Yomi-no-Kuni and Amaterasu-Omikami

The Japanese islands were born as the children of Izanami and her husband, Izanagi. After the islands were born, Izanami bore the kami of the earth and the winds, the plains and the mountains, the trees and the grasses, the rivers and the seas. Finally, she bore the kami of fire, but in giving birth to him she was badly burned. From her suffering she birthed the kami of metals and of soil and of springs, but at last she died and left this world.

In his grief at his wife’s death, Izanagi descended to Yomi-no-Kuni, the land of the dead, to seek her out. He found the door closed to him, and called out, “Oh, my beloved wife! The country we were creating together is not yet finished! Come back to me!”.

“Ah! If only you had come a little sooner! I have eaten the food of Yomi-no-Kuni, and now cannot return. But I will consult the kami of this land as to whether something can be done. Do not look at me yet!”

Izanagi waited in the dark outside the door, but Izanami did not return for a long time, and he could wait no longer. He snapped a single tine off one of his combs, and lit it. In the light of that flame, he saw Izanami’s body, writhing with maggots, and with thunders squatting over the whole of it. In his terror, he fled.

Crying “You have so embarrassed me!”, Izanami gave chase, pursuing Izanagi to Yomotsuhirasaka, the boundary between the worlds. There, Izanagi took a stone that even a thousand men would find it hard to move, and blocked the path. Izanami raged from beyond it.

“My beloved husband, if you do this, then I will kill one thousand people of your country every day.”

“My beloved wife, I you do that, I will cause fifteen hundred people to be born every day.” And there they parted.

Izanagi saw that he had become polluted in his visit to Yomi-no-Kuni, and went to the seashore to purify himself. As he threw off his clothes, many kami were born from them. When he entered the water, the first kami born were kami of defilement, but after them were born kami of purification. As Izanagi washed in the lower currents, middle currents, and upper currents, three kami of the sea and three kami of voyages upon it were born.

Finally, when he washed his left eye, Amaterasu-Omikami was born. When he washed his right eye, Tsukuyomi-no-Kami was born. And when he washed his nose, Susano’o-no-Kami was born. Izanagi rejoiced when he saw these noble children, and set Amaterasu-Omikami to rule the heavens, Tsukuyomi to rule the night, and Susano’o to rule the seas.