1. A Drifting Chaos Becomes Cosmos
The Kojiki opens, famously, with a vision of formlessness:
“In the ages when Heaven and Earth first parted, they were like floating oil. Silently, softly, something light and purer rose, and something heavy and turbid sank.”
From that silent ferment five abstract deities crystallise in single blinding instants. They are called the Kotoamatsukami—“Separate Heavenly Kami”—and they vanish as soon as they are named. Their only purpose is to mark the threshold between nothingness and life. After them come two triads of more tangible gods, each lingering a little longer, establishing sky-plains above and a sea-soup below.
Then, suddenly, the narrative steadies: two siblings, Izanagi-no-Mikoto (“He Who Invites”) and Izanami-no-Mikoto (“She Who Invites”), step forward. They are handed the Ame-no-Nuboko, a spear hung with comma-shaped magatama jewels, and are charged to “solidify the land that floats beneath the heavens.” The siblings—male and female principles perfectly paired—stand upon the Floating Bridge of Heaven, dip the spear, and churn the brine. When they lift it, briny droplets fall and congeal into the first rough islet. Touching down, they name it Onogoro-jima—“Self-Coagulating Island”—and erect a palace around a central pillar.
Here follows the primal wedding. The two gods circle the pillar in opposite directions; meeting on the far side, Izanami speaks first, admiring her brother’s beauty. They marry and bear a child—but the child is misshapen, “like a leach”. The next child is also malformed. Distressed, they consult the high Heavenly Deities and are told their ritual was out of order: the man must speak first. Repeating the rite correctly, Izanagi speaks the opening compliment; this time the offspring are sound, and creation can proceed.
2. Eight Great Islands and the Fabric of Nature
One by one the couple beget the Ōyashima, the “Eight Great Islands” that form the Japanese archipelago: Awaji, Shikoku, Oki, Kyūshū, Iki, Tsushima, Sado, and finally Honshū itself, called Ōyamato-Toyoakitsushima. Each name, in the archaic pronunciation of the Kojiki, is dense with poetic kennings—“The Luxuriant Reed-Plain”, “The Brave-Wind Road”—suggesting not bare rock but living topography.
Once the landmass is laid, Izanagi and Izanami turn to its furnishings: mountains, rivers, seas, trees, grasses. Every new element emerges as a kami: the Wind Deity, the Deity of the Ever-Rising Mist, the Deity of the Luxuriant Heavenly Moisture. Creation in these myths is not a one-time fiat but an ongoing genealogy. The world is quite literally related to itself; everything that exists is a cousin.
The births continue until Izanami grows “swollen and feverish” with a child of terrifying potency: Kagutsuchi, the personified fire. As she pushes, flames lick her womb and sear her flesh. She cries out in mortal agony; steam rises; the room stinks of burning divine skin. She collapses upon her mat and soon slips into death.
Izanagi’s grief is incandescent. Kneeling beside her bed he gathers Kagutsuchi in his arms—then decapitates him with the Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, his ten-grip sword. Drops of blazing blood spatter the ground, and where each drop lands a new kami springs up: volcano deities, forge deities, war deities. Even rage is generative here.
3. Yomi: Where Purity Ends
Unable to accept Izanami’s demise, Izanagi descends through a fissure to Yomi-no-Kuni, the land of yellow murk. He finds his wife lurking in a palace of damp stone, shrouded in night. Tears of joy give way to terror when he lights a tooth-comb torch: Izanami’s body is crawling with maggots; in her private crevices nest eight hissing Thunder-Kami. Izanagi turns and flees, pursued by yamishikome—“Women of Shadow”—and by the putrefying queen herself, who shrieks that she will drag him back forever.
Reaching the slope back to daylight, Izanagi seizes a round boulder and seals the cavern mouth, invoking divorce by stone:
“We are no longer husband and wife.”
