Kangiten　歓喜天

KEY WORD :　art history / iconography

Also read Kankiten. Also Shouten/Shouden 聖天. Abbreviation of Daishou kangiten 大聖歓喜天. The elephant-headed Indian deity Ganesa, who is also sometimes called Nandikesvara, Ganapat or Vinayaka. A son of Siva still worshipped as a deity who foils obstacles to ones actions and grants good fortune to new beginnings. He appears in the *Ryoukai mandara 両界曼荼羅 as an elephant-headed deity called Binayakaten 毘那夜迦天. In China and Japan he came to be revered under the the name of Kangiten. Although in texts, two, four and six-armed forms are mentioned, in Japan Kangiten is usually shown as a pair of two-armed, elephant-headed deities in embrace. Images of Kangiten are rare and many are kept as secret images in temples and shrines. Many are small, and made of metal because his ritual involves pouring oil over the images. The ritual associated with Kangiten was secret and was part of other ritual observances, such as the goshichinichi no mishuhou 後七日の御修法. In popular worship he signifies conjugal harmony and long life. There is an iconographic drawing of Kangiten in Touji 東寺, Kyoto, by Chinkai 珍海 (1091-1152).

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