Izanagi's Descent to Yomi

In the time of the world's beginning, the divine couple Izanagi and Izanami stood upon the Floating Bridge of Heaven and stirred the primordial chaos with a jeweled spear. Where the brine dripped from the spear, islands formed, and thus Japan was born. Together they descended to these islands and gave birth to the gods of the sea, mountains, wind, and trees.

But when Izanami gave birth to Kagutsuchi, the god of fire, the flames consumed her. She died in agony, and her divine husband's grief was boundless. In his rage, Izanagi drew his sword and beheaded the fire god, and from the blood that sprayed from the blade were born more deities of violence and destruction.

Izanami's body was buried on Mount Hiba, but Izanagi could not accept her death. He resolved to journey to Yomi, the shadowy underworld, to bring his beloved wife back to the world of the living.

The boundary between the living and the dead was not yet fixed. A god might cross where mortals could not. But even gods must obey the laws of death.

Izanagi walked the dark path into Yomi, leaving the light of the sun far behind. The underworld was a realm of perpetual gloom, neither hot nor cold, where the spirits of the dead wandered without purpose. At last he came to the great palace where Izanami now dwelt.

He called out to her through the closed doors, begging her to return with him. "We have not finished making the islands," he pleaded. "The world above needs you. I need you."

Izanami's voice came from within, weak but still recognizable. "You have come too late, my beloved. I have eaten the food of Yomi. I belong to this realm now." In all the underworlds of myth, those who consume the food of the dead cannot return to life.

"But I will ask the gods of Yomi if an exception might be made," she continued. "Wait for me, and whatever you do, do not look upon me."

Izanagi waited in the darkness. Hours passed, or perhaps days, for time moves differently in Yomi. His patience wore thin, his longing unbearable. Surely enough time had passed. Surely she would not mind if he just looked for a moment.

He took a comb from his hair and broke off a tooth. He set it alight like a torch, and in its small, flickering flame, he saw Izanami.

She had become a thing of horror. Her beautiful form had decayed, maggots writhing through her flesh, the eight thunder deities growing from her rotting limbs. She was no longer the wife he remembered but a creature of death, and she had been transformed utterly by her time in Yomi.

What love can survive the sight of death? What bond can endure the corruption of the flesh? Izanagi learned that some boundaries must not be crossed, and some promises must be kept.

Izanami's scream of rage and shame echoed through all of Yomi. "You have shamed me!" she shrieked. "You have seen my humiliation!" She sent the hags of Yomi after him, the shikome, foul spirits of the underworld.

Izanagi fled, casting behind him his headdress, which transformed into grapes. When the hags stopped to devour them, he threw his comb, which became bamboo shoots. Each delay bought him a few more steps toward the light.

But Izanami herself now pursued him, and she was faster than her servants. Just as Izanagi reached the pass of Yomi, the boundary between the worlds, he found a massive boulder and sealed the passage behind him. Through the rock, husband and wife faced each other for the last time.

"If you do this," Izanami swore, "I will kill a thousand of your precious living things each day."

"Then I will cause fifteen hundred to be born," Izanagi replied. "Life will always overcome death."

They divorced there at the gates of hell, and the boulder became the barrier between the living and the dead that exists to this day.

Izanagi emerged from Yomi polluted by his contact with death and decay. He went to a river to purify himself, and as he washed, more gods were born from the contamination. From his left eye came Amaterasu, the sun goddess. From his right eye came Tsukuyomi, the moon god. From his nose came Susanoo, the storm god.

These three would become the most important deities of Japan, born from the purification that followed a failed journey to rescue the dead. Izanagi's descent to Yomi established the laws of mortality that have governed Japan ever since, and his failure taught that death must be accepted, not defied.