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Arahitogami (現人神) is a Japanese word, meaning a kami (or deity) who is a human being. It first appeared in the Nihon Shoki (c. 720) as the words of Yamato Takeru saying: "I am the son of an Arahitokami."[1]
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In 1946, at the request of the GHQ, the Shōwa Emperor (Hirohito) proclaimed in the Humanity Declaration that he had never been an akitsumikami (現御神), divinity in human form, and claimed his relation to the people did not rely on such a mythological idea but on a historically developed family-like reliance. However, the declaration excluded the word arahitogami.
In Shinto, it is normal that a superior person is to be revered as a God especially after they died, like Sugawara no Michizane or Tokugawa Ieyasu.
It is also linked to the Chinese concept of Worship of the living.
- ^ Nihon Shoki, Chapter 7