The conceptions of the common people in regard to deity are chaotic. They believe in local spirits who are to be worshiped; some of these are of human origin, and some antedate all human life. The gods of the Shinto pantheon are "yaoyorodzu" in number, eight thousand myriads; yet in their "norito," or prayer rituals, reference is made not only to the "yaoyorodzu" who live in the air, but also to the "yaoyorodzu" who live on earth, and even to the "yaoyorodzu" who live beneath the earth. If we add these together there must be at least twenty-four thousand myriads of gods. These of course include sun, moon, stars, and all the forces of nature, as well as the spirits of men. Popular Buddhism accepts the gods of Shinto and brings in many more, worshiping not only the Buddha and his immediate "rakan," disciples, five hundred in number, but numberless abstractions of ideal qualities, such as the varieties of Kwannon (Avelokitesvara, gods and goddesses of mercy), Amida (Amitabha, the ideal of boundless light), Jizo (Kshitigarbha, the helper of those in trouble, lost children, and pregnant women), Emma O (Yama-raja, ruler of Buddhist hells), Fudo (Achala, the "immovable," "unchangeable"), and many others. Popular Buddhism also worships every man dead or living who has become a "hotoke," that is, has attained Buddhahood and has entered Nirvana. The gods of Japan are innumerable in theory and multitudinous in practice. Not only are there gods of goodness but also gods of lust and of evil, to whom robbers and harlots may pray for success and blessing. In the Japanese pantheon there is no supreme god, such, for instance, as the Roman Jupiter, or the Greek Chronos, nor is there a thoroughgoing divine hierarchy. According to the common view (although there is no definite thought about it), the idea seems to be that the universe with its laws and nature were already existent before the gods appeared on the scene; they created specific places, such as Japan, out of already existing material. Neither in Shinto nor in popular Buddhism is the conception formed of a primal fount of all being with its nature and laws. In this respect Japanese thought is like all primitive religious thought. There is no word in the Japanese language corresponding to the English term "God." The nearest approach to it are the Confucian terms "Jo-tei," "Supreme Emperor," "Ten," "Heaven," and "Ten-tei," "Heavenly Emperor"; but all of these terms are Chinese, they are therefore of late appearance in Japan, and represent rather conceptions of educated and Confucian classes than the ideas of the masses. These terms approach closely to the idea of monotheism; but though the doctrine may be discovered lying implicit in these words and ideas it was never developed. Whether "Heaven" was to be conceived as a person, or merely as fate, was not clearly thought out; some expressions point in one direction while others point in the other.