Question about the Twelve Gods (like the ones seen in Yami no Matsuei and Shounen Onmyoji)?

[Queenie7003]

What are their names? What do their names mean? What form do they take? What are their powers/what do they rule over? I've been confused mainly about two (the form of Rikugo and the Japanese name of one referred to only as "Red Sparrow" in YnM) and might as well learn about and double check all of them (can't find a lot online...). And I don't mean the ones actually in the anime. I mean the ones in Japanese mythology and such. Or, I'm assuming they're in Japanese mythology somewhere... I mean, they're used over and over again in various anime, so they have to come from somewhere...Thanks!

[Dreamgazer]

Man...you sure asked a tough question to answer (cause of the relative depth and my personal interest in them >.>).First of all, the twelve "gods" are referring to the twelve shikigamis of Abe no Seimei, the legendary onmyouji. Technically, they are not considered to be gods, as shikigamis are just onis who take on the relative form/power of known religious deities (usually buddhism, similar to the way greek/roman mythology was intermixed.) They are commonly confused as gods, since they are sometimes referred by the same names as the twelve yashas gods who protect the medicine buddha (a.k.a å��二神将,Juuni Shinshou, "The Twelve God Generals" or "The Twelve Heavenly Generals".) It gets further confusing, since their official title å��二天将, is also translated as "The Twelve Heavenly Generals" in English.Anyway, despite their known legend as "summoned" beasts, they were originally used as Chinese fortune telling elements. Each representing a unit of the 12 chinese counting units (with alternating yang/ying element), 12 Time units (every 2 hour), 5 elements( Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, Ground), 4 Seasons, and 12 directions.Their relative names are (I'm doing this by memory so...):Touda, front position first god of fire.represents summer, southeast and misfortune.Form: Snake.Suzaku, front position second god of firerepresents summer, southeast and misfortune.Form: Red SparrowRikugo, front position third god of woodrepresent spring, east and fortune.Form: ...there's not really a form. Rikugo (å…*å�ˆ) is to mean the combined form of the heaven, earth, north, east, west, south, a.k.a "world" in middle Chinese.Kouchin, front position fourth god of Earthrepresent Doyou (hottest period in the summer), Southeast and Misfortune.Form: Again...hard to say. Kouchin is conceptually taken from the Chinese mythology of the central/earth dragon or Quilin which represents emperor or the ruling god over the other 4.Seiryu, front position fifth god of Wood.represents: spring, northeast, fortune.Form: Blue dragon, usually a water dragon.Kijin, Heavenly position first god of Earthrepresents: doyou, northeast, fortune.Form: None. It doesn't really take on a form, but it's rather similar to the astro sign aquarius, to represent something that is flexible, and mainly "fortune changing"I'll complete the rest tomorrow...>.>