Ishikoridome- Japanese GodDeity"Mirror-Forging Goddess"
Also known as: Ishikoridome-no-Mikoto, 伊斯許理度売命, and 石凝姥命
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Description
She forged a mirror so brilliant that when Amaterasu peered from the rock cave, her own light blazed back at her from its surface. That mirror, the Yata no Kagami, became the most sacred of the Three Imperial Regalia, enshrined at Ise as the sun goddess's own soul.
Mythology & Lore
The Mirror and the Cave
When Amaterasu sealed herself inside Ama-no-Iwato and the world went dark, the assembled gods devised a plan to draw her out. Ishikoridome was given one task: forge a mirror unlike any that had existed. The Kojiki names it the Yata no Kagami, a mirror eight hand-spans wide.
The gods hung it from the middle branches of a sacred sakaki tree, alongside Tamanoya's magatama jewels and streamers of cloth. Ame-no-Uzume danced before the cave until the gods roared with laughter, and Amaterasu, unable to resist, cracked open the stone door to see what had made them so joyful without her. The mirror caught her face. Her own radiance blazed back at her from the bronze surface, and while she stared, Ame-no-Tajikarao seized the door and wrenched it open.
The Mirror's Fate
When Amaterasu sent her grandson Ninigi to rule the terrestrial realm, she placed the Yata no Kagami in his hands and told him to treat it as her own spirit, her mitama. He was to worship it as though the sun goddess herself stood before him.
The mirror came to rest at the Grand Shrine of Ise, in the innermost sanctum of the Naikū. It has been there for centuries. No one outside the highest shrine priesthood has seen it; its form is known only from textual descriptions and the smaller replicas used in court ritual. Ishikoridome's descendants, the Kagamitsukuri clan, carried on her craft, forging bronze mirrors for shrines and the imperial court.
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