Again, that's not my problem. The problem is his clear Japanese provincialism.Originally Posted by Arashi_Leonhart
Again, that's not my problem. The problem is his clear Japanese provincialism.
To add my take, Isana is "同一" (identical, one and the same) to Izanagi. Shiva is "mixed" (混同 = commingling, mixed) with Izanagi.
This can mean that this is a case similar to heroic spirits getting things attributed to them due to a misunderstanding and in this case Shiva and Isanaten/Izanagi are very similar (literally the IRL case, Nasu even said it's still a common mix up now) or that it is the same as Tamamo where 1 original prototype being called with different names, because Amaterasu and Dainichi can also be 混同 IRL.
Also obviously the divine spirit Shiva and divine spirit Izanagi should be 2 separate divine spirits, but the prototype that they are based on can be just 1 big god like the case god of war being prototype of Mars and Ares and this big prototype is golden fox's daddy, who later known as Shiva or Izanagi just like golden fox being known as Amaterasu and Dainichi.
That's my idea yes, I think it's the first case. If not it wouldn't have been said that Shiva was being confused with Izanagi. I think it's a case similar to Scathach and Skadi
"Only in my company, will you not be a monster"
anywhere than here
No, Scathach and Skadi is different, they are connected by name alone. Here we have Daijizaitenjin (Shiva's JP name which is used here) having so many similarities in concept and powers with Isanaten (Izanagi) that they got mixed together.
I'm actually okay with this. It's better than what the alternative idea was.
No it's not just name. In her profile it was mentioned that Skadi and Scathach share the same origin. Also one doesn't call the other saying they are my other self when it's just a link by name. Skadi considers Scathach to be another her. Really from how she said it it reminded me of Minotauros calling Asterios his other self as he died. But that last part is just what I think.
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Also name alone wouldn't have given Skadi Gate of Skye or Scathach her Runes
"Only in my company, will you not be a monster"
anywhere than here
Isanaten and Shiva case is not 2 being linked/mixed like that, and other than the origin link most of the abilities is Lostbelt circumstance, not pan-human history, so I won't stick to that. IRL right now Shiva is basically called by the name Isanaten or Daijizaiten by Shingon Buddhism, the statue of this Isanaten guy even has the Trishula, the 3rd eye and even multiple heads at some point, heck in the Vietnamese version of the sutra praising him I have here (thanks grandma) they said that he is associated with DANCING and MUSIC. In short, he IS Isanaten and Isanaten IS Izanagi (becuz JP books said so lul). It's basically the same as Amaterasu case. Do you see that with Skadi and Scathach IRL? There is none of that level of merging that we have here. That's why I lean much more towards the same case as the golden fox that there is only 1 god with different names, as I see the mix up part is simply IRL reference like Nasu also did with Extra mats, but turned out it's actually 1 god with different names in nasuverse.
Basically I see the process like this: God with name unknown x Goddess waifu with name unknown -> golden fox with name unknown is born. These gods are part of the Hinduism pantheon and God with name unknown is called Shiva back then like his fox daughter being called Dakiniten. And then according to Vajra entry in FSN, age turned to Buddhism focus so all these OG Hindu gods had their names changed and assimilated into Buddhism teachings. "Shiva" is now known as Daijizaiten/Isanaten. "Dakiniten" is now known as Dainichi Nyorai. When Buddhism got to Japan and clashed with Shinto, turned out that these chief Shinto gods are the same ones of Hinduism pantheon just with different names, so they added the names. Shiva/Daijizaiten/Isanaten now also has the name Izanagi. Dakiniten/Dainichi Nyorai now also has the name Amaterasu. Divine spirits bearing these respective names are individuals base on these originals, but that won't change the fact that big god x big goddess -> big fox.
Last edited by Lily Emilio; August 11th, 2018 at 04:28 PM.
Oh. That's actually a pretty neat explanation, and I forgive Nasu for the most part for his syncretism stuff now if that is the case. However, about the "age turning to Buddhism focus", I am still somewhat rankled because Hinduism as a collection of religious traditions is very alive and well IRL, unless I'm viewing that wrong.
Maybe it's because I'm slightly drunk, but I find myself starting to agree with Dullahan
in vino veritas
He's a regular Cassandra
I don't believe it.
That's... the joke?
shit BL says
Once and always and nevermore.
