Amaterasu- Japanese GodDeity"Sun Goddess"

Birth from Purification

Amaterasu was born when her father Izanagi purified himself after his traumatic journey to Yomi, the land of the dead. Having witnessed the rotting corpse of his beloved wife Izanami and fled from her fury, Izanagi performed misogi, ritual purification, at the river mouth of Tachibana in Tsukushi, as told in the Kojiki. When he washed his left eye, Amaterasu emerged in radiant splendor. From his right eye came Tsukuyomi, the moon god, and from his nose came Susanoo, the storm god. Born not from union but from the cleansing of grief and death's pollution, these three became the most noble of all kami.

Izanagi, overjoyed at the birth of such illustrious children, gave Amaterasu dominion over Takamagahara, the High Plain of Heaven. He presented her with his own necklace of magatama jewels, establishing her supreme authority among the gods.

The Separation from Tsukuyomi

According to an account in the Nihon Shoki, Amaterasu and her brother Tsukuyomi initially shared the sky. She sent him as her representative to attend a feast hosted by Uke Mochi, the goddess of food. Uke Mochi produced the banquet from her own body: turning to face the land and spewing boiled rice from her mouth, turning to the sea and producing fish, turning to the mountains and bringing forth game. Tsukuyomi was disgusted by this method of preparation and killed her in outrage. When Amaterasu learned what her brother had done, she declared him a wicked deity and vowed never to look upon his face again. From that day, sun and moon were forever separated, dwelling apart in day and night. Yet from Uke Mochi's death came sustenance for the world: rice grew from her eyes, millet from her ears, silkworms from her head. Amaterasu took these gifts and planted the seeds of agriculture and sericulture that would sustain humanity.

The Conflict with Susanoo

Amaterasu's relationship with her brother Susanoo was troubled from the beginning. When Susanoo announced he wished to visit their mother in the underworld, his weeping and raging caused such destruction that Izanagi banished him. Before departing, Susanoo wished to say farewell to Amaterasu, but she suspected treachery. To prove his sincerity, they performed the ukehi, a ritual of mutual creation: Amaterasu took Susanoo's sword, snapped it into three pieces, chewed them, and breathed forth three goddesses. Susanoo took her magatama, cracked them between his teeth, and breathed forth five male gods, among them Ame-no-Oshihomimi, who would become a key link in the imperial line.

Susanoo claimed victory in this contest, and his behavior grew increasingly violent. He broke down the ridges between Amaterasu's rice paddies, filled in her irrigation ditches, and spread excrement in her sacred hall. Then he threw a flayed piebald horse through the roof of her weaving hall, killing one of her attendants. These offenses against the sacred spaces of agriculture, purity, and feminine industry were intolerable.

The Heavenly Cave

Grieved and outraged by Susanoo's transgressions, Amaterasu withdrew into the Ama-no-Iwato, the Heavenly Rock Cave, sealing herself within. With the sun goddess hidden, both heaven and earth were plunged into eternal darkness. Crops failed, evil spirits flourished, and calamity spread throughout all realms.

The eight hundred myriad gods gathered at the heavenly river to devise a plan. They consulted Omoikane, the god of wisdom, who organized an elaborate scheme. The divine craftsman Ishikoridome forged the Yata no Kagami, a sacred mirror, and Tama-no-ya fashioned the Yasakani no Magatama, a great curved jewel. Long-crying birds, roosters, were set to crow, imitating dawn. A sacred sakaki tree was decorated with the jewels, mirror, and cloth offerings.

Then Ame-no-Uzume, the goddess of revelry, performed the crucial act. She overturned a tub before the cave, climbed upon it, and began a wild, ecstatic dance. She partially disrobed, exposing herself, and performed obscene movements. The assembled gods burst into uproarious laughter, a sound so unexpected that Amaterasu's curiosity was piqued. She cracked open the cave door and called out, asking why the gods would laugh when the world was dark.

