Izanagi: Encyclopedia - Izanagi

Izanagi

Izanagi is a deity in Japanese mythology and in Shintoism.

He and his spouse Izanami bore many islands, deities, and forefathers of Japan. When Izanami died in childbirth, Izanagi tried (but failed) to retrieve her from Yomi (a hades). In the cleansing rite after his return, he begot Amaterasu (the sun goddess) from his left eye, Tsukiyomi (the moon god) from his right eye, and Susanoo (tempest or storm god) from his nose. The story of Izanagi and Izanami has close parallels to the Greek Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but it also has a major difference. When Izanagi looks prematurely at his wife, he beholds her monstruous and hellish state and she is shamed and enraged. She pursues him in order to kill him. She fails to do so, but promises to kill a thousand of his people every day. Izanagi retorts that a thousand and five hundred will be born every day.

There are remarkable similarities also between Izanami and Izanagi on the one hand and the Maya deities Itzamna and Ix Chel on the other. Among the Maya as among the Yamato, the male god is a gentle deity, creator of the sun and moon, while the female goddess (Ix Chel in Central America) is only benevolent while in company of her husband. If isolated from him, she becomes a malevolent goddess of floods, destruction and death. She has a serpent growing from her head, much like Izanagi in Yomi. A point that is at the same time a difference and a similarity: The name Izanami is the female goddess among the Yamato, while Itzamna is the male god among the Maya. The connection, if there really is one, must go back thousands of years to Paleolithic times, and in the course of the millennia the deities must have exchanged names or genders among one of the two peoples.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Izanagi", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki