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28-509: According to early mythology, the Japanese islands were created by Izanagi and Izanami , meaning "he who invites" and "she who invites". They find themselves on a heavenly golden bridge staring down at earth and its oceans. With their jeweled spear, called Amenonuhoko , given by the gods or kami before them, they dip the spear into the ocean, creating the islands of Japan, Onogoro Island (“spontaneous-congealed island”). Descending down from

56-574: A command from the other gods to solidify and shape the Earth (which then "[resembled] floating oil and [drifted] like a jellyfish"), the couple use a jewelled spear to churn the watery chaos. The brine that dripped from the tip of the spear congealed and turned into an island named Onogoro (淤能碁呂島). The two descended to the island and, setting up their dwelling, erected a 'heavenly pillar' ( ama no mihashira ) on it. Izanagi and Izanami, realizing that they were meant to procreate and have children, then devised

84-486: A man, the gods looked at this as inappropriate and cursed the couple by the children they bore. Their first child Hiruko was born hideous and cast out for its atrocity. Trying and trying again, they fail to conceive a proper child. The gods explain to them both about their curse and decide to give them another chance. Once again Izanagi and Izanami circle the pillar just as before, only Izanagi speaks first. Their mating now

112-428: A marriage ceremony whereby they would walk in opposite directions around the pillar, greet each other and initiate intercourse. After Izanami greeted Izanagi first, Izanagi objected that he, the man, should have been the first to speak. True enough, the first offspring that resulted from their union, the 'leech-child' Hiruko , was considered imperfect and set adrift on a boat of reeds . Izanagi and Izanami then also begat

140-481: A plain covered with awagi ) by the river-mouth of Tachibana in Himuka in [the island of] Tsukushi " and purified himself by bathing in the river; various deities came into existence as he stripped off his clothes and accouterments and immersed himself in the water. The three most important kami , the "Three Precious Children" (三貴子 mihashira no uzu no miko or sankishi ) – the sun goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami ,

168-874: Is an archipelago of 14,125 islands that form the country of Japan . It extends over 3,000 km (1,900 mi) from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the East China and Philippine seas in the southwest along the Pacific coast of the Eurasian continent, and consists of three island arcs from north to south: the Northeastern Japan Arc , the Southwestern Japan Arc, and the Ryukyu Island Arc . The Daitō Islands ,

196-569: Is attached to a continental landmass. The term "home islands" was used at the end of World War II to define the area where Japanese sovereignty and constitutional rule of its emperor would be restricted. The term is also commonly used today to distinguish the archipelago from Japan's colonies and other territories. The archipelago consists of 14,125 islands (here defined as land more than 100 m in circumference), of which 430 are inhabited. The five main islands, from north to south, are Hokkaido , Honshu , Shikoku , Kyushu , and Okinawa . Honshu

224-643: The Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc , the Kuril Islands , and the Nanpō Islands neighbor the archipelago . Japan is the largest island country in East Asia and the fourth-largest island country in the world with 377,975.24 km (145,937.06 sq mi). It has an exclusive economic zone of 4,470,000 km (1,730,000 sq mi). The term " Mainland Japan " is used to distinguish

252-468: The Shoki instead describes them as the offspring of Aokashikine-no-Mikoto (青橿城根尊), another name for the goddess Ayakashikone-no-Mikoto, of the sixth of the first seven generations of gods. Another variant meanwhile portrays Izanagi as the offspring of a deity named Awanagi-no-Mikoto (沫蕩尊) and the fifth-generation descendant of the primordial deity Kuninotokotachi-no-Mikoto. In the Shoki 's main narrative,

280-475: The "Male-who-invites") , is the creator deity ( kami ) of both creation and life in Japanese mythology . He and his sister-wife Izanami are the last of the seven generations of primordial deities that manifested after the formation of heaven and earth. Izanagi and Izanami are held to be the creators of the Japanese archipelago and the progenitors of many deities, which include the sun goddess Amaterasu ,

