Shinto faith Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

, Kuninotokotachi is one of the two

god In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...

s born from "something like a

reed Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * ...

that arose from the soil" when the Earth was

chaotic Chaotic was originally a Danish trading card game. It expanded to an online game in America which then became a television program based on the game. The program was able to be seen on 4Kids TV (Fox affiliates, nationwide), Jetix, The CW4Kid ...

. In the '' Nihon Shoki'', he is the first of the first three divinities born after Heaven and Earth were born out of chaos, and is born from something looking like a reed-shoot growing between heaven and earth.''Nihongi - Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 (tr. from the original Chinese and Japanese by W.G. Aston, Charles E. Tuttle Cy. 1990)'' He is known by mythology to reside on top of

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest p ...

(富士山). Kuninotokotachi is described as a

hitorigami Hitorigami (独神) are Shinto deities (kami) who came into being alone, as opposed to those who came into being as male-female pairs. According to the ''Kojiki'', this group includes the "three deities of creation" and the "separate heavenly kami ...

and genderless in ''

Kojiki The , also sometimes read as or , is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the , and the Japanese imperia ...

'', but is described as a male god in ''Nihon Shoki''.

Yoshida Kanetomo was a Japanese Shinto priest of the Sengoku period. He was a seminal figure in the evolution of a coherent descriptive and interpretive schema of Shinto ritual and mythology.Itō Satoshi "Yoshida Kanetomo,"''Encyclopedia of Shinto.'' April 15, 2 ...

, the founder of the

Yoshida Shintō , also frequently referred to as , was a prominent sect of Shintō that arose during the Sengoku period through the teachings and work of Yoshida Kanetomo. The sect was originally an effort to organize Shintō teachings into a coherent structure i ...

sect, identified Kuninotokotachi with

Amenominakanushi Ame-no-Minakanushi (アメノミナカヌシ, lit. "Lord of the August Center of Heaven") is a deity (''kami'') in Japanese mythology, portrayed in the ''Kojiki'' and the '' Nihon Shoki'' as the very first or one of the first deities who manifes ...

and regarded him as the primordial god of the

Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...

References

External links

*Encyclopedia of Shinto - http://eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp *Kunitokotachi on th
Japanese History Database
Shinto kami Androgynous and hermaphroditic deities {{Japan-myth-stub

See also

References

External links