refers to the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

ese belief that mystical powers dwell in words and names. English translations include "soul of language", "spirit of language", "power of language", "power word", "

magic word Magic words are often nonsense phrases used in fantasy fiction or by stage magicians. Frequently such words are presented as being part of a divine, adamic, or other secret or empowered language. Certain comic book heroes use magic words to acti ...

", and "sacred sound". The notion of ''kotodama'' presupposes that sounds can magically affect objects, and that ritual word usages can influence our environment, body,

mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

, and

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest att ...

Basis

This Japanese

compound Compound may refer to: Architecture and built environments * Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall ** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struc ...

''kotodama'' combines ''koto'' 言 "word; speech" and ''tama'' 霊 "spirit; soul" (or 魂 "soul; spirit; ghost")

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...

as ''dama'' in ''

rendaku is a phenomenon in Japanese morphophonology that governs the voicing of the initial consonant of a non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word. In modern Japanese, ''rendaku'' is common but at times unpredictable, with certain words un ...

''. In contrast, the unvoiced ''kototama'' pronunciation especially refers to , which was popularized by

Onisaburo Deguchi , born Ueda Kisaburō 上田喜三郎 (1871–1948), is considered one of the two spiritual leaders of the Ōmoto religious movement in Japan. History Onisaburo had studied Honda Chikaatsu's "Spirit Studies" (Honda Reigaku), he also learned ...

in the

Oomoto ''Chōseiden'' in Ayabe , also known as , is a religion founded in 1892 by Deguchi Nao (1836–1918), often categorised as a new Japanese religion originated from Shinto. The spiritual leaders of the movement have always been women within t ...

religion. This field takes the Japanese ''

gojūon In the Japanese language, the is a traditional system ordering kana characters by their component phonemes, roughly analogous to alphabetical order. The "fifty" (''gojū'') in its name refers to the 5×10 grid in which the characters are disp ...

'' phonology as the mystical basis of words and meanings, in rough analogy to Hebrew

Kabbalah Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...

Etymology

The etymology of ''kotodama'' is uncertain, but one explanation correlating words and events links two Japanese words pronounced ''koto'': this "word; words; speech" and 事 "situation; circumstances; state of affairs; occurrence; event; incident". These two ''

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequ ...

'' were used interchangeably in the name Kotoshironushi or , an oracular ''

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

'' mentioned in the ''

Kojiki The , also sometimes read as or , is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the , and the Japanese imperia ...

'' and '' Nihon shoki''. ''Kotodama'' is related with Japanese words such as ''kotoage'' "words raised up; invoke the magical power of words", ''kotomuke'' "directed words; cause submission though the power of words", and ''jumon'' "magic spell; magic words; incantation".

Mythology

''Kotodama'' is a central concept in

Japanese mythology Japanese mythology is a collection of traditional stories, folktales, and beliefs that emerged in the islands of the Japanese archipelago. Shinto and Buddhist traditions are the cornerstones of Japanese mythology. The history of thousands of ye ...

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shint ...

, and

Kokugaku ''Kokugaku'' ( ja, 國學, label= Kyūjitai, ja, 国学, label= Shinjitai; literally "national study") was an academic movement, a school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Tokugawa period. Kokugaku scholars worked t ...

. For example, the ''Kojiki'' describes an ''ukei'' (or ''seiyaku'') "covenant; trial by pledge" between the sibling gods

Susanoo __FORCETOC__ Susanoo (; historical orthography: , ) is a in Japanese mythology. The younger brother of Amaterasu, goddess of the sun and mythical ancestress of the Japanese imperial line, he is a multifaceted deity with contradictory charact ...

and

Amaterasu Amaterasu, also known as Amaterasu Ōmikami () or Ōhirume no Muchi no Kami (), is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology. One of the major deities (''kami'') of Shinto, she is also portrayed in Japan's earliest literary texts, the '' K ...

, "Let each of us swear, and produce children". Uttering the divine words of the

divination Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout history ...

ritual known as ''

ukehi is a Japanese Shinto divination ritual. Function and performance Hayashi Oen, a nineteenth-century practitioner of ''ukehi'', identified six functions of the rite. He claimed it could be used to: * ask for information or messages from the '' k ...

'' supposedly determines results, and in this case, Amaterasu giving birth to five male deities proved that Susanoo's intentions were pure.

Martial arts

''Kototama'' or ''kotodama'' is also fundamental to

Japanese martial arts Japanese martial arts refers to the variety of martial arts native to the country of Japan. At least three Japanese terms (''budō'', ''bujutsu'', and ''bugei'') are used interchangeably with the English phrase Japanese martial arts. The usage ...

, for instance, in the use of

kiai KIAI (93.9 FM) is a commercial radio station that serves the areas of Mason City, Iowa and Austin– Albert Lea, Minnesota. The station broadcasts a Country format. KIAI is owned by Alpha Media, through licensee Digity 3E License, LLC, which ...

