Who Is Amaterasu? The Sun Goddess at the Root of Japan

The narratives are recorded in two eighth-century compilations, the Kojiki of 712 and the Nihon Shoki of 720, both produced under imperial sponsorship and both with an evident political purpose, which is to establish the ruling family's descent from the gods and its right to rule. They were written down after centuries of oral transmission and after substantial Chinese cultural influence, so they mix genuinely archaic material with court-period arrangement. In them, Amaterasu is born from the left eye of the primordial deity Izanagi as he purifies himself after visiting the land of the dead, with the moon deity Tsukuyomi born from his right eye and the storm deity Susanoo from his nose. She is given the plain of heaven to rule, which makes her the senior deity of the pantheon, a position a sun deity does not usually hold in traditions where solar figures are male.

The central episode begins with her brother Susanoo, wild and destructive, coming to heaven to say goodbye before exile. She suspects him of invasion and meets him armed; they undertake a contest to prove his sincerity, each producing children from the other's possessions, and he declares victory and celebrates by wrecking her rice fields, defiling her hall and throwing a flayed horse through the roof of her weaving hall, killing one of her attendants. She withdraws into the rock cave, and the world loses the sun, with crops failing and evil spirits multiplying. The recovery is the part everyone remembers, and its details matter because they became ritual:

• •A mirror is made and hung on a sacred tree outside the cave, along with jewels and cloth offerings
• •The goddess Ame-no-Uzume dances on an overturned tub in a state of divine possession, exposing herself, and the assembled deities laugh uproariously
• •Amaterasu, unable to imagine what could cause merriment in total darkness, opens the door slightly and is told a greater deity has arrived
• •She sees her own reflection in the mirror, does not recognise it, leans out, and a strong deity pulls her free while another seals the entrance with a rope
• •The rope, the mirror and the dance all survive in Shinto practice, as the shimenawa marking sacred space, as the mirror in the inner sanctuary of a shrine, and in the kagura dances performed at festivals

The political significance runs through her grandson Ninigi, whom she sends down to rule the islands, giving him three objects: a mirror, said to be the one from the cave and to hold her spirit, a sword recovered by Susanoo from the tail of an eight-headed serpent, and a curved jewel. Those three are the imperial regalia, and their presentation has been part of the accession of Japanese emperors into the modern era; they are never displayed publicly, and whether the originals survive is unknown, since the sword was reportedly lost at sea in a battle in 1185 and replacements are acknowledged in the tradition. Ninigi's great-grandson Jimmu is counted as the first emperor, traditionally from 660 BC, and the line was presented as unbroken from the sun goddess to the present, a claim that was official state doctrine from the Meiji Restoration until 1945, when the emperor renounced any claim to divinity in a radio address after the surrender.

Her principal shrine, at Ise in Mie prefecture, is the most important in Shinto and has an unusual practice attached to it. The inner shrine houses the sacred mirror, and the buildings are constructed in a plain archaic style using unpainted cypress with thatched roofs and no nails, and every twenty years the entire complex is demolished and rebuilt on an adjacent site that alternates between two plots, with the deity ceremonially transferred to the new building. This has been done since the late seventh century, most recently in 2013, sixty-two times in total, with interruptions during periods of war. The rebuilding is usually explained as a matter of ritual purity and renewal, and it has the practical effect of transmitting the carpentry techniques intact from one generation to the next, since each rebuild trains the craftsmen who will lead the following one. Access to the inner precincts is restricted, and until recent times no one but the emperor, a designated imperial priestess and certain priests could enter.

Shinto after 1945 was disestablished and separated from the state, and the mythology lost its official status while remaining culturally ubiquitous. The sun disc on the national flag is generally connected to her, the country's name means origin of the sun, and millions visit Ise annually. In popular culture she appears constantly in manga, anime and games, often recast considerably, and the cave story is a standard reference point for any narrative about light returning after darkness. Scholars read the myth in several ways at once: as an account of a solar eclipse or of the winter solstice, as a description of a shamanic ritual for recalling a departed spirit, with Uzume's dance as a possession trance, and as a political document constructed in the eighth century to justify a particular family's authority. All three readings can be true of the same text, which is generally the case with myths that have been written down by people with an interest in the outcome.

The sun goddess of Japanese tradition, born from the eye of a primordial deity and given rule over heaven, withdrew into a cave after her brother's violence and was drawn out by curiosity at a dance and by her own reflection in a mirror, restoring light. The mirror, rope and dance from that story survive in Shinto ritual, her grandson was sent to rule the islands with the three imperial regalia, and the emperors claimed unbroken descent from her until 1945. Her shrine at Ise has been rebuilt every twenty years since the seventh century.