Susanoo- Japanese GodDeity"Storm God"

Birth and Assignment

The Kojiki records that when Izanagi washed himself in the Tachibana River at Awagihara after escaping the underworld, the three most noble kami emerged: Amaterasu from his left eye, Tsukuyomi from his right eye, and Susanoo from his nose. In a variant preserved by the Nihon Shoki, Susanoo is born directly from the union of Izanagi and Izanami alongside his siblings, rather than from purification. In the dominant tradition, Izanagi divided the world among the three: Amaterasu would rule the High Plain of Heaven, Tsukuyomi would govern the night, and Susanoo would command the seas.

But Susanoo refused. He wept and raged ceaselessly, longing instead to go to Ne no Kuni, the underworld realm where his mother Izanami dwelt. His crying was so violent that green mountains withered to bare rock, rivers and oceans dried to their beds, and evil spirits swarmed across the land. Izanagi, furious, banished him from the heavenly realm. Before departing, Susanoo declared he would first ascend to heaven to take leave of his sister Amaterasu.

The Rampage in Heaven

Amaterasu armed herself and confronted Susanoo with suspicion, fearing he meant to seize her realm. To prove his good intentions, they performed the ukehi ritual of mutual creation. Amaterasu chewed Susanoo's ten-span sword and breathed forth three goddesses; Susanoo chewed her five hundred magatama jewels and breathed forth five gods. Susanoo declared that since the gods born from his possessions were female and thus gentle, his heart was pure. This argument was accepted, but the peace did not last.

Emboldened, Susanoo's behavior grew increasingly outrageous. He broke down the ridges between Amaterasu's rice paddies and filled in the irrigation ditches. He defecated in her sacred hall during the harvest festival of first fruits. Then he flayed a piebald horse alive and hurled the carcass through the roof of her weaving hall, causing a weaving maiden to fall on her shuttle and die.

Amaterasu, traumatized, hid in the Heavenly Rock Cave, plunging the world into darkness. Only the intervention of the assembled gods, particularly Ame-no-Uzume's ecstatic dance, could lure her out. Susanoo was punished: his beard was cut, his fingernails and toenails removed, he was fined a thousand tables of restitution goods, and he was banished from heaven forever.

Descent to Earth

Cast from heaven, Susanoo did not go directly to Izumo. The Nihon Shoki records that he first descended with his son Isotakeru to Soshimori in Silla on the Korean peninsula, but declared he did not wish to remain and crossed the sea. Before settling, he distributed the seeds of trees across the barren earth. He pulled hairs from his body: his beard became cryptomeria, his chest hair cypress. He decreed which wood should serve for ships and which for palaces, then instructed Isotakeru to scatter the remaining seeds across the mountains, clothing them in green forests. The god who had withered mountains with his weeping now gave the earth its trees.

The Serpent of Izumo

Wandering through the province of Izumo, Susanoo noticed chopsticks floating downstream in the Hi River and followed the current to find an elderly couple, Ashinazuchi and Tenazuchi, weeping beside their last daughter, Kushinadahime. They had once had eight daughters, but seven had been devoured one by one, year after year, by Yamata no Orochi, a monstrous serpent with eight heads and eight tails whose body stretched across eight valleys and eight hills. Moss, cypress, and cryptomeria trees grew on its back. Its eyes were red as winter cherries. Its belly was perpetually inflamed and bloody.

Susanoo revealed his divine identity and offered to slay the serpent in exchange for Kushinadahime's hand. The parents agreed. He transformed the maiden into a comb, which he placed safely in his hair. Then he instructed the old couple to brew sake, refined eight times over, and set out eight vats on eight platforms behind a fence with eight gates.

Slaying the Serpent

When Yamata no Orochi arrived, it thrust each of its eight heads through the gates and drank greedily from the vats. As the monster fell into drunken stupor, Susanoo attacked. He hacked the serpent apart, cutting through each head, each tail, each massive coil, until the Hi River ran red with blood. When his sword struck one of the middle tails, the blade chipped against something hard. Cutting deeper, he discovered a blade hidden within the serpent's flesh: the Kusanagi no Tsurugi, the "Grass-Cutting Sword."

Susanoo presented it to Amaterasu as a peace offering. The sun goddess accepted the blade and placed it among the sacred objects of heaven, where it would become one of the Three Sacred Treasures of the imperial line.

Marriage and Descendants

After the battle, Susanoo sought a place to settle with his bride. He came to a place in Izumo and declared, "Coming here, my heart feels refreshed," a wordplay that gave the location the name Suga. There he built a great palace and composed what is traditionally regarded as Japan's first waka poem, moved by the rising clouds:

"Yakumo tatsu / Izumo yaegaki / tsuma-gomi ni / yaegaki tsukuru / sono yaegaki wo"

("Many clouds rise; the clouds form a many-layered fence around Izumo, a many-layered fence to enfold my bride within. What a fine, many-layered fence!")

He appointed his father-in-law Ashinazuchi as head steward of the palace. From Susanoo's line descended Ōkuninushi, the "Great Land Master" who would develop and order the earthly realm before ceding sovereignty to Amaterasu's grandson Ninigi.

Lord of the Underworld

In later mythology, Susanoo appears as the ruler of Ne no Kuni, the underworld he had originally longed to visit. When Ōkuninushi fled from his murderous brothers, he sought refuge with Susanoo. The storm god tested him with deadly trials. He placed Ōkuninushi in a chamber filled with snakes; Susanoo's daughter Suseri-hime secretly gave him a snake-repelling scarf that warded off the serpents. The next night he was locked in a room of centipedes and wasps, and again Suseri-hime provided a scarf of protection. Then Susanoo shot a humming arrow into a vast meadow and sent Ōkuninushi to retrieve it, only to set the field ablaze around him. A field mouse showed Ōkuninushi a hollow where he could shelter, and brought back the arrow.

Susanoo then had Ōkuninushi pick vermin from his hair, which were actually centipedes. Suseri-hime gave her lover red clay and nuts to chew so it would appear he was crushing and eating them. When Susanoo finally slept, Ōkuninushi tied the storm god's hair to the palace rafters, blocked the door with a boulder, and fled with Suseri-hime and Susanoo's bow, sword, and koto. Rather than pursuing, Susanoo called out from the distance, instructing Ōkuninushi to use the weapons to defeat his brothers and become master of the land.

Worship and Legacy

Susanoo is enshrined throughout Japan, particularly in the Izumo region. Susa Shrine in Shimane Prefecture claims to be the site where he first settled after slaying the serpent. During the medieval period, he came to be identified with Gozū Tennō, the "Ox-Head Heavenly King," a fearsome deity of pestilence and purification. Under this dual identity he became central to epidemic-prevention rites across the country.

The Bingo no Kuni Fudoki preserves the legend of Somin Shōrai, a poor man who sheltered the wandering god and was rewarded with a reed ring for protection against plague. This is the origin of the chinowa-kuguri purification rite still performed at shrines today. Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto enshrines him as Gozū Tennō, and the Gion Festival originated in 869 CE as a ritual to pacify plague spirits during a devastating epidemic. Each July, millions gather for the procession, invoking the storm god's power to drive away pestilence.