Kai

views updated May 14 2018

Kai

King Arthur 's seneschal, known of in the French romances as Messire Queux, or Maitre Queux or Kuex. He is prominent in Malory's Le Morte d' Arthur. In the tale of Kilhwch and Olwen in the Mabinogion, he is identified as a person whose "breath lasted nine nights and days under water" and who "could exist nine nights and nine days without sleep." A wound from his sword could not be cured; he could make himself as tall as the highest tree; and so great was his body temperature that during rain whatever he carried remained dry. Originally a rain and thunder god, he apparently degenerated through a series of mythological processes into a mere folk hero.

Kai

views updated May 21 2018

Kai (Jap.). The Buddhist precepts: see ŚĪLA. Kaigyō is the observance of the precepts ordered by the Buddha; and kai-dan is the platform from which the precepts are pronounced when an initiate takes them upon himself for the first time; kai-gi is the ritual for that purpose.