Amaterasu (the sun kami)
Amaterasu Ōmikami is the kami of the sun in Shinto and the ancestral kami of Japan’s imperial family, enshrined at Ise. Her symbol is a mirror: Ise Jingu keeps the Holy Mirror as the symbol of Amaterasu.
Meaning
The Encyclopedia of Shinto calls Amaterasu the “kami of the sun”, the first of the three noble children of Izanagi and the highest of the kami who rule the Plain of High Heaven (Takamanohara). She is enshrined at Kōtaijingū, the inner shrine of Ise Jingu, which describes her as the ancestral kami of the imperial family. Ise Jingu calls the Holy Mirror “the symbol of Amaterasu-Omikami”. It is enshrined in the innermost courtyard of the main sanctuary, behind four rows of wooden fences, and pilgrims worship in front of the gate in the third. Amaterasu is worshipped in Shinto today, and the drawing here is her mirror, not a figure of the kami.
Origin and history
In the Kojiki, Amaterasu was born when Izanagi washed his left eye to purify himself after visiting the underworld, as both the Encyclopedia of Shinto and Jinja Honchō tell it. The Nihongi’s main text has Izanagi and Izanami decide to bring forth a ruler for the world, and one of its alternative versions has her come into being from a white copper mirror Izanagi held in his left hand. When her grandson Ninigi descended to rule the land, she gave him her mirror as her own “spirit vessel” (mitamashiro). By Ise Jingu’s account, the mirror was moved out of the palace in the reign of the legendary Emperor Sujin, and Emperor Suinin sent his daughter Yamatohime to find a lasting place for it. A revelation brought her to Ise, about 2,000 years ago in the shrine’s reckoning.
The cave of heaven
Jinja Honchō, the association of Shinto shrines, calls this one of the central myths of Shinto. When she could bear her brother Susano’o’s rampage no longer, Amaterasu shut herself in Ameno’iwayato, the Cave of the Heavens, and darkness covered heaven and earth. The kami gathered. Ishikoridome made a mirror and Tamano’oya strung hundreds of jewels; they hung the jewels on the upper branches of a sakaki tree, the mirror on the middle branches and white and blue cloth on the lower. Amenouzume danced on an upturned vessel until the kami roared with laughter. From inside, Amaterasu asked why they were happy in the dark, and was told that a greater kami than she had come. The mirror was held out to her as she peeped from the cave. Tajikarao pulled her out, Futodama stretched a sacred rope across the entrance so that she could not go back, and light returned to the world.
Jinja Honchō adds that the story is generally believed to be modelled on early Shinto ceremonies, and that offerings, prayers of celebration and sacred dance are still part of its rites. Henri Joly, writing in 1908 for collectors of Japanese art, tells the same scene as artists drew it: a mirror eight feet across, five hundred jewels, and the goddess coming out when she saw her own reflection.
The mirror, the jewel and the sword
The Encyclopedia of Shinto lists three treasures that Amaterasu is said to have given Ninigi and that were handed down as symbols of the imperial throne: a jewel (yasakani no magatama), a mirror (yata no kagami) and a sword (kusanagi no tsurugi). In Emperor Sujin’s reign copies of the mirror and the sword were made, and the originals were sent from the palace to Ise.
A goddess or a god?
She is usually understood as a goddess, the Encyclopedia of Shinto says. In one version in the Nihongi she calls herself a woman, and Susano’o calls her his elder sister. Some medieval scholars, though, read Amaterasu as a male kami.
Where you’ll see it today
whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFlag of JapanA white flag with a red disc in the centre, the Hinomaru, or “circle of the sun”. Japan’s flag law gives the disc no meaning; Nippon.com traces the design to ancient sun worship and to Japan’s own name, written with the character for sun.Read next
- Next in Japanese symbolsRaijin and Fūjin (thunder and wind)Raijin is the kami of thunder, drawn since the Kamakura period as a demon inside a ring of linked drums. Fūjin is the god of the winds, who carries the winds in a bag. Tawaraya Sōtatsu’s screens show the two together.
- In Symbols across culturesSun godsSun gods include Helios in Greece, Ra in Egypt, Shamash in Mesopotamia, Surya in India and Tonatiuh among the Aztecs. The sun is not always male: Japan’s Amaterasu and the Norse Sól are sun goddesses.
See also
Chrysanthemum seal (imperial crest), Torii (shrine gate), Komainu (guardian lion-dogs), Kamon (family crests) and the mitsudomoe, Mount Fuji, Japanese dragon (ryū).
Sources
- Amaterasu (Encyclopedia of Shinto), Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University, “Amaterasu” (Mori Mizue), Kokugakuin University, entry text
- Sanshu no shinki (Encyclopedia of Shinto), Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University, “Sanshu no shinki” (Fukui Yoshihiko), Kokugakuin University, entry text
- Ise Jingu, About Ise Jingu, Ise Jingu, “About Ise Jingu” (official English site), Ise Jingu, History; Kotaijingu (Naiku)
- Jinja Honchō, Shinto Myths (pamphlet), Jinja Honchō (Association of Shinto Shrines), “Shinto Myths”, English pamphlet, Jinja Honchō, pp. 8–11, “Amaterasu and Susano’o”, “The Cave of the Heavens”
- Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art (1908), Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art: A Description of Historical Episodes, Legendary Characters, Folk-lore, Myths, Religious Symbolism Illustrated in the Arts of Old Japan, London: John Lane, 1908, John Lane (Internet Archive, University of Toronto copy), no. 29, “Amaterasu”
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research
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