# The Thunder-Weapon in Ancient Japan

Harvard Journal
of Asiatic Studies
Harvard-Yenching Institute
1940
Contents
       Fu-jên hsüeh-chih 5-7 (192-4) and Monumenta serica 1-2 (194-9).
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The Thunder-Weapon in Ancient Japan
Edwin O. Reischauer Harvard University
The identification of neolithic stone axes as well as meteorites and other unusual stones with thunderbolts is a feature of the folklore of many peoples throughout the world and has been the subject of considerable scholarly research. In China this identification of thunderbolts with neolithic stone axes is known as early as the T‘ang dynasty. In Japan it has often been noted in modern times, and even archaeologists employ such quaint terms as “thunder-axe” (raifu or kaminari no masakari 雷斧), “thunder-club” (raitsui 雷槌), and “thunder-pestle” (raiko 雷鈷) for stone axes, stone maces (usually with distinct phallic qualities), and stone mallets or picks. But early references to these names for the thunderbolt are not known in Japan, and one can reasonably assume that they are relatively recent borrowings from China, where “thunder-axe” is the general term for stone weapons.
However, there are several small pieces of evidence which do hint at the possibility that the Japanese already at a very early date shared in the wide-spread belief that stone weapons were thunderbolts. The possible etymology of ikazuchi, the ancient Japanese word for thunder, offers our first hint. Ikazuchi, I believe, may originally have meant “the august (ika) club (tsuchi),” ​which corresponds almost perfectly to “thunder club” (raitsui), the modern term for stone maces.
There is more important evidence in Ennin’s 圓仁 diary of his travels in China during the ninth century, where is to be found the statement, “Since the stone-god 石神 shook and sounded, we raised anchor and returned (up the bay).” As this was recorded on the day after the mast of the ship on which he was traveling had been badly split by lightning, one can conclude that the “stone-god” is in some way a reference to thunder, presumably because of the identification of stones with thunderbolts.
This “stone-god” may have been just an abstract deity to Ennin and his companions, synonymous with thunder itself, but it is not at all improbable that it was an actual “thunderbolt” of some sort on board the ship. The evidence for this is that a few days later, when the men on Ennin’s ship were terrified by a black bird which thrice circled the boat and by the sound of thunder coming roaring towards them from the north, Ennin recorded, “Together we made vows, absolved ourselves, and prayed to the god of the thunderbolt on board the ship 船上霹靂神.”
​The great borrowing from China on the part of the Japanese at this time and the fact that Ennin was on the coast of Shantung after spending the better part of a year in China cast some doubt on the validity of these passages as examples of native Japanese folklore, and we must look to Japanese mythology for evidence that the association of the thunderbolt with stones or stone weapons existed before the period of greatest borrowing from China.
Matsumoto Nobuhiro 松本信廣 in his important study entitled Recherches sur quelques thèmes de la mythologie japonaise (Paris 1928) devotes much attention to thunder deities and has a whole section on “les emblèmes du dieu de tonnerre” (p. 63-70), in which he clearly shows that these are arrows, hoes, lances, and swords. Although three of these are weapons and the fourth an agricultural tool much like a weapon, something more than this is needed to prove that they were in origin stone weapons thought to be thunderbolts and were not simply emblems, as Matsumoto suggests, chosen because of their flashing or cleaving qualities.
The evidence in favor of the stone thunderbolt theory is to be found largely in the names and mythological traditions of certain Japanese shrines, particularly the two associated with the name Isonokami 石上. Despite the second character of this name, it is; probable that the kami is not “above” or “upper” but “god” and that the name originally meant “stone-god.” The term “stone-god” cannot be immediately identified with a thunderbolt in Japan, for, since time immemorial, stones have been made into ​deities for a number of reasons, usually because of their strange or suggestive shapes, but in this one case there may well be a connection between “stone-gods” and thunder.
