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The Japanese share superstitions with other Asian cultures, particularly the Chinese, with whom they share significant historical and cultural ties. The unluckiness of the number four is one such example, as the Japanese word for "four" 四 romaji: shi is a homophone for "death" kanji : 死.
Although Japan has become a more secular society (see Religion in Japan), as of 2007, 90% of funerals are conducted as Buddhist ceremonies. [2] Immediately after a death (or, in earlier days, just before the expected death), relatives moisten the dying or deceased person's lips with water, a practice known as water of the last moment (末期の水, matsugo-no-mizu).
In Buddhism, the symbol of a wheel represents the perpetual cycle of death and rebirth that happens in samsara. [6] The symbol of a grave or tomb, especially one in a picturesque or unusual location, can be used to represent death, as in Nicolas Poussin's famous painting Et in Arcadia ego. Images of life in the afterlife are also symbols of death.
The death of a noble lady and the decay of her body is a series of kusōzu paintings in watercolor, produced in Japan around the 18th century. The subject of the paintings is thought to be Ono no Komachi. [18] There are nine paintings, including a pre-death portrait, and a final painting of a memorial structure: [18] [19]
Even though the kijin and onryō of Japanese Buddhist faith have taken humans' lives, there is the opinion that there is no "death god" that merely leads people into the world of the dead. [6] In Postwar Japan, however, the Western notion of a death god entered Japan, and shinigami started to become mentioned as an existence with a human nature ...
According to traditional Japanese beliefs, all humans have a spirit or soul called a reikon ().When a person dies, the reikon leaves the body and enters a form of purgatory, where it waits for the proper funeral and post-funeral rites to be performed so that it may join its ancestors. [1]
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A woodblock print depicting the wife of Onodera Junai, one of the forty-seven rōnin.She prepares herself to follow her husband into death. Junshi (殉死, "following the lord in death", sometimes translated as "suicide through fidelity") refers to the medieval Japanese act of vassals committing suicide for the death of their lord.