Amaterasu, a deity in Japanese mythology

Amaterasu (Amaterasu Ōmikami)

Region/Culture: East Asia (Japan)
Mythos: Japanese Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: She is the sun and the sovereign light of heaven, credited with rice cultivation, the raising of silkworms, and weaving on the loom.
Role in Mythos: Ruler of Takamagahara, the High Plain of Heaven, and chief of all the kami, she is the divine ancestor from whom Japan’s imperial line descends.
Relation to Humans: As progenitor of the emperors she sits at the root of Japanese sovereignty and is venerated above every other kami at the Ise Grand Shrine. Her light ripens the harvests that keep people alive, so her withdrawal into the cave put the whole human world at risk.

In the weaving hall of the High Plain of Heaven the shuttle ran back and forth without pause, and the cloth coming off the loom was the light of the world. Amaterasu sat among her women, threading garments for the gods, the warp humming under her hands. Then something tore through the roof. A horse, flayed from tail to head, dropped into the room still warm and wet, and one of the weaving women recoiled so hard that the shuttle drove up into her and she died on the spot. The brightness left Amaterasu’s face. She rose, walked to a cave in the rock, stepped inside, and dragged a boulder across the mouth.

The sun was gone. Heaven and earth went black together, and in that dark the eight hundred myriad spirits began to stir like flies in summer, every kind of calamity breaking loose at once. The light that ordered the world had simply shut a door behind it.

She was Amaterasu Ōmikami, the great divinity who illuminates heaven, the highest of all the kami. The oldest account has her born from a washing. Her father Izanagi, fouled by his journey into the land of the dead, purified himself in a river, and as he rinsed his left eye Amaterasu came into being; from the right eye came the moon god Tsukuyomi, and from his nose the storm god Susanoo. Other tellings are tidier and stranger by turns, giving her birth to the union of her parents, or to a white-bronze mirror held in Izanagi’s hand. The versions agree on what mattered to him. He took the jeweled necklace from his own throat, hung it on her, and put her in charge of the realm of high heaven.

Her gifts were the gifts a sun gives a farming people. She laid out the first rice paddies and taught the planting of grain, she bred the silkworms and drew the thread, she set the loom going. She is the sun, and she is also the daily work of keeping people fed. The two are not separate in her.

The trouble came through her brother. Before his exile Susanoo climbed to heaven to take his leave, and the mountains shook so violently as he came that Amaterasu armed herself, bound her hair into male knots, wound magatama beads through it and around her arms, and slung two great quivers on her back to meet him. He swore he meant no harm and proposed a trial to prove it. Each would chew something belonging to the other and bring forth life from it. She broke his long sword into three, crunched the pieces, and breathed out three goddesses. He took the beads from her hair, crushed them between his teeth, and breathed out five male gods, the eldest of them Ame-no-Oshihomimi, from whom the emperors would come. Susanoo declared the soft, bright children proof that his heart was pure, and on the strength of that victory he ran wild. He smashed the ridges between her paddies and choked the irrigation channels, he befouled the hall where the first fruits were offered, and last of all he sent the skinned colt down through the roof of the weaving house.

So the cave, and the long night. The gods gathered in the dry bed of the Heavenly River and turned to Omoikane, the one who thinks deeply, for a plan. They set the long-crowing birds of eternal night to call. They dug up iron and ore and had the mirror Yata no Kagami forged and the long strings of magatama beads strung, and they hung these with white and blue streamers of cloth on a flourishing sakaki tree uprooted whole. Then Ame-no-Uzume turned over a tub before the cave, stamped on it until it boomed, fell into a trance, and pulled open her clothing until she was bare, and the eight hundred myriad gods laughed so hard that the High Plain of Heaven shook.

Inside, Amaterasu could not understand it. The world was dark, and the gods were roaring with delight. She cracked the boulder open a hand’s width and called out to ask how they could be merry with the light shut away. They told her a deity more illustrious than herself had appeared, and as she spoke they tilted the mirror toward the gap. She leaned out toward the shining figure she did not recognize as her own face, and in that instant Ame-no-Tajikarao, the god of powerful arms, seized her wrist and hauled her clear of the stone. Behind her Futodama stretched a twisted rope across the entrance and forbade her to go back. Light flooded the world again. Susanoo was fined a heavy ransom, his beard and nails were pulled, and he was driven out of heaven.

What he carried away from his exile completed her legend. In the river country below he killed the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi and found a sword in its tail, and that blade, Kusanagi, he sent up to Amaterasu in apology. Mirror, jewel, and sword: when she at last sent her grandson Ninigi down to rule the Central Land of the Reed Plains, she placed the three in his hands and told him to keep the mirror as if it were herself. The line ran from Ninigi to the first emperor, Jimmu, and the mirror came to rest at last in the inner shrine at Ise, kept from every eye as the goddess’s own body.

Her power is the plainest kind imaginable. She is light, and rule over the kami, and the force that makes grain swell and silk spin; the three treasures are that authority made portable, proof a ruler can hold. Her weakness is the other side of the same coin. She governs by being present, not by striking, and she can be wounded, grieved, and shamed into hiding, and when she hides the entire order collapses behind her. The gods could not command her out of the rock. They could only trick and coax her, dangle a brighter self in a mirror and trust her curiosity to do the rest. The sun, it turns out, can be hurt, and the only catastrophe that truly threatens the world is her absence from the sky.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Amaterasu?

Amaterasu, fully Amaterasu Ōmikami, is the sun goddess of Japanese Shinto mythology and the highest-ranking of all the kami. She rules Takamagahara, the High Plain of Heaven, and is honored as the divine ancestor of Japan’s imperial family. In the oldest account she was born from the left eye of the god Izanagi as he purified himself after visiting the land of the dead.

Why did Amaterasu hide in a cave?

Amaterasu retreated into the cave Ama-no-Iwato after her brother, the storm god Susanoo, went on a destructive rampage in heaven. He wrecked her rice fields, defiled her sacred hall, and finally hurled a flayed horse into her weaving hall, killing one of her weaving women. Wounded and enraged, she sealed herself inside with a boulder, and the world was plunged into darkness.

How was Amaterasu lured out of the cave?

The other gods gathered outside and devised a plan to draw Amaterasu out. They hung a mirror and magatama jewels on a sakaki tree, and the goddess Ame-no-Uzume performed a wild, comical dance that made the assembled gods burst into laughter. Curious why they were laughing in the dark, Amaterasu peeked out, was transfixed by her own reflection in the mirror, and the strong-armed god Ame-no-Tajikarao pulled her free, restoring light to the world.

What are the Three Sacred Treasures of Amaterasu?

The Three Sacred Treasures are the mirror Yata no Kagami, the jewel Yasakani no Magatama, and the sword Kusanagi no Tsurugi. The mirror and jewel come from the effort to lure Amaterasu out of the cave, while the sword was recovered by Susanoo from the serpent Yamata no Orochi and given to her in apology. Amaterasu passed all three to her grandson Ninigi as the symbols of his right to rule, and they became the regalia of the Japanese imperial line.

Is Amaterasu connected to the Japanese emperor?

Yes. Amaterasu is regarded as the direct ancestor of Japan’s imperial family. She sent her grandson Ninigi down from heaven to rule the land, entrusting him with the Three Sacred Treasures, and his great-grandson Jimmu is counted as the first emperor. Her chief shrine, the Ise Grand Shrine, enshrines the sacred mirror as her own embodiment.