Jump to content

Page:Kogoshui.djvu/52

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

— 24 —

strategy by mowing away the grass of the wilderness of Sagami Province. From that time on, owing to the Prince’s miraculous escape from danger, the sword whose ancient name was “Ame-no-Murakumo” was called “Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi” signifying “Herb-quelling or Grass-mower Sword”). Susano-o-no-Kami presented the Heavenly Gods with this sword.

Then Susano-o-no-Kami married a daughter of a local god who bore him a son named Ona-Muchi-no-Kami (This God is variously known as Omono-Nushi-no-Kami, Okuninushi-no-Kami, and Okunitama-no-Kami, who being now at Omiwa in Shiki-no-Kami District, Yamato Province, is also called Omiwa-no-Kami), (26) and then Susano-o-no-Kami went over to the Ne-no-Kuni or Nether Land.

Onamuchi-no-Kami together with Sukunahikona-no-Kami (this God was the son of Takamimusubi-no-Mikoto (Kami), and he went over later to the Tokoyo-no-Kuni—a far distant land) (27) did his best to carry out his programmes of ministering to the welfare of both men and animals; for example, both these Gods instructed living beings how to heal diseases by means of medicine and the efficacious use of certain magical incantations by which all calamities inflicted upon them by birds, beasts, reptiles, and insects could be dispelled. All that our Japanese people then learned under these two Divine Culture-heroes was so important and useful that they and their descendants have ever since enjoyed the bounteous grace of these divinities. The heavenly ancestor Akatsu-no-Mikoto took to wife Takuhata-Chichi-Hime, daughter of Takamimusubi-no-Kami, who bore him