The Japanese creation myth of Izanagi and Izanami

What the original texts say

Izanagi and Izanami are the brother-and-sister gods who, in Shinto's sacred creation narrative, made Japan and gave birth to many of its kami, or gods. They are not documented historical figures, and the story is a religious and cosmological account rather than a verified record of events. Its fullest surviving tellings are Japan's two oldest chronicles, the Kojiki, compiled in 712, and the Nihon Shoki, compiled in 720, both written in part to trace the ruling family's descent from the gods.

According to the Kojiki, the heavenly gods handed the pair a jeweled spear and ordered them to finish making the drifting land. Standing on the Floating Bridge of Heaven, they stirred the sea below until it curdled; brine dripping from the spear's tip piled up into the island of Onogoro. There they raised a heavenly pillar and circled it from opposite directions to marry, but because Izanami spoke first in greeting, their first child was born deformed, a "leech child" they set adrift in a reed boat, and they began again.

The birth of Japan and its gods

The second union succeeded. Izanagi and Izanami gave birth to eight main islands, beginning with Awaji, and then to dozens of kami governing the sea, wind, trees, and mountains. Giving birth to the last of them, the fire god Kagutsuchi, burned and killed Izanami. Encyclopaedia Britannica adds that a grieving, enraged Izanagi then killed the infant himself, and that further deities were born from his blood and from Izanami's own deathbed.

Izanagi's journey to Yomi

Grieving, Izanagi followed his sister-wife to Yomi, the land of the dead, and asked her to come back and finish their work. Izanami answered that she had already eaten the food of Yomi and could not leave, but asked him to wait while she pleaded with its deities, warning him not to look at her. When she did not return, Izanagi broke a tooth from his comb, lit it as a torch, and went in. He found her body decaying, with eight thunder deities dwelling in its parts.

Horrified, Izanagi fled; Izanami, calling out that he had shamed her, sent monstrous pursuers and then came herself. At the pass between the lands of the living and the dead, Izanagi blocked the way with a boulder so heavy it took a thousand men to move. Face to face across it, Izanami vowed to kill a thousand of his people every day; Izanagi answered that he would have fifteen hundred born every day instead, and, Britannica adds, pronounced the formula of divorce.

The purification that created the sun and moon

Back in the world of the living, Izanagi bathed in the sea to wash off the pollution of death, the ritual later Shinto calls harai. The Kojiki records that as he washed his left eye, the goddess Amaterasu was born; from his right eye came Tsukuyomi, god of the moon; and from his nose came Susanoo, god of storms. Britannica notes this bath is regarded as the founding of harai, the purification practice still central to Shinto.

How the versions differ

The Kojiki tells this story once, straight through. The Nihon Shoki instead often gives several versions side by side: its account of the very first gods alone includes five alternate tellings, each headed "In one writing it is said." Britannica notes that the Nihon Shoki's compilers drew on "a greater variety of sources" than the Kojiki's, so that, while "the Kojiki is richer in genealogy and myth, the Nihon shoki adds a great deal to scholarly understanding" of early Japan.

The two chronicles also disagree on specifics of the Izanagi and Izanami story itself. Kokugakuin University's Encyclopedia of Shinto notes that the Nihon Shoki's main text has Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo born directly, at the same time as the islands, while the Kojiki and an alternate Nihon Shoki version instead place their birth at Izanagi's later purification. The two chronicles even disagree on where Izanagi ended his days: Taga in Ōmi Province, says the Kojiki; Awaji or Hi no Wakamiya, says the Nihon Shoki.

How scholars explain it

Is the Izanagi and Izanami story real, or a true account of history? Neither chronicle claims to be one: both are Shinto's sacred account of the world's beginning, and Real or Legend treats them accordingly, as religious narrative rather than a claim to be fact-checked. Britannica notes both chronicles served a political purpose too, compiled on the order of Emperor Temmu in the 7th century to fix the ruling family's genealogy and its right to rule under a rank system modeled on the Chinese court, so that, in Britannica's words, they "are not pure myths but have much political colouring."

Kokugakuin's encyclopedia traces the names themselves to the verb izanau, "to invite": Izanagi, "He Who Invites," and Izanami, "She Who Invites." Britannica groups their story within the "Yamato Cycle" of myths centered on Amaterasu, the daughter born of Izanagi's purification, one of two main traditions the chronicles weave together, alongside the "Izumo Cycle" centered on her brother Susanoo.

Later retellings

The story still shapes real places today. Izanagi Jingu on Awaji Island, where tradition holds Izanagi spent his final years, is considered the oldest shrine in Japan, according to the Awaji Island Tourist Association; other island sites, including Onokorojima Shrine, are likewise tied to the creation myth, since Awaji itself is said to be the first island the pair made. The deformed first child, Hiruko, was reinterpreted in later Shinto mythology as the god Ebisu, Britannica notes, and harai, the purification rite born from Izanagi's bath, remains part of Shinto practice today.

Verdict

Real or Legend stamps the Izanagi and Izanami story DISPUTED, the mark this archive uses for sacred traditions whose events cannot be shown to have literally happened. That stamp concerns the jeweled spear, Yomi, and the birth of the sun goddess as claims of literal fact, not the worth of Shinto belief, which continues at shrines such as Izanagi Jingu today. What the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki agree on is the shape of the story: two gods make Japan and its kami, loss sends one of them to the land of the dead, and purification afterward brings forth the sun, the moon, and the storm.