Quote:
Originally Posted by mugen2008
Nyororin,
Sorry to contradict you but I just quoted the Japanese dictionary. It's not a special dictionary about mountain words or anything, it's a standard Japanese dictionary. I use the 大辞泉 (editor is 小学館) if you want to check by yourself. Here is what it says :
- for the fact that Yama refers to forest :
"日本では古来、草木が生い茂り、
さまざまな恵みをもたらす場所としてとらえる。"
- for the fact that it refer to a place "where gods live and were you go to train and put your faith to the test”, here is the next phrase in the dictionary :
"また古くは神が住む神聖な地域として、
信仰の対象や修行の場とされた"
You don't even have to go to the librairy to confirm it, the 大辞泉 dictionary is available online on Yahoo web site. Here is the page about 山 :
Yahoo!辞書 - やま【山】 |
None of that contradicts what I said. "古くは神が住む神聖な地域として、
信仰の対象や修行の場とされた" isn`t saying that is what the word MEANS. It isn`t a definition - it`s telling
about mountains. Saying they were in the past thought of as locations where the gods lived and were used as places for spiritual training. I don`t have any issue with what you are saying other than saying that the WORD means that. Which is basically what I said above - that may have been done at the location, but it isn`t what the word itself means.
So, yes, mountains were thought of as locations where gods lived and many were used in a spiritual way. But "YAMA" doesn`t/didn`t mean that any more than "DESERT" means the same in English, despite having been used in the past as a location for spiritual training.