Jerod Packard

Asian Religions
Professor Bailey
21st May 2018

RESEARCH PROJECT: KOJIKI

For my research project, I decided that I wanted to read an English translation of the

Kojiki that I found online. For those of you who are interested, here is the link to the translation

that I read: https://library.uoregon.edu/ec/e-asia/read/kojiki.pdf. The Kojiki is the earliest

recorded documentation of Japanese history, with its completion dating back to the year 712, and

covers Japanese mythology spanning from creation to the lineage and dynasty of the Imperial

Family. The myth regarding the creation of the islands of Japan, as well as the multitudes of

deities that exist, all stem from two deities named Izanagi and Izanami. They are believed to be

the 8th and final pair of brother and sister deities to be born before the creation of the world. At

one point, the heavens and earth separate in chaos, and the older generations of deities task

Izanagi and Izanami to restore order and expel the chaos. The two are given a spear with magical

qualities named Ame-no-nuboko, which they use to stir the oceans of the world. When the blade

of the spear is withdrawn from the oceans, each drop that falls off the point creates land, and

from this, the word we know today is created. After establishing their home on the first of the

islands that were created, the brother and sister decide to create a family, but things do not work

out in their favor. It was wildly unacceptable at this time for women to be outspoken, and during

the wedding ceremony for this pair, Izanami, during our equivalent of the “I do” in the

ceremony, speaks first. Because of this, horrible luck is brought upon the two throughout their

first attempts at conception. The first born of their children is born without bones in his, and is

soon referred to as “the leech child”. The two cast this child away at sea, and he later becomes
the patron god for fishermen as well as one of the seven deities associated with good luck. Their

subsequent attempts at conception go equally awry, and so the two decide that the only way to

fix their luck is to re-do their wedding ceremony correctly. This works like a charm, and the pair

start birthing children left and right. From this comes hundreds of different deities for the winds,

mountains, seas, trees, etc., as well as the islands of japan and islands around the world. The

world at this point is beginning to take shape, and nature begins to blossom because of these

deities. However, the constant childbirth begins to wither Izanami, and she becomes weak over

time. Her fate is sealed as she gives birth to Kagutuschi, the fire deity, and from this birth she

receives many grievous wounds from which she is not able to recover. From the tears of her

pain, many many more deities are born, and bring even more shape to the world. Izanami

perishes from the burns she receives. Izanagi, enraged by the loss of his wife, enacts revenged

and cuts Kagutuschi into hundreds of pieces, and from each one of these pieces spawns dozens

of new deities.

The next part of the story is where we being to see resemblances to other cultures and

mythology. Now living in the underworld, Izanami eats the food that is offered to her,

unknowing that, like the tale of Persephone in Greek mythology, this would trap her in this

realm. Izanagi, lonely and lost without his lifelong partner, charges to the underworld in an

attempt to retrieve his wife, only to find that she is trapped. Here, we see the mythology shift

from the similarities to Persephone’s tale, to that of Orpheus. Upon arrival, Izanagi is told that

his wife will return to him in time, but that in order for her to do so, he must wait and not lay

eyes upon her until she is ready to join him again. Exactly like the tale of Orpheus, this test of

patience proves to be too much for Izanagi, and he returns to the underworld to visit his wife.

Upon arrival, he witnesses something truly mortifying. He lays eyes upon his wife, alive, yet
stuck in her decomposing body. Not only does this betrayal of his promise enrage his wife, but it

goes against the agreement that Izanagi made, and he is chased out of the underworld by the

eight thunders, forced to abandon his wife in the underworld. Fresh off his failure, Izanagi

decides to block the entrance to the underworld with a giant stone, preventing anyone else from

entering or exiting this realm. Plagued by many impurities, curses, and darknesses that he

encountered in the underworld, Izanagi performs a cleansing ritual in a sacred river that rids him

of all of these ailments. From this ritual, many of the Shinto deities are born, as they are the

cleansed versions of these impurities.

That is just one of the many myths that are covered in the Kojiki, and unfortunately, I do

not think that I have enough time to surmise another, as most of these myths are pretty complex

and long winded. Despite the complexities of these myths, each one is extremely fascinating, and

I highly recommend that you all read the Kojiki! I think one of the most fascinating parts of the

Kojiki is how some of the myths align with those of other cultures. As exemplified in the myth

above, there are a lot of instances of similarities between Japanese myths and those of Greek

mythology. To me, this is something that is very important to note. How do cultures separated by

hundreds of years and miles arrive at similar narratives that drive their teachings and society?

This leads me to believe that these religions have so much more in common than just meets the

eye, and that there must be some connecting force that we all have interpreted in different ways.

I personally felt that the tales of the Kojiki were a lot of fun to read, but the extensive

genealogies that were incorporated made keeping track of deities, historical figures, and those

that the narrative was focusing on at the time very confusing. It seemed that there was a lot of

name dropping and moving past who the person/deity was, or, as also exemplified in the Izanagi

and Izanami myth, they wouldn’t specify which deities were created when, and instead let you
surmise who was born when as they appeared within the story. This made some parts a lot like a

puzzle, which detracted from my understanding of the mythology, and pulled me out of my

reading. However, it seems as though most scholars don’t admire the Kojiki for its mythology or

contents anyways. With there being multiple examples of texts preceding the Kojiki, it is fair to

say that the contents aren’t what is most important. Not only this, but there is no clear and

indisputable way to interpret the Kojiki because of it being written in characters and symbols.

That being said, the version I read is just one of many translations that exist, and what I pulled

from that translation could be very different from the original meaning of the text. In the eyes of

scholars, the most important aspect of the Kojiki is the fact that it is the oldest record of Japanese

history we have. Scholars believe that the visceral impact that we feel from reading this text and

the excitement and intrigue it brings isn’t from the contents but the fact that we feel like we are

discovering the origins of Japan as we read, which I can attest is true. I know that whenever I

read mythology, Kojiki included, the stories are just a small part of the fun. Discovering the way

a culture thought, viewed the world, and believed themselves to have been created is extremely

fascinating. Not only this, but the tales teach great morals that our modern day children’s books

just cannot match. Scholars also admire the complexity of the text itself, but also not for the

tales, in a sense. Comparatively speaking, the Kojiki is one of the most complex and elaborate

examples of a scared text that we have. This is due to all of the complex things I mentioned

above, such as the massive amounts of deities that are created seemingly out of nowhere,

genealogy that spans over the course of hundreds of years, and deities who come and go at the

drop of a hat. I think one of the biggest examples that we can see of this is that of Kagutuschi in

the myth I surmised. From each of the pieces that he was cut into, dozens of new deities were

formed, so think 12 times however many pieces he was cut into. Not only this, but nowhere is it
detailed exactly what these deities are deities of, what their names are, who they become, or their

significance unless they come up later in the mythology.

I think the biggest thing that I am going to take away from this project is how all cultures

really are connected in some way or another. There are so many similar myths created across

cultures that there is no way that some of these things couldn’t be true. Of course, I am not

saying that the myths of Persephone and Orpheus and Izanagi and Izanami are true, but there as

to be something that allowed these two cultures to create similar dialogue. I think that all cultures

are more similar than we would like to think, and that by reading this book, I was able to take a

step towards celebrating the differences between cultures, while also appreciating the

similarities.