Morihei Ueshiba was a Japanese martial artist and founder of the martial art of aikido. He is often referred to as "the founder" or , "Great Teacher/Old Teacher (old as opposed to ''waka (young) sensei'')". The son of a landowner from Tanabe, Ueshiba st ...

, the founder of

aikido Aikido ( , , , ) is a modern Japanese martial art that is split into many different styles, including Iwama Ryu, Iwama Shin Shin Aiki Shuren Kai, Shodokan Aikido, Yoshinkan, Renshinkai, Aikikai and Ki Aikido. Aikido is now practiced in aroun ...

and a student of Deguchi, used ''kototama'' as a spiritual basis for his teachings. William Gleason says Ueshiba "created aikido based on the ''kototama'' principle," and quotes him that "Aikido is the superlative way to practice the ''kototama''. It is the means by which one realizes his true nature as a god and finds ultimate freedom." Mutsuro Nakazono, a disciple of Ueshiba, wrote books on the importance of ''kototama'' in aikido, such as ''The Kototama Principle'' in 1983.

Equivalences

While other cultures have parallels to ''kotodama'', such as

mantra A mantra ( Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ...

, yanling,

mana According to Melanesian and Polynesian mythology, ''mana'' is a supernatural force that permeates the universe. Anyone or anything can have ''mana''. They believed it to be a cultivation or possession of energy and power, rather than being ...

, and

logos ''Logos'' (, ; grc, λόγος, lógos, lit=word, discourse, or reason) is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology and rhetoric and refers to the appeal to reason that relies on logic or reason, inductive and deductive reasoning. Aris ...

, some Japanese people believe the "word spirit" is unique to the Japanese language. One of the classical

names of Japan The word ''Japan'' is an exonym, and is used (in one form or another) by many languages. The Japanese language, Japanese names for Japan are Nippon () and Nihon (). They are both written in Japanese using the kanji . During the third-century CE T ...

is , a phrase that originated in the ''

Man'yōshū The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in ...

''.

* Dōongo / ''Dōon Igigo'' ( 同音語 / 同音異義語, lit. "Like-Sound Utterance" / "Like-Sound Different-Meaning Utterance")—Homophones, while not a-part of ''Shinto''-in-&-of-themselves, occur in many things that are considered lucky are considered-so ''because'' they are homophones of things that are lucky (i.e. ''Jū Nana'' meaning, both 'great wealth'/'prosperity' and the number #17), and, likewise, many things that are considered unlucky are considered-so ''because'' they are homophones of things that are unlucky (i.e. ''Shizan'' meaning, both, '

stillborn Stillbirth is typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the source. It results in a baby born without signs of life. A stillbirth can result in the feeling of guilt or grief in the mother. The ter ...

' and the number #43). See also ''Kotodama'' (below), ''Imikotoba'' (below), ''

Tetraphobia Tetraphobia () is the practice of avoiding instances of the digit . It is a superstition most common in East Asian nations. __TOC__ Rationale The Chinese word for "four" (, pinyin: sì, jyutping: sei3), sounds quite similar to the word fo ...

'', '' Japanese superstitions'' and ''

Onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...

''. * Ancient Egyptian conception of the soul#Ren (name) *

Enochian Enochian ( ) is an occult constructed language — said by its originators to have been received from angels — recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his colleague Edward Kelley in late 16th-century England. Kelley was a scryer who w ...

Law of contagion The law of contagion is a superstitious folk belief that suggests that once two people or objects have been in contact, a magical link persists between them unless or until a formal cleansing, consecration, exorcism, or other act of banishing break ...

Magic word Magic words are often nonsense phrases used in fantasy fiction or by stage magicians. Frequently such words are presented as being part of a divine, adamic, or other secret or empowered language. Certain comic book heroes use magic words to acti ...

Mantra A mantra ( Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ...

Names of God There are various names of God, many of which enumerate the various qualities of a Supreme Being. The English word '' god'' (and its equivalent in other languages) is used by multiple religions as a noun to refer to different deities, or spec ...

* Norito * Om **

Om mani padme hum ' ( sa, ॐ मणि पद्मे हूँ, ) is the six-syllabled Sanskrit mantra particularly associated with the four-armed Shadakshari form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. It first appeared in the Mahayana ''Kāraṇ ...

Shabda ''Shabda'' ( sa, शब्द, ), is the Sanskrit word for "speech sound". In Sanskrit grammar, the term refers to an utterance in the sense of linguistic performance. History In classical Indian philosophy of language, the grammarian Katyaya ...

* Sympathetic magic *

True name A true name is a name of a thing or being that expresses, or is somehow identical to, its true nature. The notion that language, or some specific sacred language, refers to things by their true names has been central to philosophical study as wel ...

References

External links

Kotodama
Encyclopedia of Shinto
KOTODAMA
Encyclopedia of Aikido
Kotodama: The Power of Words
A Videogame that teaches Japanese, Carnegie Mellon {{Japanese social terms Japanese mythology Japanese words and phrases Language and mysticism Magic (supernatural) Shinto Vitalism