Miruku, the Bringer of the World of Plenty

Ryukyuan · deity · Ryukyuan traditional religion; continuing · deity

Miruku is the Ryukyuan god of the world of plenty. The name is the Okinawan form of Miroku, the bodhisattva Maitreya, but in the islands the figure has become a folk deity of harvest and good fortune who comes to the villages from across the sea, from the otherworld Nirai Kanai. In festival processions — most famously the Mushāma festival of Hateruma and the harvest festivals of the Yaeyama islands, where the mask tradition is said to have spread from Tonoshiro on Ishigaki — a villager embodies the god in a large white smiling mask derived from the Chinese pot-bellied monk Budai, a long yellow robe, and a fan, leading children and dancers and beckoning in the miruku-yū, the age of peace and abundant harvests celebrated in songs such as the Miruku-bushi. The deity is generally represented as male through the Budai mask, though some island traditions regard Miruku as female.

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