Amaterasu Ōmikami (天照大御神, あまてらすおおみかみ) is the sun goddess of Shinto and the highest of the kami in Japan’s classical myths. Her name means roughly “the great august kami who shines in heaven.” She is enshrined at Ise Jingu in Mie Prefecture, her emblem is a sacred mirror, and Japan’s imperial line traces its descent from her.
Born From a Rinse of Water
Amaterasu does not arrive with thunder. She arrives with washing.
The story is set down in the Kojiki, Japan’s oldest surviving chronicle, completed in 712, and again in the Nihon Shoki of 720. The creator kami Izanagi has just returned from Yomi, the land of the dead, where he failed to bring back his wife Izanami and came home carrying the pollution of death. He wades into a river to rinse it off. This is the founding act of misogi, Shinto’s water purification.
As he washes his left eye, Amaterasu is born. From his right eye comes Tsukuyomi, the moon. From his nose comes Susanoo, the storm. Izanagi hands the High Plain of Heaven to his daughter and steps back.
It is worth pausing on that. The sun in this tradition is a goddess, not a god, and she is born from an act of cleaning rather than an act of war.
The Cave That Took the Light
The most famous story in Japanese myth is about her disappearance.
Susanoo, the storm brother, behaves appallingly in heaven. He wrecks the rice paddies, breaks the irrigation channels, and finally flings a flayed celestial horse through the roof of the weaving hall, killing one of the heavenly weaving maidens. Amaterasu, in grief and fury, withdraws into a cave called Ama-no-Iwato (天岩戸), the heavenly rock cave, and rolls a boulder across the entrance.
The world goes dark. Crops fail. Malevolent spirits move freely in the permanent night.
So the eight hundred myriad kami gather in the dry riverbed outside the cave and hold a council. On the advice of Omoikane, the kami of wisdom, they hang a mirror and jewels on a sakaki tree, they set roosters to crowing, and they build a fire. Then Ame-no-Uzume climbs onto an overturned tub and dances. The dance is wild and deliberately indecent, and the assembled kami roar with laughter.
Inside the cave, Amaterasu is confused. Why is heaven laughing without the sun? She slides the boulder open a crack to look, and the kami tilt the mirror toward her. She sees a radiant figure she does not recognize and leans out for a better view. Tajikarao, the kami of strength, seizes her arm and pulls her clear. A rope is stretched across the cave mouth so she cannot go back.
That rope is remembered as the first shimenawa. Uzume’s dance is remembered as the first kagura, and the roosters set to crow at the cave mouth are one traditional explanation for the torii gate, whose name means “bird perch.”
The sun does not return to the world because she is commanded. She returns because she hears something joyful and cannot stand not knowing what it is.
The Mirror and the Throne
Amaterasu’s emblem is Yata no Kagami (八咫鏡), the eight-span mirror, the same one used to coax her out of the cave. It is one of Japan’s Three Sacred Treasures, alongside the sword Kusanagi no Tsurugi, kept at Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya, and the curved jewel Yasakani no Magatama, held at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. The mirror is kept at Ise. None of the three is ever displayed publicly. Even at the 2019 enthronement of Emperor Naruhito, the sword and jewel appeared only inside their boxes.
The myth continues from there. Amaterasu sends her grandson Ninigi down to rule the islands, handing him the mirror with the instruction to treat it as though it were her own spirit. Ninigi’s descendants become the emperors of Japan. That lineage claim, endlessly political and once taught as literal state fact before 1945, is why Amaterasu is not simply one deity among many but the axis of the whole imperial story.
The mirror is a strangely gentle emblem for it. A mirror produces nothing of its own. It only returns what stands in front of it.
Visiting Amaterasu
Ise Jingu, the Naiku
Ise Jingu is not one shrine. It is 125 shrines spread across the city of Ise and the surrounding countryside, and its heart is the Naiku (内宮), formally Kotai Jingu, where Amaterasu has been enshrined for around two thousand years by tradition. Around ten million people come each year, which makes it the most visited sacred site in the country.
You enter across Ujibashi, the wooden bridge over the Isuzu River, more than a hundred meters long. Crossing it is the whole point of the approach. Do not hurry it. On the far side the path turns and runs through old cryptomeria trees toward the inner precincts.
Instead of the usual stone water basin, Naiku offers something better: the Mitarashi, a set of shallow stone steps down into the Isuzu River itself, where visitors crouch and rinse their hands in running water. Do that. It is the closest most travelers will come to real misogi.
The buildings themselves are unpainted cypress with thatched roofs, and you will not see much of the innermost sanctuary. That restraint is the experience. Come at opening, which is around five in the morning year-round, when the air over the river is still cold.
