Inari Ōkami

A personal favorite deity of mine. Inari Ōkami is the Japanese kami of foxes, of fertility, rice, tea and Sake, of agriculture and industry, of general prosperity and worldly success, and one of the principal kami  of Shinto. In earlier Japan, Inari was also the patron of swordsmiths and merchants.

Represented as female, and later by Buddhists as male or androgynous, Inari is sometimes seen as a collective of three or five individual kami. Inari appears to have been worshipped since the founding of a shrine at Inari Mountain in 711 AD, although some scholars believe that worship started in the late 5th century.

Inari’s themes are death, kinship, ghosts, fertility and love. Her symbols are foxes, rice and the color red. Among the Japanese, Inari is invoked to bring a long life, blood-red being her sacred color. In death, She guides and protects faithful kami or spirits.

Represented as a fox, Inari also has strong correlations with love, an emotion that survives even the grave. Rice is a common offering for Inari, as it is a crop to which she brings fertility.

The Obon is a festival for the dead in Japan, where people hold family reunions and religious rituals to honor their departed ancestors and dance to comfort the spirits.

Obon is held on August 15th or the 15th day of the 7th lunar month. Inari is the figure known in classical Japanese mythology as Ukanomitama or the Kojiki‘s Ōgetsu-Hime; others suggest Inari is the same figure as Toyouke.

Some take Inari to be identical to any grain kami. Inari’s female aspect is often identified with Dakiniten, a Buddhist deity who is a Japanese transformation of the Indian dakini or with Benzaiten of the Seven Lucky Gods.