Abstract
This article explores the Japanese zokushōsai ritual, tracing its Chinese origins and historical development. Zokushō, which means assigned star, refers to the correspondence between an individual’s birth year and one of the seven stars in the Big Dipper. Although its Chinese origins are acknowledged, this study argues that the tradition in China was a complex of beliefs and practices built from several historical layers, including early concepts from apocryphal texts, popular ritual in Dunhuang manuscripts, institutionalized Daoist liturgies, and apocryphal sutras shaped by Buddhist and Daoist interactions. This article uses a layered approach to show how different elements of the Chinese tradition were selectively transmitted to Japan and then transformed within the contexts of Onmyōdō and Sukuyōdō. The zokushōsai ritual performed in Japan is not a simple reception, but a process of local adaptation, shaped by both its Chinese roots and specific Japanese religious factors.
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
National Institutional Structures, Transaction Cost Economizing and Competitive Advantage: The Case of Japan
Japan’s economic success since World War II has been striking. Modern Japan was the first major industrial economy to emerge from outside the Western tradition. Economically dev...
Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications
Introducing Translation Studies remains the definitive guide to the theories and concepts that make up the field of translation studies. Providing an accessible and up-to-date o...
Technological Pioneering and Competitive Advantage: The Birth of the VCR Industry
This article examines a significant example of technological pioneering-the development of an emerging technology in pursuit of future comercial opportunity. In this case, the p...
Social Network Analysis
This paper reports on the development of social network analysis, tracing its origins in classical sociology and its more recent formulation in social scientific and mathematica...
Social Network Analysis
This paper reports on the development of social network analysis, tracing its origins in classical sociology and its more recent formulation in social scientific and mathematica...
Publication Info
- Year
- 2025
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1555-1555
- Citations
- 0
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
0
OpenAlex
Cite This
Chenxue Liang
(2025).
The Zokushōsai Ritual: Chinese Origins and Its Development in Japanese Onmyōdō Practices.
Religions
, 16
(12)
, 1555-1555.
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16121555
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.3390/rel16121555