22 Facts About Amaterasu

Amaterasu, known as Amaterasu Omikami or Ohirume no Muchi no Kami, is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology.

Name 'Amaterasu Omikami' has been translated into English in different ways.

One of the variant legends in the Shoki relates that Amaterasu ordered her brother Tsukuyomi to go down to the terrestrial world and visit the goddess Ukemochi.

Amaterasu then sent another god, Ame-no-Kumahito, who found various food-crops and animals emerging from Ukemochi's corpse.

Amaterasu had the grains collected and sown for humanity's use and, putting the silkworms in her mouth, reeled thread from them.

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Five gods and three goddesses were born as a result; Amaterasu adopted the males as her sons and gave the females – later known as the three Munakata goddesses – to Susanoo.

One of Amaterasu's weaving maidens was alarmed and struck her genitals against a weaving shuttle, killing her.

Amaterasu's therefore was enraged, and straightway took up her abode in the Rock-cave of Heaven, and fastened its Rock-door.

Inside the cave, Amaterasu is surprised that the gods should show such mirth in her absence.

Curious, Amaterasu slid the boulder blocking the cave's entrance and peeked out, at which Ame-no-Koyane and Futodama brought out the mirror and held it before her.

Amaterasu ordered Ame-no-Oshihomimi, the firstborn of the five male children born during her contest with Susanoo, to go down to earth and establish his rule over it.

At the advice of Omoikane and the other deities, Amaterasu then dispatched another of her five sons, Ame no Hohi.

Amaterasu again demurred and suggested that his son Ninigi be sent instead.

Amaterasu thus bequeathed to Ninigi Kusanagi, the sword Susanoo gave her, along with the two items used to lure her out of the Ame-no-Iwayato: the mirror Yata-no-Kagami and the jewel Yasakani no Magatama.

Takamimusubi or Amaterasu then told Iwarebiko in a dream that the giant crow Yatagarasu would be sent to guide them in their way.

Amaterasu then established his palace-capital at Kashihara and ruled therein.

When Jingu returned victorious to Japan, she enshrined the deities in places of their own choosing; Amaterasu, warning Jingu not to take her aramitama along to the capital, instructed her to install it in Hirota, the harbor where the empress disembarked.

Amaterasu has 5 sons Ame-no-oshihomimi, Ame no Hohi, Amatsuhikone, Ikutsuhikone, and Kumanokusubi.

Amaterasu can be considered a goddess of the wind and typhoons alongside her brother, and even possibly death.

In contrast, Amaterasu, while enshrined at other locations, can be seen as the goddess that represents Japan and its ethnicity.

Amaterasu is linked to a snake cult, which is tied to the theory that the initial gender of the goddess was male.

Amaterasu has the highest position among the Shinto deities, there has been debate on her influence and relation to women's positions in early Japanese society.