Hachiman

Hachiman East Asia
The Shinto war god, a popular deity in Japan. While the favourite of soldiers, Hachiman is also worshipped as a protector of life, especially children, as god of agriculture, and as guardian deity of the archipelago. In 783 he was styled a boddhisattva, a Buddha-to-be, and identified with the eightfold path of Buddhist morality. At this period the indigenous Shinto faith was nearly absorbed by the imported Butsudo, ‘the way of the Buddha’. It was known as Ryobu, ‘the twofold way of the gods’.