Rabbit Teth
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I don’t disagree with any of the above. Sojobo is a big influence on Japanese culture and clearly influenced the design of many of the characters and techniques.
Interestingly Sasuke’s new technique is a power attributed to the Tengu, the magic of moving instantaneously from place to place without using their wings, which also goes along with his other power, Genjutsu, which is the Tengu’s magic to appear uninvited in the dreams of the living.
But, and it’s a big BUT … This statue:
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is not Sojobo.
That statue is Karura, or Garuda to give him his original name, who is the template upon whom the Tengu are based – Garuda dates back thousands of years (3-4), Sojobo hundreds. The orb in that Statue’s lap is the Nyoi Hōju – which I go into briefly above and has no equivalent in legends of Sojobo to my knowledge.
The Legend of Garuda ties in directly with the story of Hagoromo. Garuda’s mother, Vinata (Kaguya) had two children, Aruna (Hamura) and Garuda (Hagoromo).
Vinata is a princess and the second wife of a character called Kashyapa (no equivalent yet – and maybe there won’t be though he’d be Hagoromo’s father). Kashyapa’s first wife is Kadru, who has 1000 children by Kashyapa – who are the snakes. Vinata agrees to marry Kashyapa on the condition that she only have two children but that they are more powerful than any of Kadru’s. When Vinata gives birth she has to wait for her eggs to hatch during which time the snakes rule the world. Vinata grows impatient at waiting and so breaks open one of the eggs (Aruna). Aruna curses his mother to serve the snakes as retribution.
Garuda attempts to free his mother by striking a deal with the snakes. They agree to release Vinata if Garuda will bring them the Elixir of Life - called Amrita (sort of equivalent to Ambrosia – the source of the power of the gods). This will grant them immortality…kind of like what Orochimaru has always sought –
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I think this is the Amrita, the fruit:
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also note that like Vinata, Kaguya is a princess.
Garuda defeats all of the gods in his struggle to fetch Amrita, but on the way back to delivering it to the snakes, the god of the sky approaches Garuda and asks him not to. Garuda agrees but he knows he needs to release his mother from the control of the snakes. Garuda therefore delivers the Amrita to the snakes but tells them that they must perform a ritual before eating the Amrita. The god of the sky, Indra, then swoops in and steals the fruit back from the snakes but not before they’d licked the Amrita. This burnt through their tongues giving them the forked tongue and gave them an incomplete immortality that led them to shed their skins:
I think that this legend has been adapted to the Naruto world loosely. Kaguya has somehow fallen under the control of the snakes and is inadvertently helping them get the fruit of the Shinju (Amrita). She might be doing this because of a curse from Aruna (Hamura) or because she has been bitten by a snake and has its venom (cursed seal) inside her. I am as yet unclear on how BZ ties into this as he could be Hamura, he could be Naga’s venom or he could be Kadru. If Hagoromo is Garuda then he will be the one to free his mother.
I think that Hagoromo’s power will take the form of a giant bird of prey that burns like the sun. This has been foreshadowed in a couple of areas in the Manga. I note Karura as the mother of Gaara who while she is not related to Hagoromo, the use of Garuda’s Japanese name foreshadows the Garuda legend just as Kurama, the Kyuubi, has nothing to do with the legend of Sojobo except its name. The giant burning bird of prey has been foreshadowed in a couple of appearances.
The first is in Deidara’s explosions. His C Zero technique is one step up from his C4 Garuda technique which takes the form of a giant explosion that has a snow angel outline but is in fact a giant flaming bird:
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Interestingly Deidara is first recruited in a temple to Karura. You can tell that the temple belongs to Karura because of the fiery halo’s on the statues that stand along the walls. These fiery halo's are known as Karura Enkō:
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Note also the Sun Halo’s on Naruto’s parents
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NB2 the CO, Garuda, is what cleanses Deidara of the venom inside him which looks a lot like BZ:
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The second clue is in the appearance of Neji on the front cover of volume 64 where Neji’s flame cloak takes on the appearance of a phoenix. I think that this is instead supposed to represent Garuda / Hagoromo:
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I doubt whether we’ll ever get to see the full Garuda form until Orochimaru pulls out his Dragon Sage Mode. If / When Naga shows himself (assuming Orochimaru is the fake identity assumed by Oro to fit into the Leaf) then I think the only thing to match him is Hagoromo’s feather mantle (Hagoromo means feather mantle) which is a combination of the hawk:
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and the blazing sun:
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…working together
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to remake the power of this:
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The chief deity of the Fire Nation in the Fire Temple.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I think that before any of that happens we’ll need to see what happened in the fight between Hagoromo, Hamura and Kaguya.
If I’m right about Hagoromo being the Garuda then I think that under the feet of Hagoromo and Hamura, just out of shot, stand Gamamaru and the White Snake Sage wearing helmets (Kabuto) tied with Shinobi-no-o (the bands):
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No worries, and thanks for the unthanks, I wouldn't want to confuse the two.
These aren't Rinnegan either:
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but they show people under the influence of a Rinnegan user. In the same way I think the Hawk was working for Hagoromo. Those extra circles on the Hawk's eyes are not an accidental slip of the wrist on the part of the artist.
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_@:
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