308-442: The "hags of Yomi" (予母都志許売 Yomotsu-shikome ), and a horde of warriors to chase after him. To distract them, Izanagi threw the vine securing his hair and the comb on his right hair-knot, which turned into grapes and bamboo shoots that the hags devoured. Upon reaching the pass of Yomotsu Hirasaka (黄泉比良坂, the 'Flat Slope of Yomi'), Izanagi took three peaches from a nearby tree and repelled his pursuers using them. He then declared

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336-534: The Sun Goddess. She was known as "Heaven-Illumine-of-Great-Deity”, and the Moon God, Tsukuyomi . His silver radiance was not so fair as the golden effulgence of his sister, the Sun Goddess. While both sit atop the heavens, they begin their sibling rivalry, quarreling and fighting, they decide they can no longer see each other face to face, thus creating day and night, separating the two. The last kami conceived

364-575: The couple first begets the following eight islands after performing the marriage ceremony (in the following order): Both Ōshima and Kibi-no-Kojima are not reckoned among the eight great islands in the Kojiki , instead being identified as being born after them. The other remaining islands, such as Tsushima (対馬島) and Iki (壱岐島), are said to have been produced by the coagulation of the foam in sea water (or freshwater). Japanese archipelago The Japanese archipelago ( Japanese : 日本列島 , Nihon Rettō )

392-486: The following order): The two then proceeded to beget the various deities who are to inhabit these lands. Izanami, however, was badly injured and eventually died after giving birth to the fire god Kagutsuchi . In an act of grief and rage, Izanagi killed Kagutsuchi with his ' ten-grasp sword '. More gods manifest into existence out of Izanami's excreta, Kagutsuchi's blood and mutilated remains, and Izanagi's tears. Izanagi, wishing to see Izanami again, went down to Yomi ,

420-478: The important Takemikazuchi -no-kami and his peer, Futsunushi -no-kami . Eight more fierce kami of mountains and iron emerged from the infant’s body and limbs." In his anguish, Izanagi followed her to the underworld to rescue her and soon discovered the awful truth. Nothing remained of his beloved Izanami but a rotting living-dead corpse. As Izanagi runs away in horror, Izanami shrieks in anger for her loves abandonment, "Every day I shall kill one thousand people in

448-425: The island of Awa (淡島 Awashima ), but this too was not counted among their rightful progeny. Izanagi and Izanami then decided to repeat the ritual, with Izanagi greeting Izanami first. This time, their union was a success, with Izanami giving birth to some of the various islands that comprise the Japanese archipelago (with the notable exceptions of Shikoku and Hokkaido), which include the following eight islands (in

476-482: The land of the dead, in the hopes of retrieving her. Izanami reveals that she had already partaken of food cooked in the furnace of the underworld, rendering her return impossible. Izanagi, losing his patience, betrayed his promise not to look at her and lit up a fire, only to find that Izanami is now a rotting corpse. To avenge her shame, Izanami dispatched the gods of thunder (known as the Yakusanoikazuchi ),

504-618: The lands we created". Izanagi replies "Every day I shall create one thousand five hundred people". In episode "Kirinmaru of the Dawn" of Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon , Kirinmaru tells Moroha the quarter demon that "Akuru is a spirit who has been around since the Age of the Gods". Izanagi Izanagi (イザナギ/伊邪那岐/伊弉諾) or Izanaki (イザナキ), formally referred to with a divine honorific as Izanagi-no-Mikoto ( 伊邪那岐命/伊弉諾尊 , meaning "He-who-invites" or

532-458: The large islands of the Japanese archipelago from the remote, smaller islands; it refers to the main islands of Hokkaido , Honshu , Kyushu , and Shikoku . From 1943 until the end of the Pacific War , Karafuto Prefecture (south Sakhalin ) was designated part of the mainland. Geographically speaking the term "mainland" is somewhat inaccurate, as this refers to an expanse of territory that

