Komainu and Karajishi: Lions, Guardian Dogs and the Ah-Un Breath at Japanese Shrines
Pass through the quiet trees of a shrine grove, and at the foot of the red torii gate you will find a pair of moss-covered stone beasts. On the right, a creature roars with its mouth wide open. On the left, one keeps its mouth firmly closed, with a small single horn on its head. Almost every visitor to a Japanese shrine has seen them: the guardians called komainu and shishi.
Today the pair is usually called komainu as a whole, but they were originally two different sacred beasts. The open-mouthed animal on the right (as you face them) is the shishi, or lion (also written karajishi, “Chinese lion”). The closed-mouthed, horned animal on the left is the komainu, or “Korean dog.”
Their open and closed mouths express a and un, the first and last sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet — beginning and end, exhaling and inhaling, birth and death. Known as the “ah-un breath,” this idea comes from esoteric Buddhism, and the pair works as a living barrier that purifies visitors and keeps evil out of sacred ground.
Yet there are no wild lions in Japan. How did a foreign beast become so central to Japanese belief? Tracing it back leads from the royal myths of the ancient Near East, across the Silk Road with Buddhism, into the furnishings of the Heian court, and on to the splendid art of the Momoyama and Edo periods.
From the Near East to the Silk Road
The distant source of komainu and shishi lies in ancient Near Eastern and Indian civilizations. In Mesopotamia and Egypt the lion, with its fangs and strength, was seen as a manifestation of the sun and the strongest protector of gods and kings. The Great Sphinx of Giza and the winged lion guardians (lamassu) at Assyrian and Babylonian palace gates are among the earliest models of the guardian beast.
In Indian Buddhist art, the lion gained a deep spiritual meaning. The Buddha was praised as the lion among the enlightened, one who teaches truth without fear, and his preaching was called the “lion’s roar.” Atop the Pillar of Ashoka, erected in the third century BCE by the Mauryan king Ashoka, four lions face the four directions, symbols of the Dharma spreading across the world.
As Buddhism spread east, the lion image travelled through the oasis cities of the Silk Road to China. There were no lions in China either, but when they arrived as tribute from Persia and Central Asia, people marveled at their supernatural presence and counted them among the auspicious beasts beside the dragon and the phoenix. The lions that guarded Buddhist statues acquired rich curling manes and strong musculature, and developed into the East Asian “Chinese lion,” karajishi.
The Heian Court: A Lion and a Horned Dog
The lion reached Japan with Buddhism in the Asuka and Nara periods, first as small bronze or wooden figures placed beside the pedestals of Buddhist images. In the Heian period it took a distinctively Japanese turn, becoming a piece of court furniture.
Nobles used a pair of carved wooden beasts as weights to keep the hems of silk curtains (kicho) and bamboo blinds from blowing up in the wind. At this point the two animals were clearly distinguished: one was a lion, golden-yellow with open mouth and no horn; the other, white with closed mouth and a single horn on its head, was the komainu.
The name komainu is explained as “dog from Koryo” (Korea) or as a “dog that rejects demons.” The horned form is thought to be a Japanese creation that merged elements of the Chinese one-horned beast kaichi, which can tell right from wrong. Linked to Nara Buddhism, the open mouth came to stand for “a” (the beginning of all things) and the closed mouth for “un” (their end), giving us the ah-un pair. After serving as guardians of the imperial seat, the pair moved, with the merging of Shinto and Buddhism, into shrine halls and eventually out to the approaches.
Momoyama and Edo: Kano Eitoku and the Folk Guardians
In the early modern period the lion became more than a protective charm; it became a great subject of art. Its summit is the National Treasure Karajishi-zu Byobu, a screen by the court painter Kano Eitoku (1543–1590) in the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Two muscular lions stride across a huge gold-leaf surface, their manes bristling like flames. It is a lion as a symbol of martial power and rule, matching the authority of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Lions also appear in colorful carvings on early modern shrines and temples, including Nikko Toshogu. The motif of the lion with peonies, the king of beasts beside the king of flowers, was considered the height of good fortune.
From the middle of the Edo period, as stone-carving skills spread through a peaceful country, ordinary people began dedicating stone komainu at shrine approaches in great numbers. Lively Edo-style komainu, mothers with cubs playing at their feet, and guardians holding a ball are only a few of the warm and humorous folk sculptures made in different regions.
The Cosmos of Ah-Un
When we pass under a torii and by the komainu, we leave the noise of everyday life and step into a sacred hush. For hundreds of years, sometimes more than a thousand, these guardians have watched over visitors, gathering moss. They never speak. But their open and closed mouths embrace the whole of life, from the first cry at birth to the final silence.
Komainu and karajishi, carried from Persian deserts over the Silk Road and nurtured by Japan’s view of nature and its blending of Shinto and Buddhism, show how Japanese culture could accept foreign ideas with flexibility and polish them into something of its own.
Enjoy Japanese Sacred Art with Mori no Akari
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References
- Uesugi Chihiro, Komainu Jiten, Ebisu Koshodo, 2001
- Kondo Yoshikazu, Chusei Buke no Chodo to Kojitsu, Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 2005
- Kano Hiroyuki, Kano Eitoku, Shibundo, 1995
- Kyoto National Museum, Shaji no Dobutsutachi, 1997