his personal conduct. Every day he was heedful for that day. Thus the weal of the people was sufficient, and the Empire was at peace. And now, under Our reign, shall there be any remissness in the worship of the Gods of Heaven and Earth?"[1]
3rd month, 10th day. Ama-terasu no Oho-kami was taken from Toyo-suki-iri-hime no Mikoto,[2] and entrusted to Yamato-hime no Mikoto. Now Yamato-hime no Mikoto sought for a place where she might enshrine the Great Goddess. So she proceeded to Sasahata in Uda. Then turning back from thence, she entered the land of Ohomi, and went round eastwards to Mino, whence she arrived in the province of Ise.
(VI. 16.) Now Ama-terasu no Oho-kami instructed Yamato-hime no Mikoto, saying:—"The province of Ise, of the divine wind,[3] is the land whither repair the waves from the eternal world, the successive waves. It is a secluded and pleasant land. In this land I wish to dwell." In compliance, therefore, with the instruction of the Great Goddess, a shrine was erected to her in the province of Ise. Accordingly an Abstinence Palace[4] was built at Kaha-kami in Isuzu. This was called the palace of Iso. It was there that Ama-terasu no Oho-kami first descended from Heaven.
One story is that the Emperor made Yamato-hime no Mikoto to be his august staff,[5] and offered her to Ama-terasu no Oho-kami. Thereupon Yamato-hime no Mikoto took Ama-terasu no Oho-kami, and having enshrined her at Idzu-kashi no Moto in Shiki,[6] offered sacrifice to her. Thereafter, in compliance with the Goddess's instructions, she, in Winter, the 10th month of the year Hinoto
- ↑ This speech is thoroughly Chinese. It contains numerous phrases borrowed from the Chinese classics.
- ↑ She had been appointed B.C. 92, eighty-seven years before.
- ↑ This is a stock epithet (makura kotoba) of this province.
- ↑ Abstinence Palace or Worship Palace. "On the accession of an Emperor, an unmarried Princess of the Imperial House was selected for the service of the Shrine of Ise, or if there was no such unmarried Princess, then another Princess was fixed upon by divination and appointed worship-princess (齋王). The Worship-Palace was for her residence." Shintō miômoku ruijiushô, III. 23. See above, note to p. 41.
- ↑ i.e. assistant or deputy.
- ↑ In Yamato. Idzu means sacred; kashi is the name of a tree; moto means bottom.
