward the mountain while the household ran after it shouting. Myōren kept the building and sent the rice back, bale after bale, flying in a line like geese.

The second scroll is the one that shows the god’s hand. The emperor fell ill and nothing helped. Messengers climbed Mount Shigi and asked Myōren to come to the palace. He would not leave. He said he would pray where he was, and that the emperor would know the cure had come when he saw a boy dressed in swords. Some days later the emperor, half asleep, saw a bright figure come running through the air. It was a boy in a coat made of sword blades that rang as he moved, and a golden wheel rolled ahead of him across the sky. He was the messenger of Bishamonten. The emperor woke up well.

North of Kyoto there is a second mountain. In 770 a monk named Gantei followed a white horse up a valley, saw Bishamonten in a vision and built a hall on the spot. That hall became the temple of Mount Kurama, a steep place of cold air and old cedars better known in later stories for its tengu. Its position mattered. Kurama sits due north of the capital, and the north is the direction Bishamonten guards.

The capital had another guard as well. A strange, foreign-looking statue of him once stood on top of the great south gate of Kyoto. It wears a long coat of chain mail and a tall crown with a bird on the front, and it does not stand on a demon. The earth goddess rises out of the ground and holds his feet in her open hands, with two small demons crouched at her sides. This form is called Tobatsu Bishamonten. The story behind it comes from China, where in 742 a frontier city under attack was said to have been saved when prayers brought the god to the walls.

He has a family. His wife is Kichijōten, the goddess of good fortune, and their son is the boy Zennishi. The sculptor Tankei carved the three together around 1225, the father in armour and the wife and child standing calm on either side.

Fighting men loved him. The warlord Uesugi Kenshin, in the sixteenth century, went into battle under a white banner with a single character on it: the first syllable of the god’s name. Kenshin said he was Bishamonten in human form. Nobody around him argued.

Then the wars ended and the other half of the god came forward. By the fifteenth century townspeople were praying to him for money and luck, and in time he was counted among the Seven Lucky Gods. He is the only one of the seven in armour. His messenger, in Japan and nowhere else, is the centipede.

His strength is a soldier’s strength. He holds a line, he commands a host of spirits who would be dangerous without him, and he can send help across the sky to a sickbed. He can make a man rich or carry an army through.

His limits are a soldier’s too. He serves. He guards a law that is not his own, and the treasure in the little tower is his to keep and hand out, not to spend. He has one direction to watch and three other kings for the rest. In the stories of Mount Shigi he never comes down himself. He sends a boy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Bishamonten?

Bishamonten is a Buddhist guardian god worshipped in Japan as a protector of the north, a god of warriors and a giver of good fortune. He is the chief of the Four Heavenly Kings and one of the Seven Lucky Gods. He came from the Indian god Kubera, also called Vaiśravaṇa.

What is the difference between Bishamonten and Tamonten?

Bishamonten and Tamonten are the same god under two names. He is called Tamonten, meaning the one who hears much, when he is shown as one of the Four Heavenly Kings. He is called Bishamonten when he is worshipped on his own.

What does Bishamonten hold in his hands?

Bishamonten holds a small pagoda in one hand and a spear, trident or baton in the other. The pagoda is a treasure house that he both guards and gives from. He usually stands on a demon, and in the form called Tobatsu Bishamonten he stands on the hands of the earth goddess.

Why is Bishamonten linked to tigers and centipedes?

The temple on Mount Shigi says that Bishamonten appeared to Prince Shōtoku in the year, on the day and at the hour of the tiger, so the tiger became the sign of that temple. The centipede is said to be the messenger of Bishamonten. That belief is found only in Japan.

Who are Bishamonten’s wife and son?

Bishamonten’s wife is Kichijōten, the goddess of good fortune, and his son is the boy Zennishi. The sculptor Tankei carved the three of them together around 1225.

Related Entries

Benzaiten, Acala (Fudō Myōō), Ōmukade, Tengu, Yaksha, Rakshasa, Mount Meru (Sumeru), Lakshmi, Pushpaka Vimana, Indra