Yata no Kagami- Japanese ArtifactArtifact"Sacred Mirror"

The Rock Cave

When Amaterasu sealed herself inside the Heavenly Rock Cave and the world went dark, the assembled gods needed something to catch her attention. Omoikane devised the plan. Ishikoridome, the mirror-forging deity, shaped a mirror of extraordinary size: eight spans across, the measurement that gave it its name. The gods hung it from the middle branches of a sakaki tree dragged from the slopes of Mount Kagu and set the tree before the cave mouth.

Ame-no-Uzume danced on an overturned tub until the eight hundred gods roared with laughter. Amaterasu, unable to fathom joy in a darkened world, cracked the stone door. Her own light spilled through the gap and struck the mirror's surface. She saw brilliance reflected back and leaned closer, believing another sun goddess had appeared. Ame-no-Tajikarao seized the door. Amaterasu stepped out. The world flooded with light, and the mirror had done its work.

Amaterasu's Command

When Amaterasu sent her grandson Ninigi to rule the terrestrial realm, she entrusted him with the Yata no Kagami alongside the sword Kusanagi and the jewel Yasakani no Magatama. About the mirror she gave a specific command recorded in the Nihon Shoki. She told Ninigi to treat it as her own spirit, her mitama, and to worship it as though he stood in her presence. The mirror was not a symbol of the goddess. It was the goddess, housed in polished bronze.

Ninigi carried the three regalia down from the High Plain of Heaven to the peak of Takachiho in Hyūga, and with them the authority to govern the land below.

The Inner Shrine

The mirror came to rest in the Naikū, the Inner Shrine of Ise Grand Shrine in Mie Prefecture. It sits in the innermost sanctum, wrapped in layers of cloth that no one outside the highest shrine priesthood has ever unwrapped. No photograph exists. No description of its current condition has been published. What the mirror looks like today is unknown.

Every twenty years, the shrine buildings are torn down and rebuilt in identical form, a practice called shikinen sengū. During the transfer, the mirror moves from the old structure to the new one under cover of white silk, carried by priests who do not look at what they hold. The buildings age and are replaced. The mirror endures.