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Ernest Satow considers that this Goddess is simply a “Personification of the successive generations of the Mikado’s consorts” (T.A.S.J., Vol. VII, p. 122).
24. Literally, “toyo” means “abundant, strong or powerful,” and “Iwa” “rock,” but in this case its true meaning is “strong, enduring, eternal,” and “mado” is a “window, or gate.” So that Toyo-Iwamado-no-Mikoto signifies “the Powerful God of the Strong Gates.”
25. Kushi-Iwamado-no-Mikoto means “the Wonderful God of the Strong Gate.”
26. The Culture Hero, Onamuchi-no-Kami, is better known as Okuninushi-no-Kami, who first ruled in Izumo Province, as a local god.
27. Nowadays it is very difficult to ascertain the location of Tokoyo-no-Kuni, for it is mentioned differently in the Kojiki and the Nihongi. In our opinion, the “Tokoyo-no-Kuni” possibly had three different meanings: the first place, literally speaking, being the “Eeternal Land,” or the “Land of Eternal Bliss,” or “Paradise”; the second, the “Land of Eternal Night-darkness or Nether-Land”; and the third, a most distant country, although it exists somewhere on the earth, very far away from Japan.
28. According to the Nihongi, this Edict was issued by Amaterasu-O-Mikami alone (W. G. Astons, E.T.N., Vol. I, p. 77).
29. Both the Kojiki and Nihongi accounts of this tradition mention three Sacred Treasures, namely, the Jewels, the Mirror, and the Sword, which have been handed down in the Imperial Family as the Divine Regalia, without whose possession no em-
