Which god does 神様 actually refer to?


I have the impression that if a Japanese uses the term 神様, they refer to an
omnipotent deity very similar to the Abrahamic god. According to my (very
limited) knowledge of Shinto and Buddhism, there is no such equivalent in
these beliefs, correct me if I'm wrong! So I was wondering if that term or the
connection of the term with the concept emerged with Japan getting in contact
with Christianity or if it has a different origin?




# Term meaning

### In general

Any meaning that refers to any singular omnipotent being is likely from
Christianity. Japanese culture has been, so far as we can tell, polytheistic,
syncretic, and animistic for the entirety of the historical record, and for as
much of prehistory as we can reconstruct from archaeology and other sources.
*** Anything*** can have a _kami_ , as the inherent force or "that-ness" of
the thing. As a consequence of this idea, _kami_ are generally not regarded as
omnipotent.

### Not just one

Even with regard to Christianity, from every Japanese person I've talked to
about this, the general attitude is **not** "the Christian God is the one and
only, and I forsake all belief in any other god or spiritual force", but
rather, "okay, I'll cover my bases in case Christianity turns out to be right,
and try praying to this Christian god _as well_."

_(This may explain why the Mormons seem to make such headway in Japan when
kids on their mission report so many converts. Once the[annual
tithe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithing_settlement) rolls around, a lot
of these new Mormons apparently decide it's a bit too expensive, perhaps
especially so when compared to the handfuls of loose change that seem to
suffice for the local Shinto shrines.)_

This "both / and" idea, rather than the "either / or" dichotomy imposed by the
Abrahamic religions, is a large part of the modern Japanese approach to
religion in the culture at large. After birth, one is blessed at a Shinto
shrine. Later, one gets married in a Christian church. And at death, one has a
service and a memorial at a Buddhist temple. It's quite practical, in its way.

# Term origins

### The pieces

The Japanese term 神様【かみさま】 consists of two parts: 1) 神【かみ】, referring to a
"god" or "deity" or even "spirit" in certain contexts, and 2) 様【さま】, an
honorific suffix. Both terms have long histories in the Japanese language,
with roots tracing back to the very first long-form Japanese texts from the
700s.

### The whole

~~Digging around in the University of Virginia's online corpus of Japanese
works,[a search for the term 神様](http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-
japanese?specfile=%2Fweb%2Fdata%2Fjapanese%2Fsearch%2Fjapanese.o2w&lang=en&query=%BF%C0%CD%CD&relate=near&amt=40&query2=&docs=TEI2&auth=&title=&sample=1-100&grouping=work)
finds hits in [_The Tale of
Genji_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Genji) from the early 1000s,
often considered to be one of the world's first novels.~~

~~⇒ Given that this first quoted use (that I can find in a quick search; older
ones might be out there) pre-dates any Christian influence on Japanese culture
by roughly 500+ years, we can say pretty definitively that this term 神様【かみさま】
was not coined in response to Christianity.~~

**⇑** As Aeon Akechi noted in the comments, I failed to notice that the
_Genji_ hits at the UVA site were for a modernized version. Searching through
the digitized-but-otherwise-mostly-unaltered text [available at
Wikisource](https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%BA%90%E6%B0%8F%E7%89%A9%E8%AA%9E)
revealed no instances of 神様【かみさま】 or various alternative spellings.

After further research into the specific sense development of 様【さま】, I found
that the honorific usage was an extension of an older meaning of "facing,
direction", used later as a polite form of indirection to indicate a person,
and from that we got the honorific suffix usage appearing in the 1300s. This
gradually replaced older 殿【どの】, in turn from regular noun _tono_ "lord", which
sense grew from earlier "estate, mansion" to indicate the person living in
such a grand house. This kind of polite indirection gradually shifting to
honorific or even pronoun usage is quite common through Japanese history; for
that matter, the common term _anata_ as a basic-politeness term for "you"
originally meant "that thing or person in that direction way over there".

In the oldest texts, the common honorific for _kami_ wasn't a suffix, but
rather the prefix 御【み】, and we can find lots of ancient examples of
combinations like 御神【みかみ】 and 大御神【おおみかみ】. However, we don't find any instances
of 神殿【かみどの】 where the 殿【どの】 is an honorific -- instead, the _dono_ here still
has the "mansion" meaning, and _kamidono_ is a rare and now-archaic reading
for modern term 神殿【しんでん】, which refers to a shrine.

I can't get a solid date on the first appearance of 神様【かみさま】. I've gone
through what I think are all of the digitally-searchable texts categorized as
"middle ages" (中世, roughly 1100 up through 1600) over at [the Japanese
Wikisource](https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/%E3%82%AB%E3%83%86%E3%82%B4%E3%83%AA:%E4%B8%AD%E4%B8%96_\(%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC\)),
and found no instances of any spelling of 神様【かみさま】, even unlikely alternative
spellings (神様・神状・神方・神さま・神ざま・かみさま・かみざま).

### Tentative (revised) conclusion on the origin of 神様【かみさま】

Considering the following:

  1. 神様【かみさま】 doesn't appear in any of the "middle ages" Japanese works that I've searched
  2. the existing 御神【みかみ】 honorific reference to _kami_ may have been regarded as archaic, and/or too specific to local belief and likely viewed as "heathen" by the Portuguese
  3. 様【さま】 was likely in common use as an honorific suffix around the time that the Portuguese were actively translating Christian texts into Japanese

... it certainly seems within the realm of possibility that the specific
construction 神様【かみさま】 was coined in relation to Christianity. However, I
cannot find anything conclusive at this point.

