In modern French, fox is renard, and the novel is Roman de Renard, where the main character, Renard was a goupil (ancient French word for fox). Tales of Reynard is a Medieval French book telling the adventures of Reynard. The motif of the fox wife wa salso found in Chinese and Japaneseįolklore and accross the Berling Strait among the Eskimos in North tales are found in all countries of Europe, including The fox motif in stories of Reynard and the fables of Aesop haveĪppeared frequently in European paintings and architecture since theġ3th. Here is from the Cult of the Fox by Xiaofei Kang (p234, note 13): Now regarding the Kitsune/ Huli jing( princess Daji). Here is the Japanese Dakini-ten riding her legendary fox (I pick this one because it is a gorgeous one, notice the small rice sheaf in her hand) (Note also it exists a male version of Dakini-ten, carrying a sword/weapon instead of a sheaf of rice): So the local deity Inari is identified by the Buddhist Indian Dakini to some extend. The blur with mysterious Dakini is quite obvious (Hence why be wary of my claim about one version specifically of the Dakini, or to compare too much the Inari and Dakini, or even Dakini and Dakini-Ten). The Inari also has the particularity to not be well defined, especially if (s)he is male or female. Note also that the Inari appears to be from an old local Japanese tradition, it later been related to fox (around the 12th century) before joining more or then with the Dakini. Jackal being unknown in China and Japan, they translated by another small canine fox. LOTS of (including sex, appeance, attributes, malvolence). Note that the Dakini is present in numerous Indian stories with lots of variants. The text is well known in Japan (as Mahavairocana sutra). It appears in the Mahavairocana Tantra and he (the Dakini) is overwhelmed by Mahavairocana Buddha and (s)he rides a jackal. The Dakini is a Tantric Buddhist monster. Original of Japan’s own Inari, a god of rice cultivation often Interpretatio nipponica to see in the supernatural fox-dakini the

Ioromana in the world of late antiquity). Tantric Buddhism with native deities (rather like the interpret at In medieval Japan, it becameĬustomary to identify figures from the complex Indian pantheon of As we have noted, the Chinese linking of the voraciousĪnd ill-omened dakini-demonesses with the fox was based on their Tantric sources, identified since at least the eighth century with theįox-phantom. Japanese possession-rites is named is, of course, the dakini of older The “ Dakini” or “Dagini” for which this complex of modern Here is an extract of Chinese Magical Medicine by Michel Strickmann implying the direct connection between the Inari and the Dakini (p.

Real 9 tailed fox