Izanagi

It concerns a condition from which purification is sought.

One mythological connection takes us all the way back to Izanagi.

Now, after returning from Yomi, the land of the dead, Izanagi cleanses himself.

That story provides an important foundation for purification traditions involving water and the significance of the sea and salt.

It's quite an image.

[laughs] In Ancient Mesopotamia, Nanna, also known as Sin, was a Sumerian and later Babylonian god of the moon, and was specifically associated with the full moon and wisdom.

And in Japanese mythology, Tsukuyomi is a Shinto moon god born from the right eye of the creator deity Izanagi.

He is the counterpart to Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, who was born from Izanagi's left eye.

Ooh, what a mouthful.

Who gave birth to the islands? Where did the kami come from? Why is death different from life? How did the sun goddess Amaterasu become ancestor to the imperial line? Those are the questions driving the story, but centuries later, seven would become one of the most recognisable sacred numbers in Japanese religious life.

Not because Izanagi and Izanami created seven worlds, but because Japan became a meeting place for religious systems arriving from across East Asia and beyond.

The clearest example is the Shichifukujin, the seven lucky gods.

Today, they are among the most beloved divine figures in Japan.

They are a religious collage.

Ebisu is the most distinctly Japanese figure associated with fishing, commerce, honest labour and prosperity.

In some traditions he is connected to Hiroko, the unfortunate first child of Izanagi and Izanami, cast away after being born without bones.

a rejected child of creation, becoming a god of good fortune.

The birth of one invites the death of another.

His wife's harrowing cries yet still echoed in the ears of Izanagi.

Her body, scarred and burned, lay across his lap.

The squalling bundle of limbs whom he might have once called his son was covered in water-soaked reeds.

It was a detestable and accursed infant, covered in blazing sores and burnt skin.

Held between rage and grief, Izanagi drew his blade and beheaded his offspring, silencing its cries in an instant.

He turned his back upon the bodies and ran an oilcloth across the length of his blade, entirely disregarding of the divine ichor which dripped from the sword's edge.

Kagutsuchi, Kami of the Flame, was dead, and yet his divine flesh gave rise to eight twisted deities.

Ame-no-ko uprooted the holy sakaki trees which grew on the mountain of heaven and planted them around the entrance of the cave.

High on the upper branches were hung the precious string of curved jewels which Izanagi had bestowed upon the Sun Goddess.

From the middle branches dropped a mirror wrought of the rare minerals of the celestial mine.

Its polished surface was as the dazzling brilliancy of the sun.

Sure, some kami can be thought of as gods or spirits in the common sense of a divine personality.

According to Shinto mythology recorded in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, eighth century texts that are part myth and part history, the kami Izanami and Izanagi created the earthly realm.

This heavenly duo stirred the ocean with a spear, and the salt that dripped down created the first island.

They populated the world with all sorts of kami and natural phenomena, including their three noble children, the sun goddess Amaterasu and her brothers, the moon god Tsukuyomi and Susanoo, the storm god.