_Note:_ In modern usage, as pointed out in the comments earlier, this term can
refer to any god or gods, big or small, of whatever tradition.

* * *

Please comment if the above does not address your question.




# Term meaning

### In general

Any meaning that refers to any singular omnipotent being is likely from
Christianity. Japanese culture has been, so far as we can tell, polytheistic,
syncretic, and animistic for the entirety of the historical record, and for as
much of prehistory as we can reconstruct from archaeology and other sources.
*** Anything*** can have a _kami_ , as the inherent force or "that-ness" of
the thing. As a consequence of this idea, _kami_ are generally not regarded as
omnipotent.

### Not just one

Even with regard to Christianity, from every Japanese person I've talked to
about this, the general attitude is **not** "the Christian God is the one and
only, and I forsake all belief in any other god or spiritual force", but
rather, "okay, I'll cover my bases in case Christianity turns out to be right,
and try praying to this Christian god _as well_."

_(This may explain why the Mormons seem to make such headway in Japan when
kids on their mission report so many converts. Once the[annual
tithe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithing_settlement) rolls around, a lot
of these new Mormons apparently decide it's a bit too expensive, perhaps
especially so when compared to the handfuls of loose change that seem to
suffice for the local Shinto shrines.)_

This "both / and" idea, rather than the "either / or" dichotomy imposed by the
Abrahamic religions, is a large part of the modern Japanese approach to
religion in the culture at large. After birth, one is blessed at a Shinto
shrine. Later, one gets married in a Christian church. And at death, one has a
service and a memorial at a Buddhist temple. It's quite practical, in its way.

# Term origins

### The pieces

The Japanese term 神様【かみさま】 consists of two parts: 1) 神【かみ】, referring to a
"god" or "deity" or even "spirit" in certain contexts, and 2) 様【さま】, an
honorific suffix. Both terms have long histories in the Japanese language,
with roots tracing back to the very first long-form Japanese texts from the
700s.

### The whole

~~Digging around in the University of Virginia's online corpus of Japanese
works,[a search for the term 神様](http://jti.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-
japanese?specfile=%2Fweb%2Fdata%2Fjapanese%2Fsearch%2Fjapanese.o2w&lang=en&query=%BF%C0%CD%CD&relate=near&amt=40&query2=&docs=TEI2&auth=&title=&sample=1-100&grouping=work)
finds hits in [_The Tale of
Genji_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Genji) from the early 1000s,
often considered to be one of the world's first novels.~~

~~⇒ Given that this first quoted use (that I can find in a quick search; older
ones might be out there) pre-dates any Christian influence on Japanese culture
by roughly 500+ years, we can say pretty definitively that this term 神様【かみさま】
was not coined in response to Christianity.~~

**⇑** As Aeon Akechi noted in the comments, I failed to notice that the
_Genji_ hits at the UVA site were for a modernized version. Searching through
the digitized-but-otherwise-mostly-unaltered text [available at
Wikisource](https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%BA%90%E6%B0%8F%E7%89%A9%E8%AA%9E)
revealed no instances of 神様【かみさま】 or various alternative spellings.

After further research into the specific sense development of 様【さま】, I found
that the honorific usage was an extension of an older meaning of "facing,
direction", used later as a polite form of indirection to indicate a person,
and from that we got the honorific suffix usage appearing in the 1300s. This
gradually replaced older 殿【どの】, in turn from regular noun _tono_ "lord", which
sense grew from earlier "estate, mansion" to indicate the person living in
such a grand house. This kind of polite indirection gradually shifting to
honorific or even pronoun usage is quite common through Japanese history; for
that matter, the common term _anata_ as a basic-politeness term for "you"
originally meant "that thing or person in that direction way over there".

In the oldest texts, the common honorific for _kami_ wasn't a suffix, but
rather the prefix 御【み】, and we can find lots of ancient examples of
combinations like 御神【みかみ】 and 大御神【おおみかみ】. However, we don't find any instances
of 神殿【かみどの】 where the 殿【どの】 is an honorific -- instead, the _dono_ here still
has the "mansion" meaning, and _kamidono_ is a rare and now-archaic reading
for modern term 神殿【しんでん】, which refers to a shrine.

I can't get a solid date on the first appearance of 神様【かみさま】. I've gone
through what I think are all of the digitally-searchable texts categorized as
"middle ages" (中世, roughly 1100 up through 1600) over at [the Japanese
Wikisource](https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/%E3%82%AB%E3%83%86%E3%82%B4%E3%83%AA:%E4%B8%AD%E4%B8%96_\(%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC\)),
and found no instances of any spelling of 神様【かみさま】, even unlikely alternative
spellings (神様・神状・神方・神さま・神ざま・かみさま・かみざま).

### Tentative (revised) conclusion on the origin of 神様【かみさま】

Considering the following:

  1. 神様【かみさま】 doesn't appear in any of the "middle ages" Japanese works that I've searched
  2. the existing 御神【みかみ】 honorific reference to _kami_ may have been regarded as archaic, and/or too specific to local belief and likely viewed as "heathen" by the Portuguese
  3. 様【さま】 was likely in common use as an honorific suffix around the time that the Portuguese were actively translating Christian texts into Japanese

... it certainly seems within the realm of possibility that the specific
construction 神様【かみさま】 was coined in relation to Christianity. However, I
cannot find anything conclusive at this point.

_Note:_ In modern usage, as pointed out in the comments earlier, this term can
refer to any god or gods, big or small, of whatever tradition.

* * *

Please comment if the above does not address your question.

