(I. 22.) left eye, which was called Ama-terasu-no-oho-Kami.[1] Then he washed his right eye, producing thereby a Deity who was called Tsuki-yomi no Mikoto.[2] Then he washed his nose, producing thereby a God who was called Sosa no wo no Mikoto. In all there were three Deities. Then Izanagi no Mikoto gave charge to his three children, saying, "Do thou, Amaterasu no Oho-kami, rule the plain of High Heaven: do thou, Tsuki-yomi no Mikoto, rule the eight-hundred-fold tides of the ocean plain: do thou, Sosa no wo no Mikoto, rule the world." At this time, Sosa no wo no Mikoto was already of full age. He had, moreover, grown a beard eight spans long. Nevertheless, he neglected to rule the world, and was always weeping, wailing, and fuming with rage. Therefore Izanagi no Mikoto inquired of him, saying, "Why dost thou continually weep in this way?" He answered and said, "I wish to follow my mother to the Nether Land, and it is simply for that reason that I weep." Then Izanagi no Mikoto was filled with detestation of him, and said, "Go, even as thy heart bids thee." So he forthwith drove him away.
(I. 23.) In one writing it is said: "Izanagi no Mikoto drew his sword and cut Kagutsuchi into three pieces. One of these
- ↑ The Sun-Goddess.
- ↑ The Moon-God. Compare with this the Chinese myth of P'an-ku: "P'an-ku came into being in the Great Waste, his beginning is unknown. In dying, he gave birth to the existing material universe. His breath was transmuted into the wind and clouds, his voice into thunder, his left eye into the sun, and his right into the moon: his four limbs and five extremities into the four quarters of the globe and the five great mountains, his blood into the rivers, his muscles and veins into the strata of the earth, his flesh into the soil etc."—Mayer's "Chinese Manual," p. 174. Note here that the Japanese myth gives precedence to the left over the right. This is a Chinese characteristic. Hirata rejects any identification of the two myths, pointing out that the sun is masculine in China and feminine in Japan. This is not conclusive. Such closely related nations as the English and Germans differ as to the sex which they ascribe to the sun, and Lang in his "Myth, Ritual, and Religion," points out that among the Australians, different tribes of the same race have different views of the sex of the sun and moon.
