Gongen

A gongen (権現), literally "incarnation", was believed to be the manifestation of a buddha in the form of an indigenous kami, an entity who had come to guide the people to salvation, during the era of shinbutsu-shūgō in premodern Japan.

However, the term was created and started being used in the middle of the Heian period in an effort to harmonize Buddhism and indigenous religious practice in what is called shinbutsu-shūgō or "syncretism of kami and buddhas".

[2] The theory gradually spread around the country and the concept of gongen, a dual entity composed of a buddha and a kami, evolved.

Under the influence of Tendai Buddhism and Shugendō, the gongen concept was adapted to religious beliefs tied to Mount Iwaki, a volcano, so that female kami Kuniyasutamahime became associated with Avalokiteśvara ekadaśamukha (Jūichimen Kannon Bosatsu, "Eleven-Faced Guanyin"), Ōkuninushi with Bhaisajyaguru (Yakushi Nyōrai) and Kuninotokotachi with Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai).

[3] Because it represents the application of Buddhist terminology to native kami, the use of the term was legally abolished in the Meiji Restoration with the Shinto and Buddhism Separation Order (神仏判然令, Shin-butsu Hanzenrei) and shrines began to be called jinja.