Leaving the encounter behind
After escaping Yomi, Izanagi declares that he has visited a polluted place and must cleanse himself. He goes to water near Tachibana in Himuka. Before entering, he throws aside his staff, belt, garments, headgear, and bracelets. Each discarded object becomes associated with a newly named deity. The sequence makes preparation for washing creative in its own right.
The text does not reduce the event to ordinary removal of dirt. Izanagi is responding to contact with death, and his return requires a changed condition. Yet this episode is also a narrated action by a particular deity. It is not a complete manual for the many purification practices that have developed in Japanese religious life.
Source: Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters, Chamberlain translation · Kojiki §10, arrival and discarded objects
A succession within the water
Izanagi judges the upper current too fast and the lower current too slow, choosing the middle reach. Deities associated with harmful influences appear from the pollution he brought back; others then arise to rectify those influences. Further groups emerge as he washes at the bottom, middle, and surface of the water. The narrator connects some of these beings with named communities and places of worship.
The order matters. Harm is neither ignored nor described as an indestructible substance. The account gives it names, then introduces powers that address it. Water also has distinct levels, so the scene produces a structured set of relationships rather than an undifferentiated crowd of gods.
Source: Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters, Chamberlain translation · Kojiki §10, washing and divine groups
Children receive responsibilities
When Izanagi washes his left eye, Amaterasu appears; the right eye produces Tsukuyomi; washing his nose produces Susanoo. Delighted by these three exceptional children, he allocates responsibilities. Amaterasu receives the heavenly plain and a necklace, Tsukuyomi the night, and Susanoo the sea plain. The next episode begins when Susanoo fails to govern his assigned realm and continues weeping.
This ending joins generation to administration: birth is followed by a distribution of work and authority. It is the Kojiki's particular arrangement. The Nihon Shoki preserves alternative accounts of the sun and moon's production, so this single-parent ablution should not be silently combined with a version in which both creator deities produce them together.
Source: Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters, Chamberlain translation · Kojiki §§10–12
- Period / witness
- Kojiki presented in 712 CE; Chamberlain translation 1882. Narrative time is not a historical date.
- Recording context
- Kojiki, a Japanese court compilation attributed to Ō no Yasumaro from material recited by Hieda no Are; cited by Chamberlain’s numbered sections, not asserted as the origin of the tradition.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
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These references support the explanation above. Rights and edition notes are recorded individually.
Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters, Chamberlain translation ↗
Ō no Yasumaro (compiler, as identified in the preface); translated by Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935) · Court compilation presented 712 CE; translation published Yokohama, 1882
Edition & rights note