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[2/8] JAPANESE GODS AND GODDESSES | TSUKUYOMI

Tsukuyomi or Tsukiyomi [月読], also known as Tsukiyomi-no-mikoto, is the moon god in Shinto and Japanese mythology. Unlike the myths of ancient Greece or Rome, the Japanese moon deity is male.

Tsukuyomi was the second of the “three noble children” born when Izanagi-no-Mikoto, the god who created the first land of Onogoro-shima, was cleansing himself of his sins while bathing after escaping the underworld and the clutches of his enraged dead wife, Izanami-no-Mikoto. Tsukuyomi was born when he washed out of Izanagi’s right eye. After climbing a celestial ladder, Tsukuyomi lived in the heavens, also known as Takamagahara, with his sister Amaterasu Ōmikami, the sun goddess.

Tsukuyomi angered Amaterasu when he killed Uke Mochi, the goddess of food. Amaterasu had sent Tsukuyomi to represent her at a feast presented by Uke Mochi. She’d made the food by turning to the ocean and spitting out a fish, then faced the forest and poured game from her mouth, and finally turned to a rice paddy and coughed up a bowl of rice. Tsukuyomi was utterly disgusted by the fact that, although the repast looked exquisite, the meal was made in a disgusting manner, and so he killed her. Soon, Amaterasu learned what had transpired; in her fury, she refused to ever look at Tsukuyomi again, forever moving to another part of the sky. This is the reason that day and night are never together.