is a

harvest Harvesting is the process of collecting plants, animals, or fish (as well as fungi) as food, especially the process of gathering mature crops, and "the harvest" also refers to the collected crops. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulses fo ...

and fertility ''

kami are the Deity, deities, Divinity, divinities, Spirit (supernatural entity), spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena that are venerated in the traditional Shinto religion of Japan. ''Kami'' can be elements of the landscape, forc ...

'' of

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

.Watsky, Andrew Mark. (2004). Ugajin is represented both as a male and a female, and is often depicted with the body of a snake and the head of a bearded man, for the masculine variant, or the head of a woman, for the female variant. In

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Dharma Flower School (天台法華宗, ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just ''Hokkeshū''), is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition with significant esoteric elements that was officially established in Japan in 806 by t ...

Buddhism Ugajin was syncretically fused with Buddhist goddess

Benzaiten is an East Asian Buddhism, East Asian Buddhist Dharmapala, goddess who originated from the Hindu Saraswati, the patroness of speech, the arts, and learning. Worship of Benzaiten arrived in Japan during the sixth through eighth centuries, mai ...

, which became known as Uga Benzaiten or Uga Benten. The goddess sometimes carries on her head Ugajin's effigy. In this limited sense, the ''kami'' is part of the Japanese Buddhist pantheon.__NOTOC__

Gallery

File:Ugajin_feminine_form.jpg, Ugajin's feminine form File:Hogonji13s3200.jpg, Statue of Benzaiten, a ''

torii A is a traditional culture of Japan, Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred, and a spot where kami are welcomed and thought to ...

'' and a male Ugajin visible on her head (whose coiled serpent body is barely visible behind her crown) File:Zeniarai Benzaiten Kamakura Snake.jpg, Wooden snake at Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine

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* {{jmyth navbox long Androgynous and hermaphroditic deities Fertility deities Agricultural deities Japanese deities Shinbutsu shūgō

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See also

References

External links