狛犬

Japanese

Kanji in this term
狛 犬
こま
Hyōgai 		いぬ
Grade: 1
kun'yomi

Etymology

From 高麗(こま) (Koma, “Goguryeo; Korea”) + 犬(いぬ) (inu, “dog”).

Noun

狛(こま)犬(いぬ) • (komainu) 

  1. A lion-dog or shrine dog; a guardian statue seen in temples. Usually found in pairs, one on either side of an entryway, one with the mouth open to represent the syllable a or the start of things, and the other with the mouth closed to represent the syllable un or the end of things (similar to the phrase alpha and omega).

See also

References

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.