Several names, an uneven beginning
The Kojiki lists several names for the deity, including Great-Name-Possessor and Master-of-the-Great-Land in Chamberlain's translation. He first appears in the hare episode carrying his brothers' baggage. His attention to the injured animal contrasts with their cruelty. The following attacks show that his later authority is not an ability to avoid all vulnerability: he dies, receives help, and must flee people close to him.
Source: Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters, Chamberlain translation · Kojiki §§20–23
Making a land requires company
Suseribime supplies the means to survive Susanoo's tests. Later Sukunabikona joins him in consolidating the land; when that companion departs, he asks how he can continue alone. Another divine presence offers assistance on condition of appropriate worship. The account repeatedly makes dependence productive. Ōkuninushi's title should not be mistaken for a claim that one isolated creator performed every necessary task without negotiation or help.
Source: Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters, Chamberlain translation · Kojiki §§23, 27–28
Yielding without vanishing from meaning
During the land-transfer episode he consults his sons, accepts their eventual agreement, and asks for a grand dwelling before withdrawing. The story preserves a place for him after the heavenly descendant takes authority. That arrangement is a claim of the compiled narrative, not a straightforward report of a single historical treaty. His career joins care, persecution, alliance, making, and relinquishment; any one of these alone gives an incomplete portrait.
Source: Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters, Chamberlain translation · Kojiki §32
- 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