Tsukiyomi no Mikoto
The Shinto Moon Kami
by Kristina Kempf

In ancient Shinto mythology, Tsukiyomi no Mikoto is the Moon Kami. “Tsuki” means moon and “yomi” means darkness or night. Hence “Tsukiyomi no Mikoto” can be translated as “His Augustness Moon-Night-Possessor.” This deity appears in two important myths, the creation myth and a curious narrative about the death of the Food Kami.

According to one of the earliest Japanese texts, the Nihongi (C.E. 720), the original Creator Gods in heaven produced several successive generations of celestial Kami, including the pair Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto. The latter deities, a brother and sister, received from their superiors the sacred mandate to descend from heaven to the terrestrial world, where they were to generate and form an entire new realm of beings. Izanagi (“The Male Who Invites”), together with his sister-bride Izanami (“The Female Who Invites”), passed down the floating bridge of heaven and undertook to create a universe by engaging in multiple divine acts of sexual reproduction. The Nihongi, itself a collation of several still older texts (no longer extant), records some alternative versions of how Tsukiyomi no Mikoto came into being.

One version states that the two high gods, after having created the islands of Japan with their plentiful mountains, rivers, and lush plant life, consulted together and decided that this new realm required a set of rulers to preside over it. Accordingly, they then created Amaterasu Omikami (the Sun Goddess) and her younger brother Tsukiyomi, assigning the former to oversee the day and the latter to supervise the night (Nihongi 18-19). Another version maintains that Izanagi alone created both Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi, the first from a white-copper mirror he held in his left hand, and the second from another such mirror held in his right hand (20).

The Kojiki, dating from 712 C.E. and therefore a few years older still than the Nihongi, offers a fascinating variant of the ancient myth. This text places the creation of the sun and moon considerably after death of Izanami, who had perished in the process of giving birth to Kagutsuchi, the Fire God. Izanagi, mourning the loss of his beloved sister, visited her in the underworld. His encounter with her there proving inauspicious, he was forced to flee back to the world above. After these painful events, Izanagi, realizing that he had been polluted by his contact with death, decided to purify himself through bathing. Amaterasu Omikami emerged while he was washing his left eye, and Tsukiyomi no Mikoto while washing his right eye. A third deity, Susano-O no Mikoto, sprang from Izanagi’s cleansing of his nose during this ritual purification. These Three Noble Children thereupon received instructions from their August Parent, who directed Amaterasu to rule the day, Tsukiyomi the night, and Susano-O the ocean below (Kojiki 70-71; Nihongi 28).

After these events, Tsukiyomi does not reappear in the Kojiki. In the Nihongi, however, the Moon God is mentioned again regarding the death of the Food Kami, Uke-Mochi no Kami. The myth states that Amaterasu asked her brother, Tsukiyomi no Mikoto, to go and speak with Uke-Mochi no Kami. When Tsukiyomi no Mikoto arrived to speak with her, Uke-Mochi no Kami offered him food she had produced from her own mouth as refreshment. Tsukiyomi no Mikoto was angered and disgusted by this offer. “Filthy! Nasty!” he said, “That thou shouldst dare to feed me with things disgorged from thy mouth” (Nihongi 32). After telling Uke-Mochi no Kami she was impure for doing this, Tsukiyomi no Mikoto slew her with his sword. Upon his return to the heavens, Amaterasu learned of his actions and was angry with him. She said, “Thou art a wicked deity. I must not see thee face to face” (ibid.). So they were separated from then onward, and this explains the perpetual division between the two heavenly bodies. Later, Amaterasu sent another Kami, Amekuma-Hito (Heaven-Cloud Man), to see Uke-Mochi no Kami and again ask for her aid. Although the Food Goddess was already dead, her body gave forth oxen and horses from the top of her head, millet from her forehead, the silkworm from her eyebrows, rice from her belly, wheat and beans from her genitals (Nihongi 33). Thus the world gained the benefit of food production despite the Moon God’s hasty deed. It is interesting to reflect, in this connection, that Tsukiyomi was apparently too fixated on the dangers of pollution to be practical (since he rejected any food spawned by regurgitation or death). Amaterasu, on the other hand, realized the vital truth that all life proceeds by a kind of recycling, and therefore she instituted the ritual acts of purification that enable food to replenish the living. This account seems to be psychologically very apt, for night is the time when thoughts of the past and death are paramount; whereas day is future-oriented and directed toward practical concerns.

Night is also the time of restoration through sleep and dreams. Tsukiyomi no Mikoto, ruler of the night, is represented in the Nihongi as clad in mystical garments of gorgeous colors: “His radiance was next to that of the sun in splendor. This god was to be the consort of the Sun Goddess, and to share in her government” (19). Some scholars speculate that the Kami Tsukiyomi no Mikoto and Amaterasu were conceived as a pair because people thought of them as “eyes in the sky,” watching their actions at all times.

For hundreds of years, Tsukiyomi no Mikoto has been worshipped at the shrines in Isé, whose primary deity is Amaterasu. He is worshipped in the Outer Shrine, where the Food Kami is venerated as well. Tsukiyomi no Mikoto is also honored at a famous shrine in Yamagata Prefecture. The shrine stands on a mountain called Gassan, which means Mountain of the Moon, and is a famous site for religious pilgrimages. For example, the seventeenth-century haiku poet, Basho, has recorded how he and his companions worshipped the Moon God on this mountain. Another shrine can be found in Kyoto at the Wakamiya Shrine.

During Kanname-sai (the Festival of the New Rice), an autumn ritual of thanksgiving primarily dedicated to Amaterasu Omikami, some offerings are made to Tsukiyomi no Mikoto at the Outer Shrine of Isé. Another set of ceremonies involving the Moon God are known as Tsukimachi, “watching the moon,” which take place on the fifteenth, seventeenth, nineteenth, and twenty-third days of the first, fifth, and ninth months of the year. People hold religious ceremonies, present offerings, and pray.

Holtom, D. C. The National Faith of Japan. New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corp., 1965.

Kato, Genchi. A Study of Shinto. London: Curzon Press, 1971.

Kato, Genchi and Hoshino, Hikoshiro. Kogoshui: Gleanings from Ancient Stories. London: Curzon Press, 1972.

Kojiki. Translated by Donald L. Philippi. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1968.

Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697. Translated by W.G. Aston. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1956.

Ono, Sokyo. Shinto the Kami Way. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1972.

Ross, Floyd Hiatt. Shinto the Way of Japan. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1983.

Web Site Links

Basho’s World, by Stephen W. Kohl
Available on line: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kohl/basho.html

Basic Terms of Shinto, by the Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics, Kokugakuin University.
Available on line: http://www.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/bts/index.html

Shinto Creation Stories, transcribed from the Nihongi by Richard Hooker
Available on line: http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/ANCJAPAN/CREAT3.HTM

Shinto, the Way of the Kami, by the Interi Shinto organization
Available on line: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8871/kamiway.htm

Kristina Kempf, kempfkm@uwec.edu

Last updated: November 8, 1999

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