Yeah, you got to hear it to not believe it.
the reason we have all this bullshit going on is because nasu wrote fate with the idea that he could have "heroic spirits" ie persons sublimated to a higher mode of existence by human veneration particularised by "myth" in a relatively unproblematic way
this idea was patently retarded, a highschool level of comprehension, which makes sense when you remember how old nasu was when he wrote the prototype for fate but is no longer remotely cute or forgivable in a man in his 40s
the problem is this assumption that the past is univocal and that heroes of the past are venerated in a directly univocal way in response - as if there's THE myth, THE story, singular, for any given figure, which persists irrespective of subsequent historical conditions
time has passed since FSN and writers have grown up and become able to see that, hey, the above is trivially untrue, what we call a 'myth' is actually a whole body of texts originating at different times and historical circumstances, all in communication with one another and with other texts etc
and they have no fucking idea what to do with this realisation because (1) they're stupid (2) the profit motive overpowers any will to understand the issues of historicity more deeply (3) they're all writing in the shadow of fate and fate's systems and way of approaching the past and are unable to think outside that straitjacket
and because they have no idea what to do we have shit like Innocent Monster - a servant skill where, in-universe, later textual interpretations enforce certain characteristics over the 'real' 'original' character. they're trying to come to terms with the fact that records of heroes are created and disseminated in and through history and doing it in a very cack-handed way in this case - they palm it off on the ostensibly egregious cases like vlad tepes, whereas if they had a clue they'd realise that almost every single servant by rights should have this skill or something like it. their problem is they still think in terms of the past being univocal. where they look at the past and see multiple voices their instinct is to flatten the multitude into an even melange in which every element is as meaningful as any other, from which they themselves can pick and choose arbitrarily to make their stories. they're database thinkers at heart. they reduce everything to atomic components. individual datapoints of positive fact.
so we have things like syncretism. where the historical transmission of a religion from one place to another resulted in the identification of native figures of worship with the new foreign ones. there's been a huge amount of this in japan since the introduction of buddhism in the 6th century AD. mainly in the identification of shinto kami as emanations of buddhas etc. ask mizukume for the details i'm sure he knows more of them than i do. the point is that the arrival of a new religion - a new system of metaphysics, ontology, ways of understanding history, etc - collides with pre-existing religions & folklore in a massive variety of ways which are in every case conditioned by local circumstances, politics, culture, etc.
so at some point shingon buddhist monks identify dainichi nyorai, which is to say mahavairocana tathagata [the dharma-body of the historical buddha in vajrayana] with the shinto kami amaterasu. (lest we forget that shingon was not a 'mass' religion like the various strains of japanese mahayana. shingon was esoteric buddhism for the elite, very close to the kyoto nobility & imperial house. the latter of whom were, notionally, descended from amaterasu. thinking emoji) meanwhile elsewhere and at other times whole sheathes of formerly isolated pieces of folklore about foxes are picked up and linked together; the folklore of tamamo-no-mae from the heian period is fused with that of its archetypal antecedents from china in da ji and bao si and the one in india whose name i forget. all this stuff that's been mentioned already. the connection between kitsune and amaterasu. the identification of kitsune with the dakini of hindu/buddhist folklore imported from china. a huge amount of syncretic transformations and identifications happen at various times and places for various reasons with various logics underpinning them, and these are disseminated and authorised through texts which enter into communion with prior and subsequent texts and so on.
the problem is that TM writers and to a large degree TM fans don't understand what it means that these syncretisms occured in and through history. because the TM writers are stupid and don't know how to actually think about history they look at the textual corpus which has emerged from centuries of the impact of syncretism on myths and folkore and they see - what? isolated datapoints flattened into an ahistorical melange from which they can pick and choose what sounds coolest.
so sometimes they decide siegfried from the nibelungenlied and sigurd from the volsunga saga should be seperate characters, despite the common origin in the folklore of northern europe they have. other times they decide tamamo = the entire pantheon of east asian religion. because they can't see any reason not to do either.
because TM writers are smart, but not smart enough to realise how fucking stupid they are.
Last edited by Dullahan; August 12th, 2018 at 07:34 AM.
かん汗ぎゅう牛じゅう充とう棟
Expresses the exceeding size of one's library.
Books are extremely many, loaded on an oxcart the ox will sweat.
At home piled to the ridgepole of the house, from this meaning.
Read out as 「Ushi ni ase shi, munagi ni mitsu.」
Source: 柳宗元「其為書，處則充棟宇，出則汗牛馬。」— Tang Dynasty
Oh he is back
Spoiler:
Wandering on internet
I don't think the complicated mess that is Buddhism, with all its interactions with Hinduism, Shinto, and the multi-layered Chinese pantheon, has any equal elsewhere in history, though.
shit BL says
Once and always and nevermore.
the cross and the crescent are better at hiding their sources, that's all
かん汗ぎゅう牛じゅう充とう棟
Expresses the exceeding size of one's library.
Books are extremely many, loaded on an oxcart the ox will sweat.
At home piled to the ridgepole of the house, from this meaning.
Read out as 「Ushi ni ase shi, munagi ni mitsu.」
Source: 柳宗元「其為書，處則充棟宇，出則汗牛馬。」— Tang Dynasty
More the fact that there's no need for heroes to enshrine any more at that point in time. The monsters they sought help against were entirely man-made. Central and Western Europe during the Dark Age may have spawned a multitude of saints, but still barely more than a handful became well-known enough to merit looking into.
Judaism, on the other hand...
shit BL says
Once and always and nevermore.
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