Izanagi: Creator Kami and the Journey to Yomi

Izanagi is one of the creator kami in Japanese mythology. Together with Izanami, he receives the task of shaping the drifting land, forms Onogoro Island with a jeweled spear, and brings islands and other kami into being. His story later turns to grief and death, when he enters Yomi in an attempt to bring Izanami back.

The best-known versions appear in the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720). These early chronicles preserve related myths with differences in sequence and detail. Read together, Izanagi’s stories connect creation, loss, ritual purification, and the birth of some of the most important kami in the Japanese pantheon.

Who is Izanagi?

Izanagi-no-Mikoto (伊邪那岐命, also written with variant characters) is a major kami associated with the creation of the Japanese islands and the birth of other deities. His name is commonly interpreted as “he who invites,” paired with Izanami, “she who invites.” In the early chronicles, the two work as a divine pair, though their stories later separate through Izanami’s death and Izanagi’s journey to Yomi.

For more about his partner and co-creator, read our guide to Izanami. Their creation story begins in the age of the kami, before the world has taken the shape familiar to human beings.

The jeweled spear and the creation of Onogoro

The heavenly deities give Izanagi and Izanami Ame-no-Nuboko, the Heavenly Jeweled Spear, and charge them with solidifying the drifting land below. Standing on Ame-no-ukihashi, the Floating Bridge of Heaven, they lower the spear into the primordial sea and stir it. When they lift it, drops of brine fall from its tip and congeal into Onogoro Island.

The pair descend to the island, where they find a heavenly pillar and a palace. They circle the pillar in opposite directions and meet on the other side. In the Kojiki account, Izanami speaks first during their first meeting. The resulting union does not produce the expected children, and they seek guidance from the heavenly deities. After they repeat the ritual with Izanagi speaking first, their union leads to the birth of islands.

The story continues with the creation of the islands later called the Great Eight-Island Land, or Ōyashima. The chronicles then describe further births: seas, rivers, mountains, trees, winds, and many kami. The myth presents land and nature as beings born through relationships, not as an inert setting separate from divine life.

Izanami’s death and the birth of Kagutsuchi

Izanagi and Izanami continue to give birth to kami who embody features of the natural world. The birth of Kagutsuchi, the kami of fire, fatally injures Izanami. She dies and goes to Yomi, the land of the dead. In the Kojiki, Izanagi grieves and kills Kagutsuchi; further kami emerge from the fire kami’s blood and body.

The episode changes the direction of the myth. The pair who formed the islands and gave birth to kami can no longer continue their work together. Izanagi’s grief leads him to cross the boundary between the living and the dead in search of his partner.

Izanagi’s journey to Yomi

Izanagi follows Izanami to Yomi and asks her to return. She tells him that she has eaten the food of that realm and must seek permission before she can leave. She asks him not to look at her while she does so. He waits, but his impatience overcomes his promise. Lighting the tooth of a comb, he enters the darkness and sees Izanami’s changed, decaying body, surrounded by thunder kami.

Humiliated and furious, Izanami sends the Yomotsushikome and other pursuers after him. Izanagi escapes through a series of desperate acts: in the Kojiki, he throws down objects and uses a peach to delay his pursuers. He reaches the entrance to Yomi and blocks it with a massive boulder, separating the dead from the living.

At the barrier, Izanami declares that she will cause a thousand deaths each day. Izanagi answers that he will ensure fifteen hundred births each day. Their exchange establishes the myth’s enduring rhythm: life continues, but so does death. The two do not reunite, and the path between their worlds is closed.

What is Yomi?

Yomi is the land to which Izanami goes after death. It is often translated as the underworld, but it is not simply the same as the Christian hell or a Buddhist realm of punishment. In the Kojiki, it is dark and associated with decay, taboo, and the dead. The story of Izanagi’s journey emphasizes that death brings a separation that cannot be undone by desire alone.

Ideas about the location and nature of Yomi changed through time. The early chronicles tell the myth in narrative form; later writers and religious traditions interpreted it in different ways. It is best to distinguish those later explanations from what the text itself describes.

Izanagi’s purification and the birth of the three noble children

After returning from Yomi, Izanagi performs misogi, a ritual purification in water, to cleanse himself of the pollution associated with the land of the dead. As he removes garments and washes, new kami come into being. The most famous births occur when he purifies his face: Amaterasu emerges from his left eye, Tsukuyomi from his right eye, and Susanoo from his nose in the Kojiki account.

These three deities are known as the three noble children. Izanagi assigns them authority over different realms. Their relationships lead into some of the most memorable myths in the pantheon. Continue with our articles on Amaterasu and Susanoo to follow the celestial cave story and the Orochi legend.

Why misogi matters in Izanagi’s story

Izanagi’s purification is one of the mythic explanations connected with misogi, the practice of cleansing through water. In the story, ritual action follows contact with death and restores the conditions for renewed creation. The water does not erase what happened in Yomi; it marks Izanagi’s return to the world of the living and begins a new chapter in the birth of kami.

Purification remains an important part of Shinto practice, though contemporary rites are not simply reenactments of this single myth. The story offers one way to understand why water, cleansing, and boundaries between sacred and polluted states appear in shrine traditions.

How the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki versions vary

The Kojiki and Nihon Shoki share the central sequence of creation, Izanami’s death, the journey to Yomi, and Izanagi’s purification. The Nihon Shoki also includes alternate accounts and details that differ from the Kojiki. Even the location and circumstances of the events can vary across versions.

When retelling Izanagi’s story, it is useful to name the source for a particular detail. Later summaries sometimes blend the chronicles into one seamless story, but the differences are part of how these early texts preserve multiple traditions.

Izanagi’s legacy in Japanese mythology

Izanagi’s journey links the origins of land and kami to the difficult boundary between life and death. The story begins with a spear stirring the sea and ends with new deities emerging from purification. Between those scenes, a failed attempt to retrieve the dead explains why creation does not mean that every loss can be reversed.

His myth continues through Izanami, Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo. Read as a cycle, it is both a creation story and a family narrative: the world is formed through divine relationships, then reshaped by grief, separation, and renewed life.

Further reading

• Kokugakuin University Digital Museum: Izanagi — a reference entry on the creator kami and the myths of Yomi.
• Japan Tourism Agency: “The Myths of Japan: The Purification” — an overview of the misogi episode and the birth of the three noble kami.
• Jinja Honcho: Kuniumi, the Birth of the Land — the Association of Shinto Shrines’ retelling of the island-creation myth.