Deity · Japanese · c. 712 CE
Amaterasu
Also called Amaterasu-Ōmikami · also recorded as Amaterasu Ōmikami, Ōhirume-no-Muchi-no-Kami, Amaterasu-Ōhirume-no-Mikoto, 天照大御神, 天照大神 (per Wikidata)
Sun goddess who hides in a cave and must be lured out — and from whom the Japanese imperial house claimed descent until 1946.
![Historical depiction of Amaterasu, Japanese deity — Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞; b. 1786, d. 1865) — [1]](/entities/amaterasu.jpg)
Narrow source base
The sun as an ancestor rather than as a force. She withdraws into a cave after her brother's outrages and the world goes dark, and the gods get her out by staging a party outside it and hanging a mirror where she will see her own light and mistake it for a rival — she is drawn out by curiosity, and the door is barred behind her. The mirror is then one of the three imperial regalia, and the ruling house traces its descent from her, which makes this myth a constitutional document as much as a story. The Nihon Shoki gives several versions of the episode side by side without choosing, which is the plainest evidence in this corpus that a state cult could tolerate more than one account of its own founding.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
Ise, at the Inner Shrine, which has been ritually rebuilt on an adjacent plot every twenty years for something like thirteen centuries.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) · 712 CE
- Named there as
- Amaterasu-Ōmikami
- Rank
- Sun Goddess
- Pantheon
- Japanese
- Order
- Japanese pantheon
- Base of operations
- Ise, at the Inner Shrine, which has been ritually rebuilt on an adjacent plot every twenty years for something like thirteen centuries.
- Era
- c. 712 CE
- Traditions
- Shinto & Japanese
Traits
- Domain
- The sun, weaving, the imperial line
- Traditional form
- Rarely depicted; emerging from the rock cave
1 site
Where was it worshipped?
Attested cult sites, located against the Pleiades gazetteer of the ancient world where it reaches and against Wikidata everywhere else. An absence here is not evidence that no cult existed: a good number of figures never had one, and the entry above says so where that is the case.
Rebuilt on the adjacent plot every twenty years for something like thirteen centuries.
34.455, 136.726 · Wikidata Q687168
3 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 3 offices attributed to Amaterasu, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- social1
- martial1
- material1
3 marks
Which marks is it attached to?
A mark a figure carries and a mark used against a figure are opposite claims, so each link says which it is.
The Shimenawa
Used against it
The first thing the rope is used against is the sun goddess going back into hiding.
The Three Sacred Treasures
Carried as an emblem
Lured out by the mirror and jewel, and the one who hands all three on.
The Torii
Carried as an emblem
The kami of Ise, the shrine complex whose gates are the model for the type.
2 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Amaterasu, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts, all inside a single century
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as Amaterasu-Ōmikami, Amaterasu Ōmikami
Withdraws into the rock cave after Susanoo's outrages, darkening the world until drawn out by the mirror and the dance.
The same withdrawal into the cave, told with the chronicle's habit of giving several variant versions side by side and choosing none of them. That is the reason to have it: a corpus that carries only the Kojiki reads one recension as the myth, and this text demonstrates in its own layout that there was never a single authorised version.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Identified with Ra
Solar deities from whom a ruling house claims descent.
Serves Izanagi
Born from the washing of his left eye and given the plain of heaven to rule — a delegation rather than a service, in the closest term available.
Opposed by Tsukuyomi
She refuses to meet him again after he kills the food goddess, which is why the sun and moon are never in the sky together.
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Amaterasu?
Is Amaterasu the same as Ra?
What rank is Amaterasu?
How else is Amaterasu spelled?
What is Amaterasu said to do?
How old is Amaterasu?
Nearest in the corpus
If Amaterasu is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Izanagi
He Who Invites · Japanese
The Japanese god who stirs the sea into land with a spear, goes into Yomi after his wife and looks at her against her word, and washes afterwards — producing Amaterasu and Susanoo from the washing.
Izanami
She Who Invites · Japanese
The Japanese goddess who makes the islands with her husband, dies giving birth to fire, and becomes the ruler of Yomi — where she promises to kill a thousand people a day for the insult of being seen.
Susanoo
Storm Kami · Japanese
Expelled from heaven for wrecking his sister's rice fields, and then immediately kills the eight-headed serpent and becomes a hero.
Tsukuyomi
The Moon Reckoner · Japanese
The Japanese moon god, born from Izanagi's washing beside Amaterasu — and the reason the sun and moon are never in the sky together, having killed the food goddess at dinner and been refused his sister's company ever since.
Yamata-no-Orochi
Eight-Forked Serpent · Japanese
The eight-headed serpent given a daughter to eat each year, until Susanoo made it drunk and cut it apart. Japan's branch of the serpent-slaying pattern.
Artemis
Mistress of Animals · Greek
Huntress and protector of the young, whose Ephesian cult statue looks nothing like her and whose temple gave the ancient world one of its most durable protective formulas.
The books behind Amaterasu
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters)
Ō no Yasumaro · 712 CE · Old Japanese
Read Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Wikimedia file page
Nihongi (Nihon Shoki)
Prince Toneri and others; tr. W. G. Aston · 720 CE · Classical Japanese
Read Nihongi (Nihon Shoki) in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Unknown author · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.