Incense use in religious ritual was either further or simultaneously developed in China, and eventually transmitted to Korea, Japan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Incense holds an invaluable role in East Asian Buddhist ceremonies and rites as well as in those of Chinese Taoist and Japanese Shinto shrines for the deity Inari Okami, or the Seven Lucky Gods. It is reputed to be a method of purifying the surroundings, bringing forth an assembly of buddhas, bodhisattvas, gods, demons, and the like.