Addendum Slide 40. Condensed Visual Classroom Guide to Daikokuten Iconography in Japan. © Mark Schumacher 2017.

The Radish, Male/Female Sex Organs, & Manofica
Bernard Faure, Protectors and Predators
University of Hawai’i Press, 2015
From Pages 53 and 54

Bernard Faure, Protectors and Predators
University of Hawai’i Press, 2015
From Pages 53 and 54

Toward the fourteenth century, with the rise of the merchant class, Daikokuten
began to gain weight (literally) and to be depicted as standing on two big balls ofrice, holding the mallet that “brings riches.” He also acquired strong sexualcharacteristics. In the Byakuhō shō 白宝鈔, for example, Chōen (1218–1278)
reports an oral tradition to the effect that if a woman wishes to seduce a man, shemust pray to Daikokuten.The Mahāpratisarādhāraṇī-sūtra (Ch. Suiqiu tuoluoni jing
隋求陀羅尼経), translated into Chinese by Amoghavajra (705–774), describes
various rules and deities to be worshiped by women who desire a child. A
pregnant woman, for instance, should make a drawing of Mahākāla. In his PlayfulEssays (Kiyū shōran 喜遊笑覧, 1830), Kitamura Nobuyo 喜多村信節 (1784–1856)
explains that Makora (that is, Mahākāla) became a protector of children owing to
his relations with Hārītī. At the Wakamiya 若宮 Shrine of Kasuga, Daikokuten (orrather Ōkuninushi) is worshiped today as part of a couple, together with Okame お亀 (aka Otafuku お多福, the popular version of the goddess Ame no Uzume 天宇受売). The shrine also sells votive wooden plaques (ema 絵馬) for female
lactation, on which a female breast is crudely drawn. During the Edo period,Daikokuten was at times depicted as making a hand gesture with strong sexualconnotations, the so-called manofica (from manus ‘hand’ and fica ‘fig’, a symbolof the female organ). An illustration on a fan, representing Daikokuten carrying aforked radish over his shoulders, clearly has a similar meaning. At Mount Haguro
羽黒 and elsewhere, Daikokuten is often plainly represented by a wooden phallus.

Daikokuten’s mallet is usually described as a magic tool, a kind of
cintāmaṇi; but it is also a magic weapon, used in connection withepidemics. In the Madarijin 摩怛哩神 ritual centered on the Seven Mothers(Skt. Śaptamātṛka, J. Shichimo 七母), the seven deities each hold a mallet,
and this attribute is explained by their role as epidemic deities. Anotherinteresting, albeit marginal and heterodox, aspect of the medieval cult of
Daikokuten is an oral tradition regarding the so-called tsubute 礫, a term
usually referring to “stone throwing.” In this case, however, the object
thrown does not seem to be a stone, and the throwing does not constituteany kind of Buddhist intifada; rather, the goal is to steal the wealth from arich house by throwing into it, at the hour of the rat (around midnight), atalisman in the form of a wish-fulfilling jewel dedicated to Daikokuten.

The vexing question of Daikokuten’s transformation from a bloodthirsty demon intoa jolly good fellow and a god of fortune has been studied by Iyanaga and others. It
is difficult to find any clear precedent for the popular image which Daikokuten
came to assume in the medieval period: if not his black, dwarf-like, pot-bellied
appearance, since the Tantric Mahākāla was sometimes represented as a stoutfellow, then at least his attire (consisting of a layman’s dress and a strange hat)and demeanor (carrying a big bag on his left shoulder and holding a mallet in hisright hand). Iyanaga has compared Daikokuten’s bag, a symbol of abundance, tothat of the Chan monk Budai (J. Hotei 布袋), better known as the Laughing
Buddha. The image of that trickster may indeed have influenced that of
Daikokuten, but the motif of the bag could just as well be a distant iconographic
echo of Mahākāla’s elephant skin. The bag has also been described as a symbolof the eighth consciousness (Skt. ālaya-vijñāna, J. arayashiki 阿頼耶識).

Saroj Kumar Chaudhuri, Hindu Gods and Goddesses in Japan
Vedams eBooks (P) Ltd., 2003, From Pages 70 and 71
In Japan, Mahākāla, somehow, acquired a sexual dimension also. The
backside in some ceramic idols of Mahākāla had the appearance of aphallus. Prostitutes kept these idols on altars in their homes. Again, the rightfist of some idols of Mahākāla, like that in the Hokkedō of the Tōdaiji
Temple of Nara, shows the thumb held between the index finger and themiddle finger. In Japan, this was treated as a symbolic representation of afemale reproductive organ. During the Muromachi period, there arose apopular custom of offering radishes with two roots to Mahākāla. The tworoot radish symbolically represented a naked woman with a smooth whitecomplexion. People believed that such an offering satisfied the deity, who,in turn, bestowed happiness as a reward. The famous artist, Katsushika
Hokuga (active 1804–1844), has left wood block prints of Mahākāla
showing a two-root radish on his head. Morisada Mankō of Kitagawa
Morisada, completed in 1853, says that Mahākāla is worshipped on the dayof Kōshi, the day of the rat, every month. Two-root radishes are offered inKyoto, Osaka and Edo, the present-day Tokyo. It may be mentioned herethat this custom of offering two-root radishes to the deity survives eventoday in the countryside of Yamagata Prefecture. It is called the Marriage ofMahākāla. [Schumacher here: Chaudhuri footnotes the above passage, citing
below Japanese text: Sasama Yoshihiko 笹間良彦, Daikokuten Shinkō to
Zokushin 大黒天信仰俗信, Yūzankaku 雄山閣, Tokyo, 1993, page 48.]