When we speak of Onmyodo, two families play the main roles. One is the Abe clan of Abe-no-Seimei and the other is the Kamo clan of Kamo-no-Tadayuki, the teacher of Abe-no-Seimei. And there is another clan that we should not forget. That is the Hata clan. In ancient Japan, mainly the immigrants from the continent practiced Onmyodo which has its roots in Taoism. And among those immigrants, the family that held the largest power was the Hata clan.

In the narratives, the rival of Abe-no-Seimei named Ashiya-Doman frequently appears. And it is said that his real name was Hata-no-Doman. "Ashiya" meant the Ashiya-city located in Hyogo prefecture. He probably was born here or had some connection with the city. Onmyodo has been quite popular in the Harima region of Hyogo prefecture, producing many Onmyoji (masters of Onmyodo). The famous Abe-no-Seimei had also worked here once as a government official.

By the way, Onmyodo utilizes two markings called Doman Seman. Seman is a pentagram, and Doman a cross stripe of Nine Characters. It is obvious that Seman represents "Seimei" of Abe-no-Seimei and Doman representing "Doman" of Ashiya-Doman.

And here, I would like to draw your attention to "Doman". This mark is depicted with straight lines crossing vertically and horizontally expressing the Onmyodo spell of "Nine Characters". In other words, spells expressed in each of Nine Characters such as rin, hyo, tou, sha, kai, chin, retsu, zai, zen are cast vertically and then horizontally. We generally call this "casting of the Nine Characters".

Here, we are talking about the Onmyodo. If there is a front side, there's always a rear side. Not many are aware that there is a rear Doman based on the principle of Yin and Yang. In Onmyodo, odd numbers are regarded as Yang (front), and even numbers as Yin (rear). Since nine is an odd number, it is a Yang spell. To make it a Yin spell, we just add one to make it an even number. In other words, one added to nine is ten (juu in Japanese). After casting the nine characters, in the center of the cross design, we strike in the last one letter as if to seal it.

But such is just a formality. In reality, the rear Doman of Nine Characters, which consists of ten characters are cast depicting a large cross. We call it "juuji wo kiru", moving one's hand as if depicting the Chinese character expressing the number ten.

As you may already realized, such is similar with the way Christians make a cross in front of them at prayers. As a matter of fact, it is exactly the same. The reason being that the people who brought in this magic was nobody but the Hata clan who were Primitive Christian Jews. They were the masters of Jewish mysticism Kabbala, and Onmyodo can also be traced back to the same origins.

But the Hata clan sealed the magic of crossing as the rear spell based on the principle of Yin and Yang and only performed it at their secret rituals.

Translated by Rie Ishida