Afterward, walk out into Oharaimachi, the old approach street of wooden merchant houses, and the small lane off it called Okage Yokocho. This is where you eat. Akafuku mochi and Ise udon are the traditional order.
Naiku is roughly twenty minutes by bus from Iseshi or Ujiyamada Station. Check the shrine’s official site for current worship hours, which shift with the season.
The Shikinen Sengu
Every twenty years the main shrine buildings at Ise are rebuilt from scratch on an adjacent plot, the kami is moved into the new home, and the old structure is dismantled. The ritual is called Shikinen Sengu (式年遷宮), and it has been repeated for approximately 1,300 years. The most recent, the 62nd, took place in 2013. The 63rd is scheduled for 2033, and its preparatory rituals, including the ceremonial felling of the timber, began in 2025.
Nothing physical at Ise is old. The knowledge is. That is the point: the shrine preserves the craft rather than the wood.
Ama-no-Iwato Shrine, Takachiho
For the cave itself, go to Miyazaki Prefecture. Amano Iwato Jinja sits about ten kilometers outside central Takachiho, in a gorge country of steep green ridges.
The main buildings stand on the opposite bank of the Iwato River from the cave, which cannot be approached. Ask at the shrine entrance and a priest will lead a group to a viewing deck behind the main hall, from where you look across at the rock face. The explanation is in Japanese, but the walk is the thing.
Ten minutes downstream on foot is Amano Yasukawara, the riverside cave where the kami are said to have held their council. Visitors stack small towers of river stones along the path and inside the cave mouth, thousands of them, and the effect on a quiet morning is genuinely strange.
Buses run from Takachiho Bus Center to the shrine, about fifteen minutes, roughly one every hour or two. Between November and February the area holds all-night Amano Iwato kagura performances, the dance form that traces its origin to Uzume outside this very cave.
If you visit
The usual etiquette applies at both sites. Bow before passing under the torii, keep off the exact center of the path, purify your hands, then two bows, two claps, one bow at the offering hall. Photography rules are stricter at Ise than almost anywhere else in Japan, and signs mark the lines clearly. Respect them.
Amaterasu Now
She is everywhere and nowhere. The flag is a red sun. The country’s own name, Nihon, means the origin of the sun. Millions climb hills and beaches on January 1 for hatsuhinode, the first sunrise, an act with her fingerprints all over it even for people who never think of her by name.
She has also become a fixture of games, anime, and manga, usually redrawn as a warrior. The older figure is quieter than that, and more interesting. She is a goddess whose greatest act was to be missed.
FAQ
Who is Amaterasu?
Amaterasu Ōmikami (天照大御神) is the sun goddess of Shinto and the most senior kami in Japanese myth. She was born from the left eye of the creator kami Izanagi during a purification rite, rules the High Plain of Heaven, and is enshrined at the Naiku of Ise Jingu. Japan’s imperial family traces its descent from her.
What is the story of Amaterasu and the cave?
After her brother Susanoo’s violence in heaven, Amaterasu hid in the rock cave Ama-no-Iwato and sealed it, plunging the world into darkness. The other kami lured her out by hanging a mirror and jewels on a sakaki tree and having the goddess Ame-no-Uzume perform a wild, comic dance. Amaterasu peered out at the laughter, saw her own reflection, and was pulled free. The episode is recorded in the Kojiki of 712.
Where is Amaterasu worshipped?
Her principal shrine is the Naiku at Ise Jingu in Mie Prefecture, one of 125 shrines that make up the complex and the site of the sacred mirror. Ama-no-Iwato Shrine in Takachiho, Miyazaki, marks the cave of the myth. Thousands of smaller shrines nationwide, many named Jingu or Shinmei, also enshrine her.
Is Amaterasu a god or a goddess?
A goddess. Amaterasu is female in every classical source, which makes Japan unusual among major traditions in placing a female deity at the head of its pantheon and at the root of its ruling line.
What is the mirror of Amaterasu?
Yata no Kagami (八咫鏡), the sacred mirror used to draw her out of the cave. It is one of the Three Sacred Treasures of Japan, is kept at Ise Jingu, and has never been shown to the public. Amaterasu gave it to her grandson Ninigi with the instruction to revere it as her own spirit.
How often is Ise Jingu rebuilt?
Every twenty years, in the ritual cycle called Shikinen Sengu, a tradition roughly 1,300 years old. The 62nd rebuilding was completed in 2013 and the 63rd is set for 2033. New buildings rise on an adjacent site, the kami is transferred, and the old ones are taken down and their timber reused elsewhere.
Who are Amaterasu’s siblings?
Tsukuyomi, the moon deity, born from Izanagi’s right eye, and Susanoo, the storm deity, born from his nose. Susanoo’s misbehavior drives the cave myth. All three appear in our guide to Japanese gods and goddesses.