The request to return
Izanagi follows Izanami to Yomi because the lands they made together remain unfinished. She comes to meet him at the entrance to a palace. His request is for renewed companionship and continued work, but she explains that she has already eaten food from the realm of the dead. She nevertheless agrees to consult its deities about returning and tells him not to look at her.
He waits, becomes impatient, and breaks a tooth from his comb to make a light. Inside he sees her decomposing body, inhabited by eight thunder deities. The knowledge he sought destroys his willingness to remain. He flees, and Izanami understands his action as an exposure that has shamed her.
Source: Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters, Chamberlain translation · Kojiki §9, request, prohibition, and illumination
Objects become means of escape
Izanami sends a pursuer after him. Izanagi throws down his headgear, which becomes grapes; a comb becomes bamboo shoots. Eating delays pursuit, but does not end it. Thunder deities and a force from Yomi follow. He brandishes his sword behind him while running, then reaches the slope separating the worlds and uses three peaches to drive the pursuers back.
He thanks the fruit and assigns it a protective role for people in future distress. Finally Izanami herself approaches. Izanagi moves an enormous rock across the passage, and the pair confront one another from opposite sides. The escape has required transformations, food, weapons, and a physical barrier; courage by itself has not recovered the relationship.
Source: Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters, Chamberlain translation · Kojiki §9, pursuit and peaches
A separation that shapes mortal life
Izanami threatens to kill a thousand people each day. Izanagi answers by promising fifteen hundred births. Their incompatible declarations establish a continuing balance in which death is real but does not exhaust the population. The passage names Izanami as a deity of Yomi and gives divine names to the blocking stone.
The ending is not a successful rescue followed by a minor mistake. Izanagi returns alone, and the marriage has become a division between realms. Chamberlain's heading calls Yomi “Hades,” but that comparative English label should not import Greek geography, judges, or punishments. The story explains its own boundary through an encounter between particular beings and the consequences of their broken agreement.
Source: Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters, Chamberlain translation · Kojiki §9, final exchange and names
- 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