Ame-no-Iwato

Also Known As: Japanese 天岩戸, “heaven’s rock door” or rock cave; the Heavenly Rock-Dwelling in Basil Hall Chamberlain’s 1882 Kojiki, the Rock-cave of Heaven in W. G. Aston’s 1896 Nihongi; also written Ama-no-Iwato and Amano-Iwato
Region/Culture: East Asia
Mythos: Japanese Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Mythological Places
Mythical Attributes: When the sun goddess Amaterasu shut its rock door behind her, heaven and the land below fell into a darkness in which night and day could no longer be told apart.
Role in Mythos: It is the scene of the sun’s withdrawal and return, the episode that turns Susanoo’s rampage in heaven into his fine and expulsion.
Relation to Humans: The world of people went dark along with heaven while the door stayed shut, since the Central Land of Reed-Plains lost its light too. Today Amanoiwato Shrine in Takachiho, Miyazaki Prefecture, venerates a cave across the Iwato River as the place, and visitors may look into it from a riverside place of worship under a priest’s guidance.

Eternal night came to heaven, and the gods did not take it quietly. The Kojiki, compiled in 712, says their voices rose like the flies of the fifth month as they swarmed, and that a myriad portents of woe arose all at once. Somewhere in the dark, behind a door of rock, the sun goddess Amaterasu sat and listened to it. The door was hers to open. Nobody else could.

She had gone in because of her brother. Susanoo had been behaving badly in heaven for some time, and the chronicles list his offences with a lawyer’s patience: he broke down the divisions between her rice fields, and he fouled her new palace with excrement. Then he went too far. He flayed a piebald colt of heaven, broke a hole in the roof of the hall where the garments of the gods were being woven, and dropped the carcass through. In the Kojiki a weaving maiden, startled, struck herself with her shuttle and died. The Nihon Shoki, finished in 720, tells it several ways. In its main text it is Amaterasu herself who starts and wounds herself with the shuttle; in one of its alternative versions the victim is a goddess called Waka-hiru-me, who falls from the loom and dies. Every version ends the same way. Amaterasu walked into the Rock-cave of Heaven, fastened the rock door, and stayed there.

No text explains where the cave came from. It is simply there when she needs it, the way a locked room is always there for someone who wants to be left alone. And the chronicles barely describe it. There is a door of rock, a threshold, and room outside for everything that happened next. Its power is entirely in what it held. With the sun behind that door, the Nihon Shoki says, constant darkness prevailed on all sides and the alternation of night and day was unknown, and the Kojiki adds that the dark reached down from the Plain of High Heaven to the Central Land of Reed-Plains below, where people live.

So the eight hundred myriad gods met in the bed of the Tranquil River of Heaven to think. The thinking was done by a god called Omoikane, the Thought-Includer, and his plan was less a rescue than a piece of theatre. He had the long-singing birds of the eternal night gathered and set to crying to one another. Iron was brought from the Heavenly Metal Mountains, and the goddess Ishi-kori-dome made a mirror. Tama-no-oya strung five hundred curved jewels. The gods read the future from the shoulder blade of a stag burned over cherry bark from Mount Kagu, then pulled a sakaki tree of five hundred branches up by the roots from the same mountain and dressed it: jewels on the upper branches, the mirror in the middle, white and blue offerings of cloth below. Two gods held it up before the door and recited solemn words. A god of great strength, Tajikara-wo, the Heavenly Hand-Strength-Male, stood hidden beside the rock.

Then Ame-no-Uzume danced. The Kojiki dresses her in club-moss from Mount Kagu for a sash and spindle-tree for her hair, with a posy of bamboo-grass leaves in her hands. She set a tub upside down before the door and stamped on it until it boomed, and, as if possessed by a god, she bared her breasts and pushed her skirt-cord down to her private parts. The Nihon Shoki gives her a spear wound with eulalia grass and says fires were lit, so the whole scene played out in firelight, flickering on the rock. The Plain of High Heaven shook, and the eight hundred myriad gods laughed together.

Inside, the sun heard all of it. Amaterasu opened the door a little and asked from the gap how the gods could be laughing, when her retirement ought to have left heaven dark and the land below in night. Uzume had her answer ready: they were rejoicing because there was now a deity more illustrious than she was. The mirror was pushed forward. Amaterasu leaned out to look at this rival, which was of course herself, and Tajikara-wo took her hand and drew her out. Behind her back a god drew a rope of straw with the root ends left sticking out, and told her she must not go back in past it. It worked. Heaven and the land below were light again.

The cave’s power has a single weak point. The door opens only from inside, so no strength could force it; the gods had to make the sun want to come out. Once she was out, the rope did what the rock could not undo on its own and closed the cave to her for good. Susanoo paid for the whole affair with a fine of a thousand tables of offerings, lost his beard and his nails, and was driven out of heaven.

The mirror carried a mark of the night. One version preserved in the Nihon Shoki says that when the mirror was put into the Rock-cave it struck the door and took a slight flaw, which remained until the day the chronicle was written, and it identifies that mirror with the great deity worshipped at Ise. The sun, in other words, was brought out of the dark with a scratch on her reflection.

On earth, the cave has an address. Amanoiwato Shrine in Takachiho, in the mountains of Miyazaki Prefecture on Kyushu, venerates a cave on the far side of the Iwato River gorge as the one. The shrine has a West Hall and an East Hall on opposite banks, and at the west side visitors are purified and then led by a priest to a spot where they can look across into the cave. A ten-minute walk along the river brings them to Amanoyasukawara, a large cave the shrine identifies with the river bed where the gods held their council. The path there is lined with small towers of stones, piled one on another by visitors who make a wish with each stack, cold river stones balanced in their thousands in the shade. Takachiho’s Iwato Kagura, the night-long sacred dances the Japan National Tourism Organization dates to the months from November to February, adds an ending the chronicles never gave: the shrine says Tajikara-wo threw the rock door away, and it landed on Mount Togakushi in Nagano.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Ame-no-Iwato?

Ame-no-Iwato is the rock cave of heaven in Japanese mythology where the sun goddess Amaterasu shut herself away. The Kojiki (712) and the Nihon Shoki (720) both say that while its rock door was closed, heaven and the land of people fell into darkness.

Why did Amaterasu hide in Ame-no-Iwato?

Amaterasu hid in Ame-no-Iwato because of her brother Susanoo’s violence in heaven. He wrecked her rice fields, fouled her palace, and threw a flayed piebald colt through the roof of the weaving hall. In the Kojiki a weaving maiden died of the shock; in the main text of the Nihon Shoki Amaterasu herself was wounded by her shuttle.

How did the gods get Amaterasu out of the cave?

The gods lured Amaterasu out with a staged celebration planned by the god Omoikane. They set crying birds, hung a mirror and jewels on a sakaki tree, and had Ame-no-Uzume dance on an upturned tub until the gods roared with laughter. When Amaterasu opened the door to ask why, she was told a greater deity had arrived, was shown her own reflection, and was pulled out by the strong god Tajikara-wo.

What was the rope placed behind Amaterasu?

After Amaterasu came out of Ame-no-Iwato, a god drew a straw rope with its root ends left sticking out across the way behind her. In the Kojiki he told her she must not go back in past it, so the rope barred the cave to her.

Where is Ame-no-Iwato in Japan?

Amanoiwato Shrine in Takachiho, Miyazaki Prefecture, venerates a cave across the Iwato River as Ame-no-Iwato. Visitors can view the cave from a riverside place of worship under a priest’s guidance, and a nearby cave called Amanoyasukawara is identified with the place where the gods held their council.