Susanoo, the Wild God: From Exile in Heaven to Slayer of Yamata no Orochi and Protector Against Plague
A God Full of Contradictions: From Destroyer of Order to Bringer of Culture
Among the countless gods of Japanese mythology recorded in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, no deity carries such a powerful personality and such dramatic contradictions as Susanoo. While his elder sister Amaterasu, the sun goddess and absolute ruler of the heavenly realm Takamagahara, stands for order and harmony, Susanoo appears as a trickster who rages like a storm and breaks every established rule.
Yet once he descends to the land of Izumo, he undergoes a dramatic transformation into a great culture hero: he rescues people terrified of human sacrifice from a monster, composes Japan's first waka poem and brings the knowledge of farming and ironmaking. Why did the ancient Japanese place such extreme opposites, destruction and salvation, within a single god? Tracing the many sides of Susanoo reveals the depths of Japanese spiritual history: how ancient people faced the fury of nature and opened up their land.
Susanoo was born from the purification of his father Izanagi after his return from the land of the dead. Amaterasu was born from Izanagi's left eye, Tsukuyomi from his right, and Susanoo, born when he washed his nose, was entrusted with ruling the seas.
But the grown Susanoo did not rule the sea. He wailed until his beard reached his chest, withering the green mountains and drying up the rivers and seas. When Izanagi asked why, Susanoo cried that he wanted to go to the netherworld where his mother Izanami lived. This violent outpouring of grief, so strong that it shook heaven and earth, carries a raw human sorrow for the bond between parent and child; the scholar Origuchi Shinobu saw in it the prototype of the tale of a noble wanderer searching for his mother.
Banished by his angry father, Susanoo climbed up to the heavenly realm to say farewell to his sister Amaterasu.
Rampage in Heaven and the Rock Cave Myth: Nature's Fury and Community Taboos
As Susanoo climbed to the heavens, mountains and rivers roared. Fearing he had come to seize her realm, Amaterasu met him armed for battle, but in a ritual oath by the Heavenly Yasu River, Susanoo proved his innocence.
Emboldened by winning the oath, however, Susanoo went on a rampage in heaven. He broke the ridges between the rice fields and filled in the irrigation channels, scattered filth in the sacred hall used for the harvest festival, and finally broke through the roof of the sacred weaving hall and threw in a piebald horse that had been flayed backward. A weaving maiden, startled, was pierced by her shuttle and died. Overcome with fear and despair, Amaterasu hid deep inside the Heavenly Rock Cave.
With the sun goddess gone, the world was shut in endless darkness, and every kind of evil ran wild in an unprecedented crisis.
From the viewpoint of history and folklore, Susanoo's misdeeds in heaven list the greatest taboos of an ancient farming society: destroying irrigation, desecrating sacred rites and bringing in the defilement of death. His violence symbolizes the raging force of nature itself, the typhoons, storms and floods that ancient people feared.
After Amaterasu was drawn out of the cave and light returned to the world, the gods held a great council, cut off Susanoo's beard and the nails of his hands and feet to purify him, and banished him from heaven.
Hero of Izumo, Slayer of Yamata no Orochi: A Hidden Story of Ironmaking and Flood Control
Exiled from heaven, Susanoo came down by the upper reaches of the Hii River in Izumo, where he met an old couple and their daughter Kushinadahime, who was about to be sacrificed to Yamata no Orochi, a monstrous serpent with eight heads.
Susanoo agreed to slay the serpent on condition that he could marry Kushinadahime. He turned her into a small comb and placed it in his hair, had the old couple brew a powerful, many-times-refined sake, and set out eight vats of it at eight gates to wait for the serpent. When the Orochi appeared, shaking the mountains, it could not resist the smell of the sake. It plunged each of its eight heads into a vat, drank it dry and fell into a drunken sleep.
At that moment, Susanoo drew his long sword and cut the serpent to pieces, turning the Hii River red with blood and saving the people.
This tale holds many coded clues to the history of ancient civilization. The Orochi is described as having eyes red like ground cherries, a belly always oozing blood, and moss, cedars and cypress growing on its back. This matches the scenery of the Oku-Izumo mountains, where reddish-brown springs rich in iron oxide flow from the slopes, and where iron sand was mined for tatara steelmaking.
Many believe that the historical truth behind the story is the taming of the flood-prone Hii River and the mastery of ironmaking from its rich iron sand.
When Susanoo cut through the serpent's tail, the blade of his sword chipped. Puzzled, he cut the tail open and found a sacred sword shining with dazzling light. This was Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, also called Kusanagi, which later became one of the Three Imperial Regalia. Susanoo did not keep this treasure for himself but offered it to his sister Amaterasu. The destroyer who had ravaged heaven was completely transformed into a great protector who saved the people and prayed for peace in the land.
He built a palace at Suga and composed Japan's first 31-syllable waka, a poem about the many-layered clouds rising over Izumo and the many-layered fences he built for his wife, and made a peaceful home.
Gozu Tenno and Yasaka Shrine: Protection Against Plague Born of Medieval Syncretism
Susanoo's mythic drama underwent a further dramatic religious evolution from the Heian period into the medieval era. The turning point was the cult of Gozu Tenno, "the Ox-Headed Heavenly King," centered on Gion Shrine in Kyoto, today's Yasaka Shrine.
Gozu Tenno was a foreign god, said to be the guardian of the Jetavana monastery in India, who reached Japan by way of China. With a fierce, wrathful face, he was a powerful deity who ruled over epidemics and natural disasters. People of the Heian period identified this foreign god with Susanoo, who possessed similarly wild power. By respectfully enshrining the god who brought plague, they turned him into an absolute protector who drove plague away.
This was the wisdom of goryo shinko, the belief in appeasing vengeful spirits, born from the fear of epidemics that struck the Heian capital, combined with the blending of Shinto and Buddhism. The goryoe ritual held in 869 to calm a great epidemic in the capital is the origin of the Gion Festival, one of Japan's most famous festivals today.
A famous legend connected with Susanoo as Gozu Tenno is the tale of Somin Shorai. When Gozu Tenno, traveling, asked for lodging, the wealthy younger brother Kotan Shorai coldly refused, but the poor elder brother Somin Shorai welcomed him warmly with a meal of millet. In return, Gozu Tenno promised that in future epidemics, anyone who wore a ring of reeds at the waist and declared themselves a descendant of Somin Shorai would be spared.
This legend lives on in Japanese life today in the chinowa-kuguri ritual of passing through a large reed ring at shrines, and in sacred ropes hung for protection against misfortune.
Susanoo's path shows how the destructive power of raging nature was received and transformed into a creative force of compassion and salvation. Rather than simply rejecting what was frightening, people revered it, enshrined it and turned it into their own protector. This form of faith vividly reflects the Japanese spirit, which has always sought to live in harmony with nature.
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References
- Saigo Nobutsuna, Kojiki Chushaku, Chikuma Gakugei Bunko, 2005
- Konoshi Takamitsu, Kojiki to Nihon Shoki, Kodansha Gendai Shinsho, 1999
- Miura Sukeyuki, Susanoo no Henyo, Kadokawa Sensho, 2010
- Origuchi Shinobu, Kodai Kenkyu (Chuko Classics)
- Mayumi Tsunenori, Gion Shinko no Kenkyu, Toki Shobo, 2002
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