The most famous Isonokami Shrine is at Tambaichi 丹波市 a few miles south of Nara. The central object of worship at this shrine is the Furu-no-mitama 布留御魂 or Futsu-no-mitama 布都御魂, the name of a sword given by a thunder deity, Takemikazuchi-no-kami 建御雷神, to Jimmu Tennō 神武天皇, the mythical first emperor, during the latter’s campaign to subdue the future capital region. In the name of the deity appears the word “thunder,” and in the names of the sword are the words futsu, an onomatopoeic word for cleaving, and furu (sometimes written even in this name as 振), “to shake,” which are naturally associated with thunder or thunderbolts as well as with a sword. It is perhaps not too bold to conclude that this particular “stone-god shrine” may actually be dedicated to a thunderbolt (stone sword) from a Japanese Thor.
Closely associated with the Isonokami Shrine of Tambaichi is the Futsu-no-mitama 布都之魂 Shrine at Isonokami village in northern Bizen 備前. It can be no mere coincidence that this shrine, located in the “stone-god village,” bears the name of the central deity of the Tambaichi “stone-god shrine” and that it is dedicated to the “serpent cleaving blade” 斬蛇之釼 (or 斷蛇之釼) of the greatest storm-thunder god of all, Susanoo-no-mikoto. The evidence clearly indicates that both shrines belong to a common cult of the stone sword thunderbolt.
​Yoshida Tōgo lists seven Kamo (usually written 賀茂 or 鴨) Shrines, which are for the most part dedicated to another thunder god, Wakeikazuchi-no-mikoto 別雷命. In no case is it clearly stated that the object of worship in any of these shrines is a weapon which can be identified with a stone thunderbolt, but it is significant that in one case this is indirectly implied. The Kamo 賀毛 Shrine at Haruta 治田 in the extreme north of Ise 伊勢 is one of the few places in that province known as a site abounding in prehistoric stone implements, so it is not improbable that a stone thunderbolt was the original deity of this shrine also.
This scattered evidence in favor of the identification of stone weapons with thunderbolts in ancient Japan is far from being conclusive. It is all too scanty and trivial in the face of the almost complete absence of corroborative evidence in the passages on stone and thunder deities in such early works as the Kojiki, the Kogoshūi 古語拾遺, and the Nihon shoki and other volumes of the Rikkokushi 六國史. However, it is sufficient to hint strongly at a very interesting possibility, which deserves further study.
* ↑ Cf. Chr. Blinkenberg, The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore. A Study in Comparative Archaeology (Cambridge, England, 1911) for a detailed study of the whole problem. On pages 117-8 he has some brief references to China and Japan.
* ↑ Cf. Chang Hung-chao, Shih ya 章鴻釗，石雅 412 (H. T . Chang, Lapidarium sinicum. A Study of the Rocks, Fossils and Metals as Known in Chinese Literature, Peking, The Geological Survey of China, 1927). Under the T‘ang the term for these “thunderbolts” seems to have been lei-kung-shih-fu 雷公石斧 (stone axes of the thunder lord), but the modern term is lei-fu 雷斧 (thunder-axes).
* ↑ For good illustrations of these cf. T. Kanda, Notes on Ancient Stone Implements, &c., of Japan, plates 4-9, 11 (Tōkyō 1884).
* ↑ The etymology of kaminari, the modern word for thunder, is probably “the sound (nari) of the gods (kami).”
* ↑ Nittō guhō junrei gyōki 入唐求法巡禮行記, year 839, moon 5, day 28 (p. 200 in vol. 113 of the Dainihon bukkyō zensho 大日本佛教全書). Ennin is also known as Jikaku Daishi 慈覺大師.
