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MaedaAkihiko  · CC0

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The sun goddess and a claimed descent

Two eighth-century chronicles, a sun goddess, and a royal house that traces itself to her — and why a descent claimed in an account is never drawn as a documented family.

  • 7 steps
  • Texts, Deities, Places, Houses
  • A note at each step
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Not yet reviewed · written . The notes follow the records; no editor has signed them.

  1. Ken'yu (賢瑜), Koten Hozonkai (古典保存会) · Public domain

    Step 1 of 7: Text

    Kojiki

    8th-century Japanese chronicle

    Begin with the source. The Kojiki was compiled for the court, and its date is on the source clock. Nearly everything on the next pages about the age of the gods is what this text and one other say: a date for the telling, not for anything told.

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  1. Izanagi Family tree
  2. Amaterasu Family tree
  3. Nihon Shoki Text
  4. Ninigi Deity
  5. Ise Jingū On the atlas
  6. Imperial House of Japan House
  1. Originally uploaded on sv:wiki 10 April 2005 kl.18.50 by Lamré · Public domain

    Step 2 of 7: Deity · Family tree

    Izanagi

    Deity of Shinto religion

    Izanagi and Izanami, the pair who shape the islands in the chronicles, with a long row of children. In the Kojiki the sun goddess, the moon god and Susanoo are born from Izanagi alone, as he purifies himself after leaving the land of the dead; other tellings give them both parents. The records keep both, so the drawing does too.

    Open the family tree Continue to Amaterasu
  2. Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞; b. 1786, d. 1865) · Public domain

    Step 3 of 7: Deity · Family tree

    Amaterasu

    Sun goddess in Shinto

    Amaterasu, the sun goddess, as the accounts tell it: her parents, her siblings, and the children born of a ritual contest with her brother Susanoo — which is why the records list him as her partner. The canvas labels all of it as kinship in the accounts. It is not a household anyone documented.

    Open the family tree Continue to Nihon Shoki
  3. Urabe Kanekata · Public domain

    Step 4 of 7: Text

    Nihon Shoki

    8th century book of classical Japanese history

    The Nihon Shoki, the second chronicle, finished a few years after the Kojiki and often telling the same events differently — sometimes giving several variants side by side. Two sources close in date that disagree are not an error to reconcile. They are two accounts, and a relationship names the account it holds in wherever the records say.

    Open the profile Continue to Ninigi
  4. Ishii Rinkyo (1884-1930) · Public domain

    Step 5 of 7: Deity

    Ninigi

    Shinto god

    Ninigi, Amaterasu’s grandson, sent down from heaven to rule: the step at which the chronicles join the age of the gods to a line of rulers. Whatever length of time the chronicles give the gods belongs to the story’s own clock. It is not history, and it is never a date on the historical clock.

    Open the profile Continue to Ise Jingū
  5. MaedaAkihiko · CC0

    Step 6 of 7: Place · On the atlas

    Ise Jingū

    Shinto shrine in Mie Prefecture, Japan

    Ise Jingū, the shrine of Amaterasu. The founding year its record carries is the Nihon Shoki’s reckoning, stored as a historical date. The shrine is real and very old; that particular year is a chronicle’s, and its dot on the atlas should be read that way.

    See it on the atlas Continue to Imperial House of Japan
  6. 日本国政府 · CC BY 4.0

    Step 7 of 7: House

    Imperial House of Japan

    Members of the extended family of the reigning Emperor of Japan

    The Imperial House of Japan, which traces its line through Ninigi’s descendants to the first emperor of the chronicles. The founding date on its page is again the chronicle’s reckoning. A descent from the sun goddess is the chronicles’ account; a claimed descent is kinship in an account, not a documented family, however long the line that follows it.

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