Japanese Mythology

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• Izanagi · ? — One of the two creator deities of the Kojiki, who with his sister-wife Izanami churned the first land from the ocean and fathered the islands of Japan and a host of gods. After Izanami’s death he fled the land of the dead and, purifying himself in a river, brought forth the three great deities — Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and Susanoo — from his washing alone.
• Izanami · ? — Creator goddess and sister-wife of Izanagi, with whom she gave shape to the islands and gods of Japan. Burned to death giving birth to the fire god Kagutsuchi, she descended to Yomi, the land of the dead; when Izanagi came to bring her back and broke his promise not to look upon her, she became its dread ruler.
• Kagutsuchi · ? — The god of fire, whose birth so burned his mother Izanami that she died of it. In his grief and fury Izanagi beheaded the infant deity, and from the fire god’s scattered blood and body sprang yet more gods — among them deities of mountains, rain and the sword.
• Amaterasu · ? — Goddess of the sun and the most exalted of the Shinto deities, born from Izanagi’s left eye as he purified himself. Ruler of the High Plain of Heaven, she once withdrew into a cave and plunged the world into darkness until the other gods lured her out; from her descends, through Ninigi and Jimmu, the imperial house of Japan.
• Tsukuyomi · ? — God of the moon, born from Izanagi’s right eye. After he killed the food goddess in a quarrel over a banquet, the sun-goddess Amaterasu turned her face from him forever — the myth’s explanation for why the sun and moon are never seen together in the sky.
• Susanoo · ? — God of storms and the sea, born from Izanagi’s nose, a wild and turbulent deity banished from heaven for his violence against his sister Amaterasu. In exile in Izumo he redeemed himself by slaying the eight-headed serpent Yamata-no-Orochi, from whose tail he drew the sacred sword Kusanagi, one of the imperial regalia.
• Ame-no-Oshihomimi · ? — Son of Amaterasu, brought forth in the contest of oaths between her and Susanoo. Chosen at first to descend and rule the land below, he yielded the task to his son Ninigi, and so became father of the heavenly grandchild from whom the emperors descend.
• Kushinada-hime · ? — A goddess of the rice fields whom Susanoo rescued from the serpent Yamata-no-Orochi — having hidden her by turning her into a comb — and then took as his wife in Izumo. Through their union descends Okuninushi, the great lord of that land.
• Okuninushi · ? — Lord of Izumo, reckoned a descendant of Susanoo, who with the dwarf-god Sukunabikona built up and ordered the land of the living. When Amaterasu’s heavenly envoys demanded it, he agreed to cede his realm to her grandchild in return for the great shrine of Izumo, where he is worshipped still.
• Ninigi · ? — Grandson of Amaterasu, sent down from heaven to rule the land in the descent known as the tenson korin. He carried with him the three sacred treasures — the mirror, the sword and the jewel — that became the imperial regalia, and from him the line of emperors is traced.
• Konohanasakuya-hime · ? — The blossom goddess, emblem of the fragile beauty of life and deity of Mount Fuji, who married Ninigi soon after his descent. To prove her faithfulness when he doubted her, she bore their children in a burning hut unharmed — among them Hoderi and Hoori.
• Hoderi · ? — A son of Ninigi, blessed with “the luck of the sea” as a fisherman. His quarrel with his brother Hoori over a lost fish-hook is among the most famous tales of the Kojiki; bested at last through the sea-god’s magic, his line was said to have submitted to his brother’s.
• Hoori · ? — A son of Ninigi, the hunter blessed with “the luck of the mountains”, whose loss of his brother’s fish-hook sent him to the palace of the sea god to find it. There he married the sea-god’s daughter Toyotama-hime and won the tide-jewels that mastered his brother; their line leads to the first emperor.
• Toyotama-hime · ? — Daughter of the sea god Watatsumi and wife of Hoori, whom she followed onto the land. When he broke his promise not to watch her give birth and saw her take her true form of a sea-creature, she fled back to the sea in shame, leaving their son Ugayafukiaezu to be raised on shore.
• Ugayafukiaezu · ? — Son of Hoori and the sea-goddess Toyotama-hime, raised on the shore after his mother returned to the sea. He married his mother’s sister Tamayori-hime, who had come to nurse him, and their son became Jimmu — the last link between the age of the gods and the age of men.
• Tamayori-hime · ? — A sea goddess, sister of Toyotama-hime, sent from the sea palace to raise her sister’s abandoned son Ugayafukiaezu. When he grew, she became his wife, and bore the children among whom was Jimmu, founder of the imperial line.
• Jimmu · ? — Son of Ugayafukiaezu and Tamayori-hime and, by tradition, the first Emperor of Japan, founder of the imperial dynasty that claims unbroken descent from him. The Kojiki tells of his long eastward march from Kyushu to conquer the Yamato plain, where he is said to have founded his capital and begun the line of emperors.