Kangites

Kangites in Embrace (late 18th to early 19th century)

Indian deity Ganesha in Japan

Kangiten , also called Shõten (holy god), is a Buddhist form of the Hindu god Ganesha , lord of prosperity, removes obstacles and promotes learning. Kangites are represented in different ways: sitting or standing, holding different emblems, with two or six arms, or as paired kangit figures. The latter are mostly secret images that are not shown to the public. The kangite pairs are male and female in Japan, but they are usually depicted so cautiously that the gender is not apparent. The emphasis on the human body and explicit sexuality in Indian religious art was made possible by Confucian ethicsrestricted in East Asia. When Gaṇesha was accepted as the god of joy (in Japanese: kangiten ) in the esoteric Buddhist gods , the rituals surrounding him were also adapted. The Japanese variant Karakudamono , also known as Tōgashi , was created from the Indian sweet Modaka , which the Indian god Ganesha loves .

history

Kangiten came to Japan in the 8th and 9th centuries in the wave of enthusiasm for esoteric Buddhism and has found a permanent, if only insignificant, place in religion and art there. Kangiten is revered throughout Japan, but the most active cult center is the Hōzan-ji Buddhist temple on Mount Ikoma .

In the late Heian period , drawings of kangite figures were made, then drawings and gold-bronze statues of kangite couples in the Heian period. These rare Japanese versions of the explicitly sexual images became very important in Tibetan Buddhism. In Tantric Buddhism , the interaction between man and woman is a symbol of the interaction of the spirit and the matter from which the visible world emerged.

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Treasures of the Yenching: Seventy-fifth Anniversity of the Harvard-Yenching Library: Exhibition Catalog . In: Patrick Dewes Hanan (Ed.): Harvard-Yenching Library . Chinese University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-962-996-102-2 , pp. 244–246 ( google.de [accessed July 17, 2020]).
↑ Darra Goldstein: The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets . Oxford University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-931339-6 , pp. 82 ( google.de [accessed on July 17, 2020]).

[:0-1] A ^b Treasures of the Yenching: Seventy-fifth Anniversity of the Harvard-Yenching Library: Exhibition Catalog . In: Patrick Dewes Hanan (Ed.): Harvard-Yenching Library . Chinese University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-962-996-102-2 , pp. 244–246 ( google.de [accessed July 17, 2020]).

[2] Darra Goldstein: The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets . Oxford University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-931339-6 , pp. 82 ( google.de [accessed on July 17, 2020]).