Kotoshironushi- Japanese GodDeity"God of Oracles"

The Counsel at Cape Miho

When the heavenly gods resolved to claim sovereignty over Ashihara no Nakatsukuni, the Central Land of Reed Plains, they dispatched Takemikazuchi as their envoy to demand that Ōkuninushi, the great deity of Izumo, cede his earthly realm. Ōkuninushi deferred the decision to his sons. Takemikazuchi found the first of them, Kotoshironushi, fishing at Cape Miho in Izumo.

When the divine envoy posed the question of surrender, Kotoshironushi counseled his father to comply without hesitation, declaring that the land should be yielded to the heavenly grandchild. He then clapped his hands, transformed his boat into a green hedge of branches, the aofushigaki, and vanished from the visible world. His brother Takeminakata, by contrast, challenged Takemikazuchi to a contest of strength, was defeated, and fled to Lake Suwa. With both sons having yielded, Ōkuninushi agreed to surrender the earthly realm.

The Fisherman Becomes Ebisu

That Takemikazuchi found Kotoshironushi with a fishing rod in his hand at Cape Miho proved a lasting image. During the medieval period, this figure of a deity fishing by the shore became the basis for his identification with Ebisu, the cheerful god of fishermen and commerce counted among the Seven Lucky Gods. At Miho Jinja in Izumo, where Kotoshironushi remains the principal deity, his fishing associations are central to the shrine's worship. The sea-bream-holding, rod-bearing Ebisu of popular devotion carries the face of a god whose name means "the one who speaks for events," originally a deity of oracles as much as of the sea.

Other traditions trace Ebisu to a different figure entirely: Hiruko, the leech-child cast out to sea by Izanagi and Izanami. Both origin stories converge on a god tied to the waters and the prosperity they bring.