Kariba MyojinThe God of Hunting Who Guided Kukai to Koya, Takanomiko no Okami

Kariba Myojin is the guardian deity of Mount Koya who most purely embodies the nature of a "God of Guidance." The religious logic that sacred sites are not found by humans but revealed by gods was narrativized into the legend of a hunter and divine dogs guiding an esoteric Buddhist practitioner into the mountains. His true name, Takanomiko no Okami, means the child deity of Niutsuhime. By both mother and son deities yielding the divine territory to Kukai, it represents the local pantheon's approval of the site becoming a sacred ground for Shingon esoteric Buddhism. The iconography of the kariginu, bow and arrows, and two dogs preserves the form of an ancient mountain god presiding over mountain livelihoods (hunting) and resonates with the historical fact that the Niu clan was a group of hunters accompanied by sacrificial dogs. The divine dogs generated a belief as "guiding divine dogs" leading people to good matches and happiness, a motif carried on by the modern Kishu dogs, Shiromaru and Kuromaru, at Niutsuhime Shrine. The footprints of this guiding deity are carved throughout the pilgrimage routes, such as the Mount Koya Choishi-michi and Niukanshofu Shrine.

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