The Origin Of Death According To Japanese Mythology

The legend about creation of Japan

At the beginning of time, the first Japanese gods created two divine beings. A man named Izanigi and a woman, Izanami. These ancestral gods entrusted them with the mission of creating a land so wonderful that it would not be comparable to any other.

Years later, when they completed the mission imposed by the first gods, they decided it was time to have offspring. From their union were born the eight great Japanese islands. 

Harmony reigned in the created world. The deities lived with their many children until the day Izanami fathered Kagutsuchi, god of fire. Following a very complicated childbirth, the mother of creation remained very ill for a while and then died.

The deity’s death was extremely devastating for  Izanigi, who did not accept it. After having buried Izanami’s body in the mountains, in the mythical Mount Hiba near Izumo, he decided to go in search of his beloved  in the kingdom of Yomi, name that receives the land of the dead.

Izanigi set out for the territory of darkness and began to search for his beloved wife. All the demons he encountered warned him that Izanami could never go with him.  That it was impossible to return to the land of the living when the fruit of Yomi had been tasted.

After several months of hardship and suffering, Izanigi finally found his wife in a place where darkness reigned. She told him that she couldn’t go back to him because it was too late. Izanami had eaten the food from the afterlife. She  went, however, to try to convince the Yomi leaders to let her go.  She asked her husband not to come in while she did.

The only condition for obtaining the approval of the gods was that  Izanagi did not look at his wife when she entered the palace again.  But the deity, as in the myth of Orpheus, did not resist the temptation and lit a small flame with one of the teeth of his comb and entered the palace. With this light,  Izanigi broke the law by disturbing the harmony of darkness. He gazed at his wife’s body  transformed into a rotten corpse, overflowing with worms. The deities of thunder and lightning were emerging from her head and chest.

So the god fled in terror as his wife accused him of shaming her and pursued him throughout the Yomi kingdom to kill him. After relentless harassment, Izanami pierced her husband’s body with a spear, leaving him badly injured.

The creation father ran without rest until he felt the breeze outside. Although injured, he was able to reach the realm of the living.  With what little strength he had left, he sealed the fine crack that separated the two worlds with a large rock.

Izanami, from inside the cave, was screaming at her husband to let her enter the realm of the living. But, terrified of all he had been through, he categorically refused. The goddess then threatened her husband to kill 1000 humans every day, to which Izanagi replied “then I will give life to 1500 other beings every day”.

This is how death began to spread across the earth and the mystical Japanese people celebrated the Day of the Dead, or Obon, for over 500 years.

Death according to Japanese mythology

The origin of death according to Japanese mythology is still part of a millennial past  where myths and religion are part of the global thought of ancestral culture.

The sense of community, family and death has deteriorated today in Japan. It leaves room for a more westernized thought. The  death is nevertheless considered borrows some dirt that needs to be purified. It is therefore necessary to clean, flavor, dress and prepare as worthily as possible the person who has died and whose soul leaves for the world beyond.

To conclude. Unlike Western culture where this process is treated as a taboo subject, death according to Japanese mythology  is considered inevitable. The important thing is in the actions carried out during life. The pain of the death of a loved one turns into a feeling of comfort considering that the soul of the deceased is still with us.