Category:Tengu

Articles relating to the tengu, a type of legendary creature found in Japanese folk religion. They are considered a type of yōkai (supernatural beings) or Shinto kami (gods). Although they take their name from a dog-like Chinese demon (Tiangou), the tengu were originally thought to take the forms of birds of prey, and they are traditionally depicted with both human and avian characteristics. The earliest tengu were pictured with beaks, but this feature has often been humanized as an unnaturally long nose, which today is widely considered the tengu's defining characteristic in the popular imagination. They are also thought to have been influenced by the Garuda (Sanskrit: गरुड़ Garuḍa; Pāli: गरुळ Garuḷa); a legendary bird or bird-like creature in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain mythology, and by Sarutahiko Ōkami, a native Shinto deity. Tengu were known to possess a lot of knowledge, depicted often as evil. There were two kind of tengu, the Kotengu, and the Daitengu, these two Tengu were on a small hierarchy, with the Kotengu at the bottom and Daitengu at the top.