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Handbook of Japanese Mythology 262 Handbook of Japanese Mythology mythological iconography. Those depicted from the age of the founding of Japan are generally shown as single-edged straight blades often worn slung from a belt sash. Swords associated with heroes are more often depicted as curved, single- edged, two-hand tachi sabers. The former are fabulous in a sense (though some fine examples are still extant), and indicate the claim to antiquity and misty ori- gins of the user and of the sword itself. When Izanami gave birth to the fire kami and was killed by the birth, her husband, Izanagi, drew the sword Ame-no-π-habari-no-kami (Heavenly wide pointed blade), also called Itsu-no-π-habari-no-kami (Consecrated wide pointed blade), and killed his son. The blood adhering to the blade, guard, and pommel gave birth to other deities. This sword was a kami in its own right. It dammed the waters of the Heavenly River so that the deities could confer in the dry riverbed, as was their custom. When they needed someone to subdue ∏kuni- nushi, they asked Ame-no-π-habari to do the job, though he sent his son, Takemikazuchi-no-kami, instead. As the case of the sword Ame-no-π-habari-no- kami illustrates, swords were considered kami in and of themselves. Susano-wo found the great sword Kusanagi (Grass-cutter) in the tail of the eight-headed and –tailed serpent he slew. Ninigi-no-mikoto was given this same sword by his grandmother, Amaterasu-π-mikami, to help him in his conquest of the Central Land of the Reed Plains. The sword came into the possession of the hero Yamato-takeru, who, after using it to subdue the people of the East, left it in care of one of his wives in Owari (modern Nagoya), where it is kept today at the Atsuta-jinja shrine. However, some reports attest that the original Kusanagi was thrown overboard by the losing Taira at the sea battle of Dan-no-Ura and was replaced by the sword Hironogoza, forged during the reign of Emperor Sujin. Another of Susano-wo’s swords, Ikutachi (Life sword), was stolen by the wizard- deity ∏kuninushi. The sword’s name (as well as the character of its bearers) is ambiguous enough to argue that it was a wizardly instrument for conferring, as well as taking, life. Ajishikitakahikone-no-kami, enraged at being mistaken for his dead friend Ame-no-wakahiko (and thus being compared to a corpse), used the sword ∏- Hakari (Great leaf cutter), also called Kamudo-no-tsurugi (Heavenly way sword), to cut down the funeral house where his friend’s corpse was resting. Takemikazuchi-no-kami’s sword, Futsu-no-mitama, was dropped into the storehouse of Takakuraji of Kumano, who was instructed in a dream to hand it to the future first emperor, Jimmu Tenno. This sword, which helped the hero subdue the unruly deities of Kumano, was eventually enshrined as go-shintai in the shrine of Iso-no-kami. The hero Raikπ, who cleared Japan of demons and ogres, had a sword, Higekiri (Beard-cutter), with which he dispatched the robber-ogre Shutendπji. Deities, Themes, and Concepts 263 The sword was later loaned to Raikπ’s attendant, Watanabe no Tsuna, with which he cut off the arm of the Rashπmon oni. The cult of the sword was a prominent part of Japanese belief and myth. Swords, along with bows, were the most important weapon of the gentleman, and there is evidence that the long bow and the sword were the symbols of rule of the emperor in archaic times. The metallurgy of Japanese swords, originally fairly simple, became a sophisticated technology that is hard to duplicate today. Over the centuries the sword underwent two major transformations. The origi- nal straight, single-edged blade was used until around the Nara period. These are referred to in the Kπjiki as “mallet-headed” swords because the pommel ended in a large, mallet-shaped knob, often heavily decorated—a necessary balance for the long blade (which could measure ten hands, approximately fifty inches). All the blades named in the Kπjiki and Nihonshπki must have been of this type. Advances in metalworking led to the creation of the composite blade. Made of alternating layers of steel and softer iron, these blades reached their peak during the Gempei wars and soon after. They were short, heavy, curved sabers, called tachi, which evolved later, during the Edo period, into the slimmer, longer, two handed katana. In mythical terms, the swords that Raikπ and other heroes used would have been of the tachi type, worn, like the earlier mallet-head swords, slung under the sash with cords. See also Amaterasu-π-mikami; Ame-no-wakahiko; Susano-wo; Heroes; Imperial Regalia; Jimmu Tenno; Ninigi-no-mikoto; Raikπ; Takemikazuchi-no-kami; Yamato-takeru; Weapons. References and further reading: Aston, William G., trans. 