· Amateras-Ohmikami, which means "the goddess who shines in the heavens," is the greatest Japanese god. She represents the sun, shining her daylight on the earth.
Her brother, the god Susanoh , was always terribly mean to her. One day he threw horse's hide into her temple. The temple maidens were sewing and a sharp sewing tool accidentally stabbed to death one of the maidens.
Angry, Amateras hid herself behind the big rock and the entire world lost went dark.
So the other gods made a plan to get her out from the rock. They had a big party in front of the rock, and Amateras was so curious that she asked them what was going on. One of the gods answered, "Another great goddess appeared and we're having a party for her."
When Amateras moved the rock slightly to see outside, one of the gods pulled her out from behind it and the daylight shone on the world again.
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· The god Izanaki and the goddess Izanami created the islands of Japan and also other gods.
One day, when Izanami gave birth to the god of fire, she died from the burns.
Izanaki felt he could not live without his wife, so he went to the underworld to see her.
When he saw her, she said,
"I already have eaten the food of the underworld, so I can't come back to you. But since you are here to see me, I'll ask the god of the underworld if I can go with you. You have to promise me one thing. Do not try to get a look at me until I come back here."
However, Izanaki could not wait and he went to the palace of the underworld. There he saw his wife's dreadful body with worms crawling all over it, and the terrifying gods of thunder.
Immediately Izanaki ran away and he used a big rock to block his wife from running after him. That is the rock which divides the underworld and this world.
· There were more powerful gods in the heavens, but as his name "Ohkuni-nushi," or, "the lord of the land" suggests, he was the highest god of the land in ancient
Japan. When he was young, his brothers hated Ohkuni-nushi, and they planned to kill him. The Brothers said, "We'll chase a big, red wild boar out of a mountain, and you catch it at the bottom." But instead of a wild boar, Ohkuninushi caught a big, burning stone and he was burned to death. His mother felt an unbelievable amount of grief and asked the gods to take him back to heaven to bring Ohkuninushi back to life. The Brothers, though, had another plan. They opened a crack in a tree, pushed him inside the tree trunk, then closed up the crack with Ohkuninushi left inside. However, later with his mother's help, Ohkuninushi came back to life again. He went underground to find a wife, then came back to the earth to become the lord. He had been revived from death twice and came back from underground, but this is not a big surprise because he was the god of agriculture. For ancient people who were close to plants, death and revival would have been an annual event. · Hoderi was a god fishing along the sea, and his brother Ho-ori was a god hunting in the mountains. One day they exchanged their tools and Ho-ori went to the sea to fish, but he could not catch anything and lost his brother's hook. Hoderi never forgave Ho-ori. Then an old man helped Ho-ori and he went to the palace under the sea to find the hook. There he met the sea god's beautiful daughter and completely forgot about his brother. Instead, he lived in the palace peacefully for three years. Finally, he remembered the hook and found it with a help of the sea god. When Ho-ori left, the sea god told him how to beat his brother and Ho-ori succeeded in making his brother obey him. It's said that Ho-ori is the ancestor of Japanese emperors, and Hoderi is the ancestor of immigrants coming from the south over the sea. · Ohkuninushi, the lord of the land, decided to give his land to the highest goddess, Amateras. Amateras sent a god Hononinigi to reign the land and he became the ancestor of Japanese emperors. Hononinigi fell in love with a beautiful princess, Konohanano-Sakuya-Hime and asked her father Ohyamatsumi for their marriage. Ohyamatsumi sent Konohana's sister Iwanaga-Hime along with Konohana to make both of them his wives. However, Hononinigi didn't like Iwanaga because she was so ugly. She was sent back to her father Ohyamatsumi and he got so angry. "I sent my two daughters to you because Konoyaha would bring you prosperity and Iwanaga would have brought you enernal life but you rejected Iwanaga. You and your descendents lost the chance to live forever." This is why gods (and emperors) die on our land. Konohana, a flower princess was the symbol of prosperity and Iwanaga, a rock princess represented eternal life.
trip to Hades or would not return from it. At this point of the voyage
pathway he went through water, and which the water gods would try to kill him.
A goddess in ancient Mesopotamia is considered a woman who is of the highest ranking and deserves the highest respect to be considered by men (Thompson). Ishtar, the goddess of love and war, has a small, destructive role in the epic. She essentially lets all fire and brimstone loose, which leads to a battle with Enkidu and Gilgamesh, which in turn leads to Enkidu getting the death penalty from the gods, which sends Gilgamesh off to his failed quest for immortality (shmoop). One more
to Hades to visit his father. During his stay, he talks to a large number of
When she approached the my statue she sighed happily and uttered, “My, this is a beautiful temple. It is a shame it is wasted on Athena for I obtain more beauty than her, perhaps one day people will build an even grander temple to my beauty.”
and through the loss of her mother and enduring her abusive father, she ended up in a brothel where she met her husband. Through marrying him, she stuck by his side even through murder. That brought on committing murder herself and ended in her death.
The Greeks believed that the earth was formed before any of the gods appeared. The gods, as the Greeks knew them, all originated with Father Heaven, and Mother Earth. Father Heaven was known as Uranus, and Mother Earth, as Gaea. Uranus and Gaea raised many children. Amoung them were the Cyclopes, the Titans, and the Hecatoncheires, or the
The primary ruling god of the underworld is Hades, whose brother is Zeus, king of the gods, and whose parents are Cronus and Rhea. Hades is a greedy god with his greatest concern being to increase the number of his subjects. He is very stubborn about letting people out of the underworld. Hades himself, rarely leaves the underworld. In one myth, however, we know of a time when he did leave his soulful domain.
Once her sister learns of her arrival she instructs, "As she enters, remove her royal garments. Let the holy priestess of heaven enter bowed low" (Descent of Inanna, 57). She is then stripped of all of the royal garments she was previously wearing, causing her to be naked. This nakedness, and the removal of her royal garments is symbolic of the vulnerability of death. Despite her royal stature, Inanna is stripped of such royalty to demonstrate that death does not play favorites. Furthermore, sharing blood with the queen of the Underworld does not spare her of the phenomenon of death. Ultimately, Inanna quickly learns that death does not stop to consider who a person is or what they have accomplished, instead it waits for each person with the same permanence and inevitability just the
The goddess went back to her world up above, and she tried to become one with her element once more, yet her heart, oh her fickle little heart, yearned illogically and painfully for the cold man she had lived with in captivity. As the sunshine warmed her skin and the earth squashed under her and the sweet nectar of the holy rain fell on her tongue and her soul was returned to the fertile land she so carefully had cultivated at the beginning of Earth and the age of man, her heart became frigid. Her eyes became hard, her tongue once golden and fluid became silver and sharp. The heart yearns in a way that any mortal or immortal man finds peculiar, for the heart loves sometimes without
Some gods were less powerful than others and they were know as local and minor gods
where she become unresponsive. The Gods also criticize her and put her down which makes her
Agni: Agni is the god of fire and acceptor of sacrifices. He is also a messenger so the sacrifices will travel to other gods as well. He is immortal because a fire is lit everyday.
The banshees long red hair whipped around her with the morning breeze, signifying the arrival of the sun. She would have to leave soon. No one was allowed see her.