Amaterasu (天照) is, in the Shintoïsme, the goddess of the sun. According to the legend, all the Japanese emperors would have it like ancestor. It would have introduced the Riz iculture, the culture of the Blé and the worms with silk. It is reproduced on the Japanese flag under the appearance of the solar disk, accompanied or not by its rays.
Sometimes one joins with his name the qualifier ōkami (大神) or ōmikami (大御神) meaning “large goddess”.
The Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki evoke this goddess.
She was born from the left eye of her father, Izanagi, when he purified by Ablution after his return of the country of deaths. Izanagi ordered to him to direct the Takamanohara , kingdom of heaven.
Amaterasu and its brother Susanoo, kami of the sea and the wind, were rival. Thus, when it visited him, there be a long combat, after which it locked up Amaterasu in a cave (“Amano-Iwato”), consequently hiding occasion sun for one long period. According to another version, in anger, it is locked up itself. As a punishment, Amaterasu banishes Susanoo of the kingdom of heaven. To be repurchased near his/her sister, Susanoo offered thereafter to him the sword Kusanagi No tsurugi.
Bonds of the goddess with the imperial family
According to the Kojiki, Amaterasu ordered with its grandson Ninigi to go down on the Earth and to control it. For this purpose, she entrusted to him in addition to the sword which she had received from her brother, the mirror Yata No kagami, and the jewel Yasakani No magata. These three objects became the crowned distinguished of the imperial family and were transmitted then to Jimmu, the first emperor, grandson of Ninigi and ancestor of all Japanese emperors.Restoration Meiji until the end of the Second world war, the emperor was thus regarded as an alive god whose worship was for this reason a national business. At the twentieth century, this ascent constituted one of the bases of the Expansionnisme of Japan Showa and the Koshitsu shinto . In December 1945, the District-general of occupation promulgated however a directive instituting the separation of the religion and the State and abolishing the subsidy of the places of worship. In its imperial Proclamation of the new year 1946, emitted at the request of the occupying forces, the Empereur Showa affirmed that the belief wanting that he was a god with human form ( akitsumikami ) was erroneous, without however giving up its divine ascent.
As of old times, the imperial princesses who were not married became priestesses of the Temple of Ise which is dedicated to Amaterasu. At the time of the second world war the large priestess was one of the sisters of Hirohito. Kazuko Taka, one of the girls of this last was large priestess of 1974 to 1988. His/her sister, Atsuko Ikeda, replaced it since.
Popular culture
- the main character of the video game Ōkami , is Amaterasu incarnated in white she-wolf.
See too
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