creation

the hero

Monsters
Herakles
Theseus
Perseus
The Trojan War and Achilles
After Troy
The Foundations of Rome
Krishna
The Arthurian Legend
Sigurd and Beowulf


goddesses

gods

tricksters

afterlife

love

The Japanese Underworld


Izanagi

The subterranean world of the dead is known also as the Land of Darkness (Yomi-tsu-kuni), the Land of Roots and the Deep Land

The description of Yomi given in the Kojiki may reflect the late prehistoric Japanese practice of burying the dead in stone-lined chambers deep within large tumuli (or kofun). Izanagi's expedient of rolling a large boulder across the entrance to Yomi perhaps echoes the final sealing of such a tomb. The boulder may also be a metaphor for the insurmountable barrier between life and death.

There are striking similarities between this story and two well-known Greek myths: the story of Persephone, whose ingestion of pomegranate seeds in Hades ties her to the land of the dead in winder, and the story of Orpheus' attempt to rescue his beloved Eurydive from the seam realm.

Whether elements of these Greek myths somehow diffused to ancient Japan, or whether the parallels reflect a universal tendency in human myth-making, is disputed by scholars. In many cultures eating the food of the dead is said to create a bond with them. When Izanami meets her husband at the entrance to the land of the dead, she wishes that he had come sooner because she has already "eaten at the hearth" there. This act may explain her dramatic transformation from loving wife into raging demon.