Dakini - in Japanese Buddhism

In Japanese Buddhism

Although the dakini imagery appears to have come to Japan via Kukai's introduction of tantric Buddhism in the Shingon school in the early 9th century, her form appears more like the dakinis of Hindu iconography than those found in the Tantra of Tibetan Buddhism, the other main surviving school of tantric Buddhism.

During the decline of the Heian period, the dakini image was mixed together with images of foxes and half-naked women, acquiring the names Dakini-ten (Dakini-deity, 荼枳尼天), Shinkoō-bosatsu (Star Fox Queen-Bodhisattva, 辰狐王菩薩), and Kiko-tennō (Noble Fox-Heavenly Queen, 貴狐天王). In the Middle Ages the Emperor of Japan would chant before an image of the fox Dakini-ten during his enthronement ceremony, and both the shogun and the emperor would pay honors to Dakini-ten whenever they saw it. It was a common belief at the time that ceasing to pay respects to Dakini-ten would cause the immediate ruin of the regime. Although Dakini-ten was said to be a powerful Buddhist deity, the images and stories surrounding it in Japan in both medieval and modern times are drawn from local kitsune mythology. The modern folk belief, often printed in Japanese books about religion, is that the fox image was a substitute for the Indian jackal, but the jackal is not associated with Dakini anywhere. As another example of the connection between Dakini-ten and the government of Japan, in the Genpei Jōsuiki it is claimed that Taira no Kiyomori met a kitsune on the road and that his subsequent performance of Dakini-ten rites caused him to rise from an unimportant clan leader to the ruler of the entire nation.

In early modern times the Dakini rite devolved into various spells called Dakini-ten, Izuna, and Akiba. People who felt wronged in their village could go to a corrupt yamabushi who practiced black magic, and get him to trap a kitsune and cause it to possess a third party. Reports of possession became especially common in the Edo and Meiji periods. For details, see kitsunetsuki.