1956. Nihongi. London: Allen and Unwin. Joly, Henri L. and Inada Hogitaro. 1963. Arai Hakuseki’s the Sword Book in Honchπ Gunkikπ and the Book of Samé Kπ Hi Sei Gi of Inaba Ts∆riπ. New York: Charles E. Tuttle Co. Philippi, Donald, trans. and ed. 1968. Kπjiki. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press. TAIRA The name of a family, or rather clan, that claimed descent from a branch of the imperial family. The Taira (the Chinese character for their name can be read as Hei, and they are thus also known as the Heike or House of Hei), led by Taira no Kiyomori, were called upon by a faction of the nobility in Kyoto to expel the Minamoto from the capital. Their work done, they stayed to control the impe- rial court. They lost the Gempei wars to the forces of Minamoto no Yoritomo, and were finally defeated decisively at the sea battle of Dan-no-Ura, the straits between Kyushu and western Honshu, by Minamoto no Yoshitsune. The remains of Taira partisans were then hunted down by the victorious Minamoto loyalists. 264 Handbook of Japanese Mythology The story of the rise and, most particularly, fall of the Taira has long excited Japanese romanticism. The Taira were doomed heroes, and their spec- tacular fall has resounded in art and popular imagination. Thus a particular form of crab found in the Seto Inland Sea is named for them because of the resemblance of the carapace to an armored warrior’s face mask: The crabs are said to represent the spirits of dead Taira warriors drowned at Dan-no-Ura. Per- sistent myths tie various hidden mountain communities of hinnin (outcasts) and of shinobi (ninja) clans to the descendants of Taira partisans hiding from Minamoto retribution. One of the most famous myths concerning the Taira is the legend of the blind lute player who was called to play before the ghostly court of Taira noble- men as they eternally wait battle. The popularity of the Taira is related in some ways to the Japanese cultural fondness for fighting in doomed causes. The Taira are always portrayed as more elegant and refined than their Minamoto opponents, doomed from the start to fall to brute strength. A similar enthusiasm is shown for the cause of the Taira’s greatest opponent, Minamoto Yoshitsune, who suffered a similar fate to his ene- mies at the hands of his older brother, the shogun Yoritomo. The popularity of this concept is evidenced by the historical prevalence of lute players, whose repertoire consisted of a recitation of the Taira chronicles and who were to be found throughout Japan until the middle of the twentieth century. A number of Taira-based plays in the Nπh theater exist as well. See also Benkei; Ghosts; Yoshitsune. References and further reading: Kitagawa, Hiroshi, and Bruce T. Tsuchida, trans. 1977. The Tale of Heike (Heike Monogatari). Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. McCullough, Helen Craig, trans. 1988. The Tale of the Heike. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 1966. Yoshitsune: A Fifteenth-Century Japanese Chronicle (Gikeiki). Stan- ford: Stanford University Press. TAKAMAGAHARA The “High Plain of Heaven.” The abode of the heavenly deities. It seems, on the basis of the writing in the Kπjiki and the Nihonshπki, to be not much different than the early Japan the writers were living in. We know that it held at least one palace, that of Amaterasu-π-mikami, and her rice fields and dikes. The rest of the realm is undifferentiated or, at least, not described, with a few landmarks sketched in. There is the bed of Ame-no-yasu-no-kawa (Heavenly River, also called Amanokawa). Originally the stream ran free, but it was dammed by Ame- no-π-habari-no-kami, the sword Izanagi carried. The lower, dry riverbed is used by the deities for their assemblies, where they debate matters relating to them- Deities, Themes, and Concepts 265 selves and the land. There are iron-bearing mountains, the Ame-no-kanayama, and a well, Ame-no-manai, and a further range of mountains, Ame-no- kaguyama, from which divinatory implements can be obtained. We also know that it is separated from the earthly realm by the Heavenly River (Milky Way), spanned perhaps by the Heavenly Floating Bridge, though those two elements are sometimes conflated. At some point there is a meeting of nine ways, where Sarutahiko ambushed the heavenly grandson, though that might be slightly out of the boundaries of Takamagahara itself. See also Amaterasu-π-mikami; Ninigi-no-mikoto; Swords. References and further reading: Aston, William G., trans. 1956. Nihongi. London: Allen and Unwin. Philippi, Donald, trans. and ed. 1968. Kπjiki. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press. TAKAMIMUSUBI-NO-KAMI The second of the three “invisible” kami who came into existence sponta- neously at the creation of heaven and earth.
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