Amaterasu-Ōmikami, the Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity, is born when her father Izanagi washes his left eye during the purification that follows his flight from the land of the dead. She rises to rule Takamagahara, the Plain of High Heaven, and becomes ancestress of Japan’s imperial line — every reigning emperor traces descent to her through her grandson Ninigi, sent down to earth bearing her sacred mirror as token of authority.
Her most famous myth is a retreat rather than a triumph. Provoked by the destructive pranks of her brother Susanoo, who breaks down her rice-field dikes and hurls a flayed horse into her weaving hall, she withdraws into the Heavenly Rock-Cave and seals the entrance, plunging the cosmos into darkness:
由此發慍。乃入于天石窟。閉磐戶而幽居焉。故六合之內常闇而不知晝夜之相代
“Indignant at this, she straightway entered the Rock-cave of Heaven, and having fastened the Rock-door, dwelt there in seclusion. Therefore constant darkness prevailed on all sides, and the alternation of night and day was unknown.” — Nihon Shoki, Book I; English tr. W. G. Aston, Nihongi (1896)
Eight hundred myriad gods gather outside her door, and the dance of Ame-no-Uzume together with the crowing of long-singing birds draws her out with the help of a mirror, restoring light to the world. That mirror, Yata-no-Kagami, is enshrined today at Ise Grand Shrine’s Inner Shrine, rebuilt every twenty years in an unbroken rite, and counts among the Three Sacred Treasures of the Imperial Regalia. Ise draws millions of pilgrims annually, making Amaterasu one of the most actively venerated deities in the world.
