Deity · Japanese · c. 100 BCE
Izanagi
Also called Izanagi-no-Mikoto
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.
Narrow source base
What the corpus wants him for is the bathing. Having escaped Yomi he cleanses himself in a river, and the pollution comes off as gods: Amaterasu from the left eye, the moon from the right, Susanoo from the nose. Contact with death is a defilement to be removed rather than a sin to be forgiven, and the removal is productive. That is a materially different theory of impurity from the ones running through the rest of this site, and it explains why Shinto has purification where the traditions here have exorcism.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
Awaji, the first island made, and Taga in Ōmi
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
- Izanagi no Mikoto
- Rank
- He Who Invites
- Pantheon
- Japanese
- Order
- Japanese pantheon
- Base of operations
- Awaji, the first island made, and Taga in Ōmi
- Era
- c. 100 BCE
- Traditions
- Shinto & Japanese
Traits
- Domain
- Creation, the purification that follows contact with death
- Traditional form
- A man with the jewelled spear
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.
now Awaji, Hyōgo
On the island the Kojiki makes the first thing formed when the pair stir the sea with the jewelled spear — so the shrine stands on what its own myth calls the beginning of the country.
The first island formed with the jewelled spear, and the shrine that stands on it.
34.460, 134.852 · Wikidata Q10884977
3 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 3 offices attributed to Izanagi, 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.
- martial1
- material1
- transformation1
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 Izanagi, 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
- Rank: given as He who invites; Male deity of the pair
Forms the first island with the jewelled spear, follows Izanami into Yomi and flees when he sees her, and produces the great gods in the purification afterwards.
The same sequence with variants: in one version the three great gods are produced by the purification, in another they are borne by the pair directly.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Opposes Izanami
Not an enmity at the outset: they make the islands together, and the opposition begins when he looks at her in Yomi and flees. The text ends with a thousand deaths a day against fifteen hundred births.
Served by Amaterasu
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.
Served by Susanoo
Born in the same purification and assigned the sea, which he refuses in order to go to his mother in Yomi.
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Izanagi?
What rank is Izanagi?
How else is Izanagi spelled?
What is Izanagi said to do?
How old is Izanagi?
Nearest in the corpus
If Izanagi 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.
Amaterasu
Sun Goddess · Japanese
Sun goddess who hides in a cave and must be lured out — and from whom the Japanese imperial house claimed descent until 1946.
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 Izanagi
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.