The Japanese theologian proceeds to say:
“Amongst kami who are not human beings, I need hardly mention Thunder (in Japanese Nuru kami or the sounding-god). There are also the Dragon and Echo (called in Japanese Ko-dama or the Tree Spirit), and the Fox, who are kami by reason of their uncanny and fearful natures. The term kami is applied in the Nihon-gi and Manjoshiu to the tiger and the wolf. Isanagi (the creator-god) gave to the fruit of the peach and to the jewels round his neck names which implied that they were kami.”[50]
Here we touch on beliefs similar to those that obtained in China where the dragon and tiger figure so prominently as the gods of the East and the West. The idea that the peach was a kami appears to be connected with the Chinese conception of a peach world-tree, a form of the Mother Goddess, the fruit of which contains her “life substance” or shen as do the jewels like the pearl and jade objects; the peach is a goddess symbol as the phallus is a symbol of a god.
Motöori adds:
“There are many cases of seas and mountains being called kami. It is not their spirits which are meant. The word was applied directly to the seas or mountains themselves as being very awful things.”[51]
There were a beneficent class and an evil class of kami. Beneficent deities provided what mankind required or sought for; they were protectors and preservers. Four guardians of the world were called “Shi Tenno”. They were posted at the cardinal points like the Chinese Black Tortoise (north), the Red Bird (south), the White Tiger [[344]](west), and the Blue or Green Dragon (east). The Japanese colour scheme, however, is not the same as the Chinese. At the north is the blue god Bishamon or Tamoten; at the south the white-faced warrior Zocho; at the west the red-faced Komoku with book and brush or a spear; and at the east the warrior with green face, named Jikoku, who is sometimes shown trampling a demon under foot.
In India the north is white and the south black, and in Ceylon the Buddhist colours of the cardinal points are yellow (north), blue (south), red (west), and white (east).
Although it is customary to regard the coloured guardians of the Japanese world as of Buddhist origin, it may well be that the original Japanese guardians were substituted by the Hindu and Chinese divinities imported by the Buddhists. The dragon-gods of China and Japan were pre-Buddhistic, as De Visser has shown,[52] but were given, in addition to their original attributes, those of the naga (serpent or dragon) gods introduced by Buddhist priests. [[345]]