Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-25127201-20140626122802/@comment-24479616-20140626225111

just to sum up some of the things that come to my mind: rinnegan - buddhism, samsara, 6 stages of existence (god, demigod, human, animal, ghost, hell) gedo mazo - tirthika (buddhism), sokushinbutsu limbo - medieval christianity (part of hell) sharingan/mangekyo - shintoism, all techniques are named after kami byakugan - bagua zhang, I Ging (chinese devination) hashiramas wood jutsu - buddhist statues (senjukannon, hotei etc) indra & ashura - hinduism (names), possibly cain & abel (bible) hagoromo & kaguya - legend of the bamboo cutter datara/daidarabocchi - japanese yokai son goku - sun wukong (journey to the west) raikiri/kakashi - tachibana dosetsu jiraiya, orochimaru, tsunade - jiraiya goketsu monogatari itachi kills orochimaru - legend of susano and yamato no orochi nan no kaizo - rokurokubi (yokai) hari jizo - jizo (bodhisattva) naruto vs sasuke - possibly izanagi trying to get back his wife izanami, who has gone into yomi (underworld)/ become corrupted by evil .... tons of other stuff, here are some links i found: http://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/748/how-are-the-bijuu-adapted-from-real-mythology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_mythology_in_popular_culture http://nihon-go.org/nihon-go-guides/narutology-an-introduction-to-japanese-mythology-symbolism-in-naruto/ http://www.narutoforums.com/showthread.php?t=814434 http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Possible_references_to_Japanese_legends