560-606: The moon deity Tsukuyomi , and the storm god Susanoo . He is a god that can be said to be the beginning of the current Japanese imperial family. His name is given in the Kojiki ( c.  712 AD ) both as Izanagi-no-Kami (伊邪那岐神) and Izanagi-no-Mikoto (伊邪那岐命), while the Nihon Shoki (720 AD) refers to him as Izanagi-no-Mikoto , with the name written in different characters (伊弉諾尊). The names Izanagi ( Izanaki ) and Izanami are often interpreted as being derived from

588-489: The moon deity Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto , and the storm god Susanoo-no-Mikoto – were born when Izanagi washed his left eye, his right eye, and his nose, respectively. Izanagi divides the world among his three children: Amaterasu was allotted Takamagahara (高天原, the "Plain of High Heaven"), Tsukuyomi the night, and Susanoo the seas. Susanoo did not perform his appointed task and instead kept crying and howling "until his beard eight hands long extended down over his chest," causing

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616-543: The mountains to wither and the rivers to dry up. After he told his father that he wished to go to his mother's land, Ne-no-Katasu-Kuni (根堅州国, the 'Land of Roots'), a furious Izanagi expelled Susanoo "with a divine expulsion," after which he disappears from the narrative. While the first generations of kami including Izanagi and Izanami are implied in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki 's main narrative to have manifested independent of each other, one variant cited in

644-483: The peach fruit to be divine and bade it to grow in the land of the living to help people in need. When Izanami herself came in pursuit of him, Izanagi sealed the entrance to Yomi using a huge boulder. Izanami then pronounced a curse, vowing to kill a thousand people each day, to which Izanagi replies that he would then beget a thousand and five hundred people everyday to thwart her. Izanagi, feeling contaminated by his visit to Yomi, went to "[the plain of] Awagihara (i.e.

672-409: The skies, Izanagi and Izanami create their home and create a central Heavenly August pillar. Deciding to populate the land, Izanagi circles the left side of the pillar while Izanami circles the right. Meeting each other on the other side of it, Izanami greets her love "oh, what a comely young man." Izanagi replies with "How delightfully, I have met a lovely maiden." Izanami being a woman speaking first to

700-538: The verb izanau ( historical orthography izanafu ) or iⁿzanap - from Western Old Japanese 'to invite', with -ki / -gi and -mi being taken as masculine and feminine suffixes, respectively. The literal translation of Iⁿzanaŋgî and Iⁿzanamî are 'Male-who-invites' and 'Female-who-invites'. Shiratori Kurakichi proposed an alternative theory which instead sees the root iza- (or rather isa- ) to be derived from isao (historical orthography: isawo ) meaning 'achievement' or 'merit'. The etymological origin of

728-618: The verb is suggested to be a precursor to the Middle Korean lemma yènc - meaning 'to place/put on [the top of]' reconstructed as *yenc-a (place- INF ) in Old Korean . The Kojiki portrays Izanagi and his younger twin sister Izanami as the seventh and final generation of deities that manifested after the emergence of the first group of gods, the Kotoamatsukami , when heaven and Earth came into existence. Receiving

756-583: Was fruitful. Izanami gave birth to the islands of Awaji , Iyo (later Shikoku ), Oki , Tsukushi (later Kyūshū ), Iki , Tsushima , Sado , and finally Yamato (later Honshū ), the largest. They named the land Oyashimakuni , the Land of Eight Great Islands. After that, Izanami gave birth in quick succession to the other minor islands that surround the main ones, and to the main kami of sea and harbor, of wind, trees, mountains, and so on. Many other kami were born from Izanami’s womb such as Amaterasu ,

784-452: Was the fire god, Kagutsuchi . During birth, Kagutsuchi severely burned Izanami and eventually slipped away into the Land of Yomi , the underworld . "The tears Izanagi shed at the death of his wife brought forth further deities. Angered by the sight of the newly born fire kami who had been the cause of Izanami’s death, Izanagi drew his sword and decapitated the infant. The blood coalescing on the sword brought forth eight martial kami, including

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