The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1314 page)

 
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(
Ashkenazi
pronunciation of Heb.
kasher
): see
DIETARY LAWS
.

 
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(Sino-Japanese pronunciation of the signs for ‘metal’ and ‘monkey’ in Chinese sexagesimal system of calendrical reckoning). A Japanese folk deity whose original impetus was Chinese folk belief (loosely, Taoist), but which by accretion has taken on both Shinto and Buddhist associations. The Chinese believed in three malevolent deities (literally ‘three worms’) who inhabit every human body, inflicting it with various ailments, and who on the nights of the six K
shin days each year would escape to heaven to report to the gods the moral transgressions of their hosts, thus shortening their lives. This idea was spread in Japan in the Heian period by wandering
Onmy
-ji
(‘
yin-yang
masters’). It was thought that by keeping awake on K
shin nights, the worms would be unable to escape to make their reports, hence the aristocratic custom of keeping K
shin vigils and whiling away the hours in poetry-writing, musical entertainments, and games.

 
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Kosh
gatsu
(lesser New Year)
:

see
FESTIVALS AND FASTS
, JAPANESE.

 
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