Izanagi and Izanami: The Realm of the Dead

Izanami’s Wrath

When Izanami died, Izanagi followed her to Yomi, the realm of the dead. At the doorway, where she greeted him, he said, “My beloved wife, the lands we were making are still incomplete. Return with me.”

“You should have come earlier, before I ate the food of the underworld” Izanami said. “But now you’ve made the journey, I wish to go back with you. I’ll ask the Yomi deities. Don’t look at me until I finish.”

She went back into the hall, but it took so long that Izanagi grew tired of waiting. He broke off a tooth from the comb he was wearing in his left lock of hair, lit it, and entered the hall. Inside, countless maggots squirmed across his wife’s body, and eight thunder deities were sitting around her. Izanagi was frightened and he fled. “You’ve shamed me!” Izanami cried out, dispatching fearful hags after him.

Izanagi untied a vine from around his hair and threw it down, where it became wild grapes. As the hags stopped to eat them, Izanagi dashed onward. Next, he cast down the comb he was wearing in his right lock of his hair, which became bamboo shoots. The hags stopped to eat them, and Izanagi dashed onward again. Now, Izanami sent after him the eight thunder deities and 1,500 warriors.

Izanagi drew his great sword and swung it behind him as he ran, but still they followed him. When he reached the slope that joined our world to the underworld, he plucked three peaches growing there, and hurled them at his pursuers, causing them all to take flight. Izanami herself came after him at last, and he lifted a giant rock and blocked the path between the worlds.

(© Stuart Ayre)

As they stood sundered on either side of the boulder, Izanami said, “Because of your actions, my dear husband, I will strangle one thousand of the people of your country every day.”

“In that case,” Izanagi replied, “I will build one thousand five hundred birthing huts every day.” This is why one thousand people die and one thousand five hundred are born in our world each day.

New Gods

When Izanagi returned from Yomi, he said, “I’ve been to a disgusting, dirty land, so I must purify myself.” He performed his ritual of purification at a river’s mouth, throwing aside his staff, bag, and clothes, one by one, from which new deities arose. “The upper shallows are too swift and the lower shallows too weak,” he said, diving into the middle of the stream. As he bathed, yet more new deities were born.

When he washed his left eye, the deity Amaterasu appeared, joined by Tsukuyomi when he washed his right eye, and Susanoo when he washed his nose. Izanagi was greatly pleased at the birth of these three last children. He took a necklace from around his neck, jingling the beads, and gave it to Amaterasu, saying, “Go and rule the high plain of heaven.” Then he said to Tsukuyomi, “Go and rule the land of night,” and to Susanoo, “Go and rule the ocean.”

The first two of these did as he said, but Susanoo only continued to wail until he grew into an adult with a long beard. His laments withered the trees on the hills, dried up rivers and oceans, and brought wicked deities buzzing like summer flies, leading to disaster after disaster.

“Why do you spend all your time wailing, instead of ruling the land I assigned to you?” Izanagi demanded.

“I’m crying because I want to go to Yomi, where my mother is,” Susanoo replied.

Izanagi was furious. “Then you cannot live here!” he said, and sent Susanoo into exile.

(Text by Richard Medhurst, based on the story in Kojiki. Illustrations © Stuart Ayre.)