Kunitokotachi

In Japanese mythology, Kunitokotachi (国之常立神 in Kojiki, 国常立尊 in Nihonshoki; Kunitokotachi-no-Kami or Kuninotokotachi-no-Kami) is one of the two gods born from "something like a reed that arose from the soil" [1] when the earth was chaotic. In the Nihon Shoki, he is named "Kuni-toko-tachi no mikoto" and 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. [2]

Kunitokotachi is described as a hitorigami and genderless in Kojiki while as a male god in Nihon Shoki.

Yoshida Kanetomo, the founder of the Yoshida Shintō sect, identified Kunitokotachi with Amenominakanushi and regarded him as the primordial god of the Universe.

References

  1. Masaki Tsugita, Kojiki, 1977, ISBN 4-06-158207-0
  2. 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)