The Deity of Kasuga Wakamiya Shrine

The Shinto god of the Wakamiya shrine, located south of the main buildings of the Kasuga grand complex in Nara, is portrayed here as a young nobleman dressed in a green robe embellished with delicate gold patterns. He stands on a rocky plateau, which suggests the earthly site where his spirit resides. The gods (kami) of Shinto, Japan's native religion, are often worshiped as unseen spirits who reside in specific places. Beginning in the thirteenth century, however, there was an increase in production of paintings of Shinto deities due to the promotion of ideas linking specific kami with Buddhist deities, which had a long tradition of pictorial or sculptural representation. Shinto gods were closely bound to human life and in some cases were actually the deified spirits of deceased individuals. Artistic representations, although imagined, usually portrayed Shinto deities with human features and minimal visual references to their supernatural identities.