On the far side of that boulder, the two gods trade curses. Izanami swears she will kill a thousand people each day; Izanagi retorts he will cause fifteen hundred births daily. Thus mortality and fecundity enter the cosmos in an uneasy arithmetic.
4. The First Purification
Izanagi, defiled by the vapours of the underworld, now feels the weight of kegare—pollution in the Shintō sense, both physical rot and moral stain. He strips by the Tachibana River and steps into its current. As he washes, items of his clothing spawn kami: from his staff, the Road-Turner god; from his sash, the Monitory goddess; from his trousers, the Lord of the Thundering Gate. Finally he immerses his body; droplets sluicing from his flesh crystallise into the three most luminous beings yet:
- From his left eye—Amaterasu Ōmikami, the sun.
- From his right eye—Tsukuyomi no Mikoto, the moon.
- From his nose—Susanoo no Mikoto, the storm-sea.
Handing Amaterasu the mirror and the magatama jewels, Izanagi exclaims:
“Rule the Plain of High Heaven and bring light to the land!”
He assigns Tsukuyomi the night and Susanoo the sea. With that, the age of earth-forging ends; the age of sky politics is about to begin.
5. Themes Woven Through the Narrative
Polarity and Balance
From the outset the text insists on paired forces. Heaven and earth, light and dark, purity and defilement, male speech and female speech—each completes the other. Later Japanese aesthetics (ink-wash painting, tea-room architecture) echo this yin-yang sensibility.
Purity, Pollution, and Renewal
The descent to Yomi teaches that contact with death contaminates even a god. Izanagi’s river-bath inaugurates the long tradition of misogi (water ablution) performed today at shrine basins or mountain waterfalls. Japanese ideas of cleanliness, from removing shoes indoors to meticulous festival rites, all trace a spiritual pedigree to that cold river.
Creative Sacrifice
Fire—vital for metalwork, cooking, and warmth—costs Izanami her life. The myth thus embeds the notion that progress requires loss, a principle celebrated in crafts where long apprenticeships and even personal suffering are accepted as the price for mastery.
Language as Ritual Power
The botched wedding shows that speech acts generate reality. Ancient norito prayers are therefore chanted in precise archaic diction; a slip can, in theory, warp outcomes. Right words are themselves a sacred technology.
6. Cultural and Modern Significance
Politico-Religious Authority
Japanese emperors claim descent from Amaterasu, making the Creation cycle the genealogical charter of the throne. Even in 2019, during Emperor Naruhito’s enthronement, the mirror and magatama—first handled by a mythic sun-goddess—were presented as living regalia.
Ritual Practice
Every shrine festival contains echoes of these episodes: the pillar-circling in agricultural rites, the river purification at New Year, the fire festivals that both honour Kagutsuchi and remind participants that uncontrolled flame can kill.
Literary and Artistic Legacy
Classical poetry (the Manyōshū) frames emotional turmoil as “Izanami’s fire” or “Izanagi’s tears”. Manga artists re-use the spear, the magatama, or the brother–sister gods to dramatise conflicts between order and chaos. Video games such as Ōkami retell the spear-stirring scene with lush cel-shaded visuals.
Ethical Undercurrents
At a deeper level, the narrative suggests that responsibility accompanies power. Izanagi’s rage births war-gods; his grief floods the world with further kami. Modern audiences may read an ecological parable here: every act, even divine, carries ripple effects, demanding continuous acts of cleansing and care.
7. Coda — Towards the Next Tale
The divine triad born from Izanagi’s misogi set the stage for the sibling rivalries that govern the rest of the mythic corpus. Amaterasu will blaze with ritual brilliance; Tsukuyomi will recede into austere twilight; Susanoo will roar across both heaven and earth. Their clashes—and the temporary eclipse that ensues—form the drama of Paper 2, where light itself hides in a cave until laughter, mirrors, and community draw it back into the sky.
Thus ends the full retelling of The Creation of the Islands and Gods: a story in which love begets land, grief forges volcanoes, and a bath in a river kindles the sun.
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