Now that people are playing the game, a quick 'n dirty update on background info. Continuing from the
last thread.
UPDATE: Slightly edited, spoiler markers removed.Jizō:
You can find info on Jizō statues everywhere, so let's focus on the writing on Narumi's scarf: 畢竟成佛 (JP: hikkyō jōbutsu), "ultimate attainment of Buddhahood", the last of the 28 benefits of worshipping Jizō.
What does the writings on her hat mean?
Sorry, no one has yet to figure out. See
the wiki.
Narumi's surname,
Yatadera is a temple that houses Japan's oldest Jizō statue, famous for its hydrangea flowers.
Tokoyo Kami:
常世 Tokoyo,
"the World of Constancy" is a basic concept in Shintoism, forming a dichtomy with
Utsutsuyo - the reality, the waking world. It is the land of immortality beyond the sea where the gods (and/or the deceased) live, unlike the mortal island the ancient Japanese inhabited. It can also be interpreted darkly as 常夜 "Forever Night", which would be the same thing as Yomi, the dreary land of the dead.
(Also, the English wikipedia page of Tokoyo is about a story of highly questionable reliability from a 1900 English book. Ignore it.)
20 years after the death of Prince Shoutoku, our old friend Hata no Kawakatsu, the legendary inventor of noh,
discovered a cult that worshipped a swallowtail caterpillar as "Tokoyo Kami". He killed the founder, putting an end to this cult.
Yep, should've written about this earlier, but it hadn't come up once in the years since Kokoro's debut, so I never expected the script to directly call it out.
Matara-jin:
First of all, I forgot to explain that "ushirodo" literally means "back entrance" (of the hall of worship), though the word is only used in the specific temple architecture context: a place where the temple's "real founding patron", rather than the god open to public worship, is located.
Okina:The Hata clan worships Matara-jin as an 翁面
okina-men, an old man's mask in noh theater, claiming it to be a manifestation of Hata no Kawakatsu.
However, our character's name is written 隠岐奈, sharing two kanji with
Oki Islands, a place for exiles. The key kanji here is 隠 "hidden", probably as Touhou's traditional name drop, where one or more kanji from the game title appears in character names, except this time the name drop occurs with the English subtitle. Of course, there are many hidden things relevant to the story, such as the idol of Matara-jin, or the paradise of Gensokyo.
God of sericulture:The most important thing about the Hata clan isn't that they supposedly invented noh, or they called themselves descedants of China's first emperor Qin Shi Huang, who migrated into Japan in 3rd century CE. It's that they were said to have brought sericulture and silk-weaving into Japan. Referenced by Okina's 3rd Extra Stage spell card, 秘儀「弾幕の玉繭」 Secret Ritual "Danmaku Double Cocoon". 玉繭 tamamayu ("jade cocoon"? "globular cocoon"?) refers to a double cocoon, which is formed by two silkworms.
宿神 shuku-jin, or god of discriminated peoples:In the character profile, ZUN used the word 被差別民 (hisabetsu-min), which is essentially a Japanese translation of "discriminated people", a politically correct term. A word you more likely see in English reportage is
"buraku-min". These words refer to the many outcast groups in Japan, who still suffer from discrimination to the modern day. In the Middle Ages, they lived by working in occupations considered unclean to normal peasants: butchery, leatherworking, street cleaning, and nomadic performers - see the connection?
Shuku, written 夙 or 宿 ("shelter"), was a medieval term for outcasts. Their patron gods are known as "shuku-jin", which were a jumble of many strands of faiths.
Earth mother:Coming back to the topic of Tantric weirdness, etymologically, the name of "Matara" should have come from the Sanskrit
mātaraḥ, which is the plural of
matar "mother[/i]. This gives rise to the theory that Matara-jin is actually female, and her true identity is similar to motherly demon-goddesses like
Hariti (read the story; it's a popular one among Buddhists). Also, academics argued his two servants represent sexual intercourse?
God of hindrance:As a demon, Matara-jin can also be a harmful source of spiritual "hindrance" that keeps people from wisdom, i.e. the kleshas we touched on before. This aspect seems to equate him with the tantric god Vinayaka, better known as Ganesha (however, Ganesha is often said to be a
destroyer of hindrance). Black magic. The nomadic outcasts were probably going to need it?
EDIT: Also see
this post.
Bacchanalian festival:In Kyoto, the Hata has a clan temple founded by Kawakatsu, the
Kōryu-ji. The temple's
"Cow Festival", considered among "the Three Strange Festivals of Kyoto", held in Matara-jin's name, has always amazed scholars with its unusual rituals, from dances that seem to imitate sex, to the farcial "Tengu Intimidation" 天狗怖し (Tengu Odoshi) that's said to drive away obnoxious tengu.
無縁 muen:
Originally a Buddhist term meaning "without (karmic) connection", and referring to the dead strangers who has no local social ties in Gensokyo's "Muenzuka", this word has been adopted by modern historians to describe historic groups who were outside the normal hierarchical structures, which include the outcasts and nomadic performers. The word appears in Okina's 8th Extra Stage spell card, 秘儀「無縁の芸能者」 Secret Ritual "Performers Without Social Ties".
Conclusion:
Over time, any gods, monsters, and historical figures whose popularity has lived on would inevitably pick up a ton of miscellaneous lore. The Japanese aristocracy was also a small place where everyone was related to everyone. All that means is if you want to see connection between them, you can always find one. But like any writer, when creating Touhou, ZUN only chooses some of the most important lore about a figure, the core that makes the legend what it is, to base his character on.
However, the mystery of Matara-jin is that the god has no such core - he/she is nothing but a collection of these mythical flotsam. And this very chaotic nature becomes the feature of HSiFS's story.
I actually think ZUN has chosen a core identity to focus on - the shuku-jin role of Matara-jin, making her a patron of Gensokyo's outcasts. But there is still no emotionally moving backstory like we had with most main entries, and he soldiered ahead with the absence of one.