The etymology of kami

要旨

MANY authors w r it in g in English on Japanese re lig ion or cu ltu re have attem pted to explain the meaning of the word kam i 神 to readers in some d e ta il. The obvious reason fo r th is is tha t English transla tions such as "god " or "d e ity " are lik e ly to be m isleading unless supplemented by some such exp lanation. In the past i t was not unusual fo r such explanations to include in fo rm ation about the etymology of the word in the hope tha t th is would help readers understand how it came to have the meaning i t has. In the last few decades, how ever, e tym olog ica l explanations have become increasingly hard to find. This paper w ill sketch the reason fo r aban doning the most popular e tym olog ica l explanation and trace the pecu lia r path by which th is knowledge found its way in to Western scholarship. As D. C. Holtom (1940) has pointed out, by fa r the most w ide ly accepted etymoloav fo r "kam i " was tha t i t derived from the word kam i 上 ，meaning "above. " Consider the fo l low ing example, from a postwar book on Japanese re lig ion: Kami is a word w ith such a va rie ty of meanings tha t no accurate d e fin itio n o f i t can be given. The lite ra l trans la tion of the characte r by which i t is represented is "above, " and i t is generally used to imply supe rio rity (Bunce 1955, pp. 99-100). The w r ite r here has confused the issue by suggesting tha t the characte r 上 , which means "above, " is used to w rite the word kami meaning "god, " but in any event i t is reason I would lik e to thank my good fr ie n d Ito H iroko of Sagami 3oshi Daigaku fo r the tim e and tro u b le she took to loca te a copy of Yam amoto's book fo r me. This paper could not have been w r it te n w ith o u t her generous help. I would lik e to also note th a t trans la tions from Japanese sources in th is paper are a ll my own w ork.

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