Ame-no-Uzume replied that they rejoiced because a deity more glorious than Amaterasu had appeared. The gods held up the mirror, and Amaterasu, seeing her own radiance reflected, moved closer. The powerful god Ame-no-Tajikarao seized her hand and pulled her forth. A shimenawa rope was stretched behind her, preventing her return to the cave. Light flooded back into the world.

With order restored, the gods turned their judgment on Susanoo. They demanded a massive fine of expiation goods, cut off his beard, fingernails, and toenails, and banished him from heaven. He descended to the land of Izumo, where he would slay the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi.

The Pacification of the Land

When Amaterasu decided to extend her rule to the earthly realm, she first needed to pacify it. The Central Land of Reed Plains lay under the sway of Ōkuninushi and the earthly kami. Amaterasu dispatched several emissaries, but each failed. Her first envoy, Ame-no-Hohi, was won over by Ōkuninushi and sent no report for three years. A second messenger, Ame-no-Wakahiko, likewise failed, taking an earthly wife and coveting the land for himself until a divine arrow struck him down. Finally, Amaterasu sent Takemikazuchi and Futsunushi. They thrust a sword point-down into the crest of a wave and sat cross-legged upon its tip, demanding Ōkuninushi's submission. After consulting his sons, one of whom challenged Takemikazuchi to a test of strength and was hurled away in defeat, Ōkuninushi ceded sovereignty over the visible world in exchange for a great shrine honoring his rule over the unseen realm.

The Heavenly Grandson's Descent

With the land pacified, Amaterasu appointed her grandson Ninigi-no-Mikoto to descend and govern the terrestrial realm, the event called tenson kōrin. She had originally chosen her son Ame-no-Oshihomimi, but while preparations were underway Ninigi was born, and Oshihomimi deferred to his son. Amaterasu presented Ninigi with the three sacred treasures: the Yata no Kagami, the Kusanagi no Tsurugi, and the Yasakani no Magatama. She assigned him an entourage of attendant deities who would become the divine ancestors of Japan's great priestly clans.

Ninigi descended through the clouds to Mount Takachiho in Hyūga, splitting the heavens as he came. His great-grandson Jimmu journeyed east from Kyushu and founded the imperial dynasty. Through this lineage, the Japanese imperial family claims unbroken descent from Amaterasu.

The Sacred Treasures

The three objects Amaterasu bestowed upon Ninigi, mirror, sword, and jewel, became Japan's imperial regalia, the Sanshu no Jingi. Each emerged from a different episode in the divine narrative. The Yata no Kagami was forged by Ishikoridome to lure Amaterasu from her cave, its surface the first thing to capture her radiance. The Yasakani no Magatama traces to the jewels from which gods were produced during the ukehi contest. The Kusanagi no Tsurugi was discovered by Susanoo inside the tail of the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi; originally called Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, the Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven, it later passed to the hero Yamato Takeru, who used it to cut burning grass and turn the flames upon his enemies, earning its enduring name.

When Amaterasu presented the mirror to Ninigi, she commanded him to revere it as though it were herself.

The Grand Shrine of Ise

Amaterasu's most sacred shrine, Ise Jingū, stands in Mie Prefecture on the Pacific coast. According to the Nihon Shoki, the sacred mirror was first kept within the imperial palace itself until Emperor Sujin, awed by its power, ordered it housed in a separate sanctuary. His daughter Toyosukiiri-hime tended it at Kasanui, and later Emperor Suinin's daughter Yamatohime-no-mikoto journeyed through several provinces seeking the ideal resting place. When she reached Ise, Amaterasu declared it the land of the divine wind, where waves from the eternal world lap the shore. There the Inner Shrine was founded.

For centuries, an unmarried imperial princess called the saigū served as Amaterasu's high priestess at Ise, a tradition maintained from the late seventh century through the fourteenth. The Naiku houses the Yata no Kagami to this day, though no one may see it; even the priests who tend the shrine never look upon the mirror directly. The entire complex has been rebuilt every twenty years for over 1,300 years in a ritual called Shikinen Sengu, the identical new shrine rising on an adjacent plot while the old one still stands, constructed by traditional methods without nails.