Batsu (Hiderigami)Bibliographic Transmission Batsu (Hiderigami) of the Wakan Zukai Lineage

In Japan, images of the batsu (Hiderigami) were received mainly through later Chinese writings and bibliographic transmission. The Wakan Sansai Zue cites Sancai Tuhui, Bencao Gangmu, and Shenyijing, explaining that the batsu, called the “drought god,” has a human face and beastly body with a single hand and a single foot, runs like the wind, and wherever it dwells no rain will fall. Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki visualizes this composite form and notes the alias “Hanmu.” Rather than native Japanese yokai lore, these accounts reflect learned reception of Chinese views on calamities and calendrical omens, treating the batsu as an ideational symbol of drought more than an eyewitnessed apparition. Its form is not fixed, with a goddess aspect (Bo) and a beast-shaped aspect coexisting, though Japanese sources tend to emphasize the latter. Religious responses align with general drought countermeasures such as rain prayers and water-deity rites, and clear cases of direct worship of the batsu itself are not well attested. As a calamity deity, its approach was thought to wither plants and exhaust human spirits.

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