User:Mailegri/amaterasu drafting

Worship


The Ise Shrine (伊勢神宮 Ise Jingū) located in Ise, Honshū, Japan, houses the inner shrine, Naiku, dedicated to Amaterasu. Her sacred mirror, Yata no Kagami (八咫の鏡), an object given by Amaterasu to her grandson when he descend to Earth and became the first emperor, is said to be kept at this shrine as one of the imperial regalia objects. A ceremony known as Shikinen Sengū (式年遷宮祭) is held every twenty years at this shrine to honor the many deities enshrined, which is formed by 125 shrines altogether. At that time, new shrine buildings are built at a location adjacent to the site first. After the transfer of the object of worship, new clothing and treasure and offering food to the goddess the old buildings are taken apart. The building materials taken apart are given to many other shrines and buildings to renovate. This practice is a part of the Shinto faith and has been practiced since the year 690 CE, not only for Amaterasu but also for many other deities enshrined in Ise Shrine. Additionally, from the late 7th century to the 14th century, an unmarried princess of the Imperial Family, called "Saiō" (斎王) or "itsuki no miko" (斎皇女), served as the sacred priestess of Amaterasu at the Ise Shrine upon every new dynasty.

The Amanoiwato Shrine (天岩戸神社) in Takachiho, Miyazaki prefecture, Japan is dedicated to Amaterasu and sits above the gorge containing Ama-no-Iwato.

The worship of Amaterasu to the exclusion of other kami has been described as "the cult of the sun". This phrase also may refer to the early pre-archipelagoan worship of the sun.

According to the Engishiki and Sandai Jitsuroku of the Heian period, the sun goddess had many shrines named, "Amateru" or "Amateru-mitama" shrines, which were mostly located in the Kinki area. However, there have also been records of a shrine on Tsushima Island, coined as either "Teruhi Gongen", or the "Shining Sun Deity" during medieval times. It was later found that such a shrine was meant for a male sun deity named Ameno-himitama.

Amaterasu was also once worshiped at Hinokuma shrines. The Hinokuma shrines were used to worship the goddess by the Ama people in the Kii Provinces. Because the Ama people were believed to have been fishermen, researchers have conjectured that the goddess was also worshiped for a possible connection to the sea.

Relation to female positions in early Japanese society
Because Amaterasu has the highest position among the Shinto deities, there has been debate on her influence and relation to women's positions in early Japanese society. Some scholars have argued that the goddess' presence and high stature within the kami system could suggest that early rulers in Japan were female. Others have argued the goddess' presence infers strong influences female priests’ had in Japanese politics and religion.

Historians and scholars of the Old Ryukyu Kingdom, an independent kingdom that once ruled most of the Ryukyu islands, have argued that there were ambiguous power relations between the high priestess and King. They explain that the high priestess and other female religious officials, were considered to be integral figures amongst royal authority as women were a part of the high office.

Goddess possibly a male deity
There have been discussions concerning the goddess' gender due to her seemingly gender-less name (her name is the honorific form of amateru) along with historical discoveries and stories associating her with the sun god, Amateru.

One such story illustrates an encounter between a priestess and Amaterasu in question. According to a medieval Tsûkai (痛悔) monk's diary, he explained a legend circulating among the Ise priests that essentially went as followed: "The Great God Amaterasu visited the high priestess Saiō ...every night, and united with her. The next morning, several scales, as from a snake or lizard, were left in her bed. No one but the priestess knew, however, what form this Amaterasu assumed for such visits." Such a story also inferred the possibility of Amaterasu being worshipped as a snake deity, in addition to her sun duties. The same scholars later explain an old Japanese belief that female priests and shamans acted as wives of their worshipped male deities, to support their male Amaterasu argument.

Other arguments supporting the existence of a male Amaterasu mentioned an Amateru figure being worshipped across Yamato during the early Yamato period, thereby insinuating that Amaterasu evolved from Amateru. Matsumae Takeshi hypothesized that Amateru was originally worshipped by the Ise fishermen but by 5th or 6th century, the Imperial court made Amateru into an ancestral deity of the Imperial family and sent in their first Saiō as the deity's wife to cement the change. From this, Amateru somehow became Amaterasu after several generations of successors.

[APPARENTLY SELF PUBLISHED SOURCE -- DON'T INCLUDE D:-->] Some supporters have even made comparisons with Pre-Meiji images of the goddess to a male bodhisattva named, Uho Doji -- a "Buddhist manifestation of Amaterasu Omi-Kami" -- as he had long hair and wore similar white clothing and ornamentation just as the modern Amaterasu.

Others have drawn from the strip-tease dance scene of the Amaterasu cave myth to an additional indication of the goddess' potential masculinity. Just as Ame-No-Uzume danced a "wild strip-tease routine" to lure Amaterasu out of the Heavenly Rock Cave, maidens of the Sarume clan would perform the same "lewd" dance (now called, the kagura) to worship Amaterasu.

Other scholars, such as Russel Kirkland, have disputed this theory by mentioning that even though an Amateru figure was worshipped across Yamato, and holds a seemingly gender-less name, there were no such written records of Amateru at Ise shrine -- only Amaterasu. He claims that the story of the first princess to establish the shrine of Amaterasu, Yamato-Hime, is fictitious and it is only a few hundred years after that date was there a mention of Amaterasu and a historical record of a Yamato princess serving Ise shrine in 457 CE. He goes on to say that "outside the fabricated story of Yamto-hime, there is not a single passage anywhere in the Nihongi or Kojiki that names Amaterasu as the deity worshipped at Ise shrine." The goddess was then absent from all records until reappearing in 672 CE, thereby insinuating that there were no Amaterasu or Amateru figures at Ise shrine until late seventh century.

Such gender-confusion has also been viewed in earlier myths of the Chinese goddess, Nu Kwa.

Snake
Outside of being worshipped as a sun goddess, some have argued that Amaterasu was once related to snakes. As mentioned in the "Goddess Possibly a Male Deity" section, there was a legend circulating among the Ise Priests that essentially described an encounter of Amaterasu sleeping with the Saiō every night in the form of a snake or lizard, evidenced by fallen scales in the priestess's bed.

Dragon
In general, some of these Amaterasu-dragon associations have been in reference to Japanese plays. One example has been within the Chikubushima tradition in which the dragon goddess, Benzaiten was the emanation of Amaterasu. Following that, in the Japanese epic, Taiheki, one of the characters, Nitta Yoshisada (新田義貞‎), made comparisons with Amaterasu and a dragon with the quote: “I have heard that the Sun Goddess of Ise … conceals her true being in the august image of Vairocana, and that she has appeared in this world in the guise of a dragon god of the blue ocean.”

Another tradition of the Heavenly Cave story depicts Amaterasu as a "dragon-fox" (shinko or tatsugitsune) during her descent to the famed cave because it is a type of animal/kami that emits light from its entire body.

Fox
Some scholars have argued that the deva and fox spirit, Dakiniten (derived from the Indian ḍākinī) is a manifestation of Amaterasu. Bernard Faure explains that during the Buddhist enthronement ritual, the emperor (a symbol of Amaterasu) would unite with the Dakiniten and thus not only did the emperor become a fox, the Dakiniten (the fox) became a king -- also known as the "Fox King" as mentioned in the Shintōshū.

Other claims include Amaterasu and the divine fox as actually representing two different sources of royal power in which during a new enthronement, Amaterasu is the sun and thus the emperor gains the benign power, "spirit of rice" while the fox gives some sort of "substantial power" to sufficiently rule the world. Such claims however have been questioned since it is unclear if the goddess actually represented a benign agricultural power.