Takamanohara

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Takama-no-hara ( Japanese 高 天 原 ; literally: plane of the high heaven ; also Ama-no-hara , Ama-tsu-kuni , Takahama-hara , Takama-ga-hara or Takama-hara read) is in Shintō of birth - and the place of residence of the Heavenly Kami ( ama-tsu-kami ), from which the creation of the world also took its course and heaven and earth separated from each other. Karl Florenz translates Takama-no-hara as "Heavenly Fields" or "Fields of the High Heaven".

Florence also notes that it refers to the blue vault of the sky. The "calm river of heaven" ( 天 安 河 , Ame-no-yasu-kawa ), which crosses Takama-no-hara and whose bed is filled with stone rubble, on which the kami have their seats, is thus the Milky Way .

Takama-no-hara is connected by the "floating bridge of heaven" ( Ama-no-Uki-hashi ) to Ashihara-no-naka-tsu-kuni , the real world of mortals, where the earthly kami ( kuni-tsu -kami ) live ( Japan ; Florence compares this bridge with Bifröst and mentions an old tradition from the Tango-Fudoki , according to which the real counterpart is the promontory Ama-no-Hashi-date ("Himmelstandleiter") in the province of Tango , erected by Izanagi to get from there to Takama-no-hara and fell over while he was sleeping). The antithesis of Takama-no-hara is Yomi , the land of the dead, from which evil, misfortune and destruction come.

Amaterasu is considered to be the representative of the unity of Takama-no-hara .

Many stories from Japanese mythology or popular belief also tell of mortals who traveled to Takama-no-hara by some route and stayed there.

In the mysticism of Shinto it is also said that the souls ( tama ) of the deceased return there to be with the souls of the ancestors. Some believe that the length of the journey depends on the purity of the soul: unclean souls can take years to arrive at Takama-no-hara, while completely innocent souls arrive immediately. Others assume a fixed period of one year.

Web links