Amaterasu Art Print

Amaterasu (天照), Amaterasu-ōmikami (天照大神 or 天照大御神, Japanese: “Great Divinity Illuminating Heaven”) or Ōhiru-menomuchi-no-kami (大日孁貴神) is in Japanese mythology a sun goddess and perhaps the most important Shinto deity (神 kami). Her name, Amaterasu, means literally "(that which) illuminates Heaven." Her myths are the most important of the indigenous Japanese faith, Shinto, "the way of the gods," a set of ancient beliefs and observances which have remained comparatively unchanged over the past millennium, despite the importation of Confucianism and Buddhism.

Amaterasu is seen as the highest manifestation of Kunitokotachi, the unseen, transcendent yet immanent, spirit of the universe. Amaterasu was born from the left eye of Izanagi, as he purified himself in a river, and went on to become the ruler of the Higher Celestial Plane (Takamagahara), the abode of all the kami (gods). Her triumph over the storm god, Susano-O, secured her place as ruler of the world. The Kojiki, compiled in the fifth century as a means of legitimizing the rule of the Imperial family of Japan, gave an account of their ancestral descent from a great-grandson of Amaterasu. Worship of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, has survived for thousands of years in Japan as part of the Shinto faith. Amaterasu is credited with inventing the cultivation of rice and wheat, the use of silkworms, and weaving with a loom. Her most important shrine, the Grand Shrine of Ise, is in Ise, Mie, in western Honshū.