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Talk:Celestial

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Should 'Celestial' not be 'Deva?'

A talk I recently found on Danbooru mentioning this drove me to do deeper research, and I found that Tenshi's kind has a lot in common with the Buddhist Deva's. Points include Deva's being ascended humans, being ultimately still mortal and subject to reincarnation, the five signs of death Tenshi mentions in Komachi's SWR scenario among many others. --Keroko 16:00, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

There's merit for it, but we also have the "Four Devas of the Mountain" group of oni running around. A similar interpretation would be awkward. Furien 23:46, April 28, 2010 (UTC)
That's true, but this might be a good thing as well. It gives an extra story-edge to Suika's interest in heaven. For the oni it's only a title after all. Still, if general consensus says no I won't make a fuss out of this, but could we then at least make note of it in the relevant fun facts? There's a lot of mythology we're simply ignoring here. --Keroko 04:20, April 29, 2010 (UTC)
Edit: Further digging led me to these two links. One regarding Deva, the other regarding Tennin. *scratches head* Looks like ZUN did the usual mixing up of mythology here, mixing the Tennin with Deva origins. I think I'll change my stance and suggest we add the Deva references where they apply. Is this all right? --Keroko 09:47, April 29, 2010 (UTC)
I do strongly agree for "Deva". Fundamentally, "Celestial" is an overly literal translation that removes all of the above lore context. Furthermore, Youmu's PCB Spell Card "Five Signs of the Dying Deva" uses 天人 in the original name, which leads me to believe 天人 is the word ZUN uses for them. As for the Four Devas of the Mountain, they're called 四天王 in Japanese and not strictly Deva. Plus they have been renamed in English since.

KurobinaYuki (talk) 17:40, 11 May 2020 (UTC)