Izanagi (Izanagi-no-Mikoto)

In the Kojiki narrative Izanagi is one of the final generations of primordial deities who, instructed by earlier gods, solidifies and shapes the chaotic watery world. He and his sister-wife Izanami stand upon the newly formed island of Onogoro, erect a heavenly pillar (ama no mihashira), perform a ritual circuit about it and conceive the eight principal islands of the Japanese archipelago and a host of kami. His role in cosmogony also places him as progenitor of major deities—Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, Susanoo—and situates him at the head of divine genealogies foundational to later political and religious claims.

Primary sources do not supply a detailed anthropomorphic portrait of Izanagi; the Kojiki emphasizes his ritual acts and instruments rather than bodily description. Narrative scenes describe him wielding a jewelled spear in the churning of the primordial sea and later using a sword in the slaying of the fire-god Kagutsuchi (an episode-specific weapon), but there is no sustained account of his attire, height, or facial features. Mythic emphasis rests on his role as ritual actor, ancestor, and boundary-maker rather than on visual particulars.

As a creator-being Izanagi effects world-formation: he and Izanami churn the primordial sea with a jewelled spear whose brine congeals into the first island (Onogoro), and their ritual union births islands and deities. He enforces and exemplifies correct ritual procedure (the marriage circuit and the importance of correct speech). After Izanami's death in childbirth he slays the fire-god Kagutsuchi with a sword, from whose blood and the dismembered remains further deities are produced. Izanagi descends to Yomi to retrieve Izanami, where he encounters and provokes underworld beings; on return he performs misogi (ritual bathing) to cleanse the pollution of contact with death, uses ordinary items transformed into food (his hair-vine and comb that become grapes and bamboo shoots) and three peaches plucked at Yomotsu Hirasaka to repel pursuers, and seals the entrance to Yomi with a boulder that becomes a guardian deity.