Genbu

玄武

げんぶ

TRANSLATION: dark warrior

ALTERNATE NAMES: genten jōtei (dark emperor of the heavens), showan’ū

HABITAT: the northern sky

APPEARANCE: Genbu is a large tortoise or turtle combined with a snake. Sometimes he is

represented as two creatures—a snake wrapped around a tortoise—and sometimes he is
represented as a single creature—a tortoise-snake chimera. His home is in the northern sky.
He spans seven of the twenty-eight Chinese constellations, taking up one quarter of the entire
sky. The constellation which makes up the snake’s neck is located in Sagittarius. The
constellations which makes up the tortoise’s shell are located in Capricornus, Aquarius, and
Pegasus. The constellations which make up the snake’s tail are located in Pegasus and
Andromeda.

INTERACTIONS: Genbu is one of the shijin, or Four Symbols, which are important mythological
figures in Taoism. Genbu is the guardian of the north. He is associated with the Chinese
element of water, the season of winter, the planet Mercury, and the colour black. He
represents the virtue of knowledge. He controls the cold. He is enshrined in the Genbu Shrine,
north of Kyoto’s Imperial Palace.

ORIGIN: Genbu is named differently than the other shijin; rather than directly describing a
colour and animal, i.e. Black Tortoise, his name is written as gen, meaning dark, occult, or
mysterious, and bu, meaning warrior. The word tortoise is not used for his name, because it
was also used as a slur in China. So this euphemistic name was used to refer to the Black
Tortoise. His name comes from Chinese mythology, where it is with the Taoist god Xuan Wu
(the Chinese pronunciation of Genbu). Xuan Wu was a prince who lived in prehistoric northern
China. He lived in the mountains, far from civilization, where he studied Taoism as an ascetic.
He learned that to achieve full divinity, he would have to purge both his mind and body of all
impurities. While his mind had become enlightened, he still had to eat earthly food, and so sin
remained in his stomach and his intestines. So he cut them out and washed them in a river to
purify them. When he did this, his stomach turned into a large demon tortoise and his
intestines into a demon snake. The demons began to terrorize the countryside. Xuan Wu
subdued them, and instead of destroying them he allowed them to atone for their sins by
serving him. They became his generals: a snake and a tortoise. It is these two generals which
became Xuan Wu’s—and Genbu’s—symbols.

Genbu is associated with yin energy—the forces of darkness and shadow—and in ancient
China was worshipped as a god of the moon (another strong yin force) in addition to being the
god of the north. Because the shell of a tortoise is like a suit of armor, Genbu is also viewed as
a warrior deity. The tortoise shell is a symbol of heaven and earth, with the flat part of the
lower shell representing the world and the dome of the upper shell representing the heavens.
As tortoise shells were a popular tool in divination, Genbu was also viewed as having
soothsaying powers and the ability to travel between the lands of the living and the dead. The
tortoise is a symbol of longevity and immortality, while the snake is a symbol of reproduction
and multiplication. It was believed that all tortoises were female and had to mate with a snake
to reproduce. The intertwining of the two was a symbol not only of long life and fertility, but
also of the balance of yin and yang.

In later centuries, as belief in onmyōdō waned, the Four Symbols were gradually replaced by
the Four Heavenly Kings of Buddhism. Genbu and his symbols were largly absorbed and
supplanted by the Buddhist king Tamonten.

In Japan, Bishamonten (毘沙門天), or just Bishamon (毘沙門) is thought of as an armor-clad

god of war or warriors and a punisher of evildoers. Bishamon is portrayed holding a spear in
one hand and a small pagoda in the other hand, the latter symbolizing the divine treasure
house, whose contents he both guards and gives away. In Japanese folklore, he is one of the
Seven Lucky Gods.

Bishamon is also called Tamonten (多聞天 lit. "listening to many teachings") because he is
seen as the guardian of the places where the Buddha preaches. He is believed to live halfway
down Mount Sumeru. He is also associated with Hachiman. Especially in the Shingon tradition
that gives some place and worth to this hybrid character of Bishamon although most
Mahayana temples have Bishamon and his counterpart as guardians at the entrace gate.