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Fudo Myo-O Gallery
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Konpira Daigongen . 金毘羅大権現
（こんぴらだいごんげん） Kompira Daigongen,
Konbira Daigongen, Kombira Daigongen, Kompira Gongen
Shrine Kotohira, Kotohiragu （Kotohira Guu) 琴平宮
This deity is often simply called "Kompira San" こんぴらさん.
It is the Hindu deity Kum-bhira, Kumbhira (クンビーラ).
Konpira Daigongen is Kubira Taishou of the Twelve Yakushi Generals, or the same deity of Kinbira Taishou.
Konbira originally means a kind of crocodiles, becoming a head of demon deity, he was the divine protection of Oushari-jou (the castle of Buddha). It is famous that he descended to Matsuoji-temple in Sanuki (present Kagawa) and became the divine protection the sea.
source: www.butuzou.co.jp . Kurita
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Buddhist Syncretism in Japan
... at Mount Kompira, by affinity of name with its sea god, the Buddhist guardian Kumbhira, originally a Hindu crocodile god of the Ganges River, was said to have flown to Japan and became Kompira. He was accompanied by Elephant's Head Mountain near Bodh Gaya, which figures in the hagiography of the Buddha. Mount Kompira does resemble an elephant's head, although not as much as conventionalized views by Hiroshige and other artists. Given the animism of mountain worship, various divinities could be perceived in Hindu fashion as riders on their mounts. Beyond being a crocodile god, suitable to protect seafarers, Kompira was elevated to a Great Incarnation of the Buddha (daigongen).
Anthropomorphic iconography exists of Kompira Daigongen riding the mountain in the form of a white elephant - a creature associated with the Buddha, having served also as the mount of the ancient Hindu god Indra.
In time the Shinto-Buddhist hybrid Kompira Daigongen became identified with the Shinto kami of Mount Kompira, O-kuni-nushi-no-mikoto, one of the founding gods of Japan who was vaguely associated with crocodiles in the White Hare of Inaba myth in the Kojiki. A component from Chinese culture was later assimilated with the identification of the Buddhist and Shinto divinities atop Mount Kompira, with Daikokuten in the guise of one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune. In iconography he carries a bag like the kami O-kuni-nushi, with "Daikoku" a double pun on the Chinese characters for "O-kuni."
Two more triads can be documented. The second on Mount Kompira is an Eastern Pure Land Triad of the Medicine Buddha Yakushi Nyorai as ruler, Kompira Daigongen as delegate, and Fugen Bosatsu as attendant. Here Fugen (Sanskrit: Samantabhadra Bodhisattva) rides a white elephant in iconography and has been closely associated with the Shingon Buddhist temple on Mount Kompira.
Read the full article HERE
source : Steve McCarty
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This statue is about 70 cm high.
It is carved from plain camphor tree wood.
© PHOTO : shouryu.com
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More in the Daruma Museum Library
During the eighteenth century, as the imperial house began to gain in stature, people identified Konpira Daigongen with the twelfth-century emperor Sutokuin, thereby associating the powers of the god with both the imperial house and with the supernatural powers of tengu, for both Sutokuin and the seventeenth-century priestly reviver of Mt. Zôzu were envisioned in the popular imagination as such winged, long-nosed creatures...
Meiji Civilization and the Politics of Shinto at Kotohira Shrine
Sarah Thal (Rice University) 2002
My Visit to Konpira San in Shikoku.. Kompira San and Daruma San
金毘羅さんと達磨さん
Gongen Deities of Japan
O-Fudo Sama Gallery
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