* ↑ Year 839, moon 6, day 5 (p. 201). Cf. Blinkenberg 96. It is worth noting that Ennin and his companions did not limit their supplication to the god of the thunderbolt but also worshipped the local Chinese deities and several of the greater deities of Japan which were not connected in any way with thunder, with the gratifying result that “the thunder gradually stopped.” This implies a belief that any god might exercise control over thunder. Definite proof of this is afforded by the judgment of an oracle on the 27th day of the fifth moon, after the mast of the ship had been splintered by lightning. The oracle as recorded by Ennin was, “Various men from the ship have been buried in front of the local deity. Therefore you have incurred the anger of the god, who has produced this disaster.” Another interesting example of thunder folklore afforded by Ennin’s diary is recorded on the third day of the sixth moon, when he noted that during another thunderstorm “those of us on board waved such things as spears, axes, and swords and shouted with all our might in order to fend off the thunderbolts.” Cf. Frazer, The Golden Bough. The Scapegoat 246-7 (London 1913).
* ↑ Matsumoto also discusses the series of attributes, water, thunder (storm), and serpents, which belong to Susanoo-no-mikoto 素盞鳴尊, the storm god, and his descendants (59). The association of these three ideas together is only to be expected and is found also throughout China, where the serpent appears as a dragon. Interesting examples of this association are the identification of thunder as a serpent in the Nihon shoki 日本書紀 (cf. Matsumoto 54-55 and Aston, Nihongi. Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697, 1.347 [London 1896]) and the description in Ennin’s diary of a severe thunderstorm on the Chinese coast as the sound of dragons fighting together and the explanation that such storms were frequent in that vicinity because there were many “dragon palaces” there (year 839, moon 9, day 12 [p. 206]). $^{7a}$ For a theory concerning the origin of such variant phonetic forms as iso for ishi (stone), cf. S. Yoshitake, The History of the Japanese Particle—“I,” BSOS 5 (1928-30). 889-895.
* ↑ None of the many Ishigami 石神 place names (strangely all located in east and north Japan) listed in Yoshida Tōgo’s Dainihon chimei jisho 吉田東伍，大日本地名辭書 seem to have any connection with thunder. Yanagida Kunio in his Ishigami mondō 柳田國男，石神問答 (Tōkyō 1906) has a detailed study of certain aspects of the so-called “stone-gods” of Japan. His main thesis is that deities known as shakuji, sakuji, or sakoji 石神 are not “stone-gods” (ishigami 石神) as such but that the characters in these cases may be used purely phonetically.
* ↑ Cf. Matsumoto 68-9.
* ↑ Yoshida discusses at length the obvious relationship between these two shrines and attempts to decide their relative priority (cf. Yoshida 283-4, 912-3). This question has no bearing on our problem, for all that is important to us is the close association in both cases of an Isonokami and a divine thunderbolt sword. It is worth noting that futsu, the main element in the name of the Tambaichi “sword-god” and the name of the Bizen “sword shrine,” is found in Takefutsu-no-kami 建布都神 and Toyofutsu-no-kami 豊布都神, alternate names for the thunder god Takemikazuchi-no-kami. The birth of this deity “from the blood that stuck to the upper part of the august sword and again bespattered the multitudinous rock-masses” and the birth of the Rock Splitting Deity (Iwasaku-no-kami 石柝神) and the Rock Possessing Male Deity (Iwatsutsunoo-no-kami 石筒之男神) “from the blood that stuck to the point of the august sword and bespattered the multitudinous rock-masses” suggests vaguely some relationship between stones, swords, and thunder which may have bearing on our problem. Cf. Chamberlain, Kojiki 古事記 or Record of Ancient Matters 32.
* ↑ Cf. Yoshida 606. Other hints may possibly be derived from the following facts: (1) the Iso 伊曾 (iso=ishi, “stone,” as in Isonokami?) Shrine in Iyo 伊豫 is in a place called Kamo 賀茂 and is devoted to the worship of the Kamo family (Yoshida 1286); (2) a noteworthy feature and possibly the original deity of the Kamo 賀茂 Shrine in Hirosawa 廣澤 in Kōzuke 上野 is a stone in the shape of a lantern in a grove behind the shrine (Yoshida 3369); and (3) the Ikazuchi 雷 or Thunder, Shrine (also called the Bright Deity of Kamo 加茂明神) of Shizuoka 静岡 city is on the edge of Ishimachi 石町 (“Stone Street”) (Yoshida 2560).
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