Izanagi and Izanami

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Izanami and Izanagi

Izanagi no Mikoto ( Japanese 伊 邪 那 岐 命 'the man who invites' ) and Izanami no Mikoto ( 伊 邪 那 美 命 'the woman who invites' ) are the central primary gods ( Kami ) in the Japanese creation myth of the creation of the world . They were a pair of brother-sister gods who appeared after heaven and earth emerged from chaos. According to legend, they created the first land mass in the primordial ocean when they stood on the floating bridge of the sky and touched the water with a spear.

Creation of the world

Amanohashidate as the earthly counterpart of the suspension bridge of heaven

The Japanese myth of the origins of the world is recorded in the earliest Japanese chronicles Kojiki (712) and Nihonshoki (720) and has Chinese roots that go back to the introduction of Chinese culture as well as to immigrants. According to Nihonshoki , the world was initially a chaos in the form of an egg in which heaven and earth (or yin and yang ) did not yet exist separately from one another. After this separation was completed, fish-like or jellyfish-like structures floated about on the water; from these reed-like shoots arose and these became the first deities. In another version, the god Ame no minakanushi rises from a gelatinous mass and four other gods follow him. They represent the five primordial gods. There were six generations of primordial gods described very indefinitely and only with the seventh generation, the Izanagi and Izanami siblings, does the actual mythological narration begin.

The creation of Japan

Izanagi and Izanami descend from the heavenly realm of Takamanohara and create the mainland out of the primeval chaos by standing on the suspension bridge of heaven ( ame-no-uki-hashi ), the heavenly jewel lance ( ame-no-nuhoko or ame no tama -boko ) in the sea and stir in it. When they lift the lance out of the water, salt drips down from the tip and coagulates on the first land, the island of Onogoro . They descend on the island, build a palace and perform the wedding rite. They were guided by the lively movements of the Isi Tataki bird. Because Izanami speaks first during the ritual, she gives birth to a deformed child, Hiruko ( Japanese 蛭 子 'leech child' , in the later Shinto mythology he is known as the god Ebisu ). This child was dumped in a boat on the ocean. After this mistake, they began to perform the ritual again, creating numerous islands and deities, including the large and small islands of the Japanese archipelago.

The death of the first mother

At the birth of the fire god Kagutsuchi no Kami (or Homusubi), Izanami suffered fatal burns and went to Yomi , the land of darkness. While other deities arise even from her dead body, Izanagi slew the fire god who had stolen his sister from him. As a result, the fire god split into several kami . Also from the tears Izanagi shed over the death of his beloved, new gods emerged.

Similar to Orpheus , Izanagi went down to Yomi in the realm of the dead to look for his sister / wife. When he got there, she had already eaten food, so that the gods of the underworld no longer wanted to release Izanami. Izanami had wished that her brother shouldn’t see her, but he lit a torch and lit the room. Izanami's body was unsightly, rotten, and covered in maggots. Eight thunder gods lived in it. Izanagi was horrified and fled at the sight of her. Izanami, himself turned into a demon, pursued him until Izanagi closed the entrance to the underworld with a rock. Izanami then swore to bring a thousand people into the underworld every day. In response, Izanagi vowed to build a thousand and five hundred birthing huts every day. Izanagi bathed in the sea to cleanse himself of contact with the dead. A number of deities arose from this act of purification. The sun goddess Amaterasu-ō-mi-kami ( 天 照 大 御 神 ) was born from his left eye, the moon god Tsuki jo mi no mikoto arose from his right eye and the storm god Susanoo emerged from his nose . In religion, Izanagi's bath is regarded as the origin of the Japanese ritual 祓 harai , the important ritual cleansing practice of Shinto.

Izanagi withdraws into a kind of heavenly deal and Amaterasu takes over the rulership of the gods. This concludes the basic conditions for the creation of the world.

reception

Based on this creation story, Erich Fried wrote a radio play in 1960 in which he linked the myth of the two demigods Izanagi and Izanami with the love story of Orpheus and Eurydice . This was performed as a drama in the festival hall of the Mödling Museum in 2016.

literature

  • Karl Florenz : Japanese mythology [microform]: Nihongi "Age of the Gods." Along with additions from other old source works . Ed .: German Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia. Print of the Hobunsha, Tokyo 1901 ( archive.org ).
  • Izanagi and Izanami - Shintō deity . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . (English, britannica.com ).
  • Charles Francis Horne (Ed.): Ko-ji-ki, or records of ancient matters (=  Kairyudo Japanese classics . Volume 2 ). Kairyūdō, Tokyo 1936 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • Nelly Naumann: The transformation of the heavenly pillar: a Japanese myth and its cultural-historical classification (=  Asian folklore studies . No. 5 ). Society for Asian Folklore, Tokyo 1971 (University of Freiburg).
  • Andrew Matthews: Izanagi and Izanami: from the Shinto legends of Japan . In: From the beginning of the world: Creation stories of the peoples . Altberliner, Berlin / Munich 1996, ISBN 3-357-00750-9 (Original title: How the world began and other stories of Creation . Translated by Christina Baumeyer).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Ashkenazi: Izanagi and Izanami . In: Handbook of Japanese Mythology . ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, Calif. 2003, ISBN 1-57607-467-6 , pp. 172-177 ( books.google.de ).
  2. ↑ Karl Florenz: The historical sources of the Shinto religion from the old Japanese and Chinese . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, JC Hinrichs, Göttingen / Leipzig 1919 ( archive.org ).
  3. ↑ Philipp Franz von Siebold: Nippon - Archive describing Japan and its neighboring and protected countries Jezo with the southern Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Korea and the Liukiu Islands . tape 2 . L. Woerl, Würzburg / Leipzig 1897, p. 2 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ): “Japanese writers […], take the following gods and pairs of gods of these seven dynasties as the creation periods of the five elements, and put Izanagi and Izanami, equal to the Yang and Yen of the Chinese, as the male and the female principle of creation and procreation. "
  4. ↑ Herbert Zachert: The mythology of Shinto . In: Egidius Schmalzriedt, Hans Wilhelm Haussig (Hrsg.): Dictionary of Mythology . tape 6 : Gods and Myths of East Asia 1. Section: The ancient civilized peoples . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-12-909860-7 , p. 31 ( books.google.de ).
  5. ↑ ACCESSORIES YOU to study Anthropophyteia . Ethnological publishing house, Leipzig 1909, p. 16 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  6. ↑ Isi Tatak . In: Wilhelm Vollmer (Hrsg.): Vollmer's dictionary of mythology of all peoples . Hoffmann'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1874 ( vollmer-mythologie.de ).
  7. ↑ Izanagi and Izanami - Shintō deity . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . (English, britannica.com ).
  8. ↑ Erich Fried: Izanagi and Izanami: a game for speaking voices, singing and music . Ed .: Christine Ivanović. Iudicium-Verlag, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-86205-390-2 .
  9. ↑ "Izanagi and Izanami". Literary Society Mödling, January 2016, accessed on May 21, 2020 .