Mystical systems
Kami
Direct answer
Kami are the spirits or deities honoured in Japanese Shinto, a category wide enough to hold the sun, a mountain, a clan ancestor and the spirit of a remarkable person.
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At a glance
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- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Ancestor Veneration, Yōkai, Genius Loci, Nymph
Kami are the spirits or deities honoured in Japanese Shinto, a category wide enough to hold the sun, a mountain, a clan ancestor and the spirit of a remarkable person.
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What are kami in Shinto?
Kami is the Japanese word usually translated as god, deity or spirit, though none of these fits well. A kami may be a great figure of myth such as Amaterasu, the kami of the sun. It may equally be the presence felt in a waterfall, an old tree, a rock, a fox messenger's shrine, a family's ancestors or a person of unusual gifts honoured after death. The traditional phrase is eight million kami, meaning a number beyond counting.
Kami are not all-powerful or all-good. They have a gentle side and a rough side, and they respond to how they are treated. Worship is practical: a shrine gives the kami a seat, often in an object kept out of sight, and visitors wash, make an offering, bow and clap, and state their thanks or request.
On the tree of the hidden arts: The spirit realm.
What sets Kami apart
A kami is known by its place. Each is enshrined somewhere, and the same kami can be divided and installed in a new shrine without growing less, which is how Inari came to have tens of thousands of shrines. The presence is housed in an object called a shintai, kept wrapped and unseen, or in a mountain or tree itself. Purity matters more than belief: the visitor rinses hands and mouth before approaching.
- Earliest texts: Kojiki, 712, and Nihon Shoki, 720
- Phrase: yaoyorozu no kami, eight million kami, meaning countless
- Chief shrine: Ise, seat of the sun kami Amaterasu
- Classic definition: Motoori Norinaga, eighteenth century: whatever is awe-inspiring
- Two sides: nigimitama, the gentle spirit, and aramitama, the rough one
Often mistaken for something else: A buddha is an awakened being who has left the round of rebirth; a kami is a presence of this world, tied to a place, a clan or a craft.
The story behind Kami
The oldest written accounts of the kami are the Kojiki (712) and the Nihon Shoki (720), compiled for the imperial court. For most of Japanese history kami and buddhas were honoured together, until the state separated them in 1868. The scholar Motoori Norinaga, in the eighteenth century, gave the best known definition: a kami is anything out of the ordinary that inspires awe. The court scholar Sugawara no Michizane, who died in 903, is honoured as Tenjin, a kami of learning.
Why Kami matters
The word shows a view of spirits that Western terms split apart: gods, nature spirits and honoured dead held in a single category.
How to read Kami
In Japan it is an everyday religious word; students of religion keep it untranslated so as not to import the idea of a single creator God.
Kami in practice: an example
A student before examinations might visit a Tenjin shrine, write a wish on a wooden plaque and hang it with hundreds of others.
Where readings of Kami go wrong
Kami belong to a living religion, and shrine customs are acts of worship, not folklore to be sampled.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- kami meaning, shinto kami, what are kami, japanese kami, kami spirits, eight million kami
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What are kami in Shinto?
They are the spirits or deities Shinto honours. The term covers mythic gods, forces and features of nature, ancestors and some exceptional humans, all of whom are approached at shrines.
How many kami are there?
Tradition says eight million, yaoyorozu no kami, an old expression for a countless number. There is no fixed list, and new kami have been recognised throughout history.
Is a kami a god?
Sometimes, but the word is broader. Kami are not creators of everything or wholly good; many are local presences. For that reason scholars often leave the word untranslated.
