Ninigi

Summary

Ninigi is the grandson of Amaterasu in Japanese myth, who came down from heaven to rule the land; the two chronicles call him the Heavenly Grandchild. His father is Ame-no-oshihomimi, who came from Amaterasu's jewels when she swore her oath with Susanoo, and his mother is a daughter of Takagi, that is Takamimusubi. When Ōkuninushi had given up the land, Amaterasu and Takagi ordered her son to go down, and he said: while I was getting ready a child was born to me; let him be sent.

As he was about to descend, a kami stood at the eight crossroads of heaven, shining up to the high plain of heaven and down to the land. Amaterasu sent Ame-no-Uzume to him, and he said: I am Sarutahiko, a kami of the land, come to go before the son of heaven and guide him. Five chiefs from the cave went down with Ninigi: Ame-no-koyane, Futodama, Uzume, Ishikoridome the mirror-maker and Tamanoya the jewel-maker. He was given the curved jewels and the mirror that had drawn Amaterasu from the cave, and the sword Kusanagi, and was told: regard this mirror as our spirit and revere it as you revere us. He left his rock seat in heaven, pushed apart the eightfold clouds, stood on the floating bridge of heaven, and came down on the peak of Kujifuru at Takachiho in Tsukushi. He said: this land faces the land of Kara; the morning sun shines straight upon it and the evening sun lights it; it is a very good place, and he built his palace with pillars in the bedrock.

At Cape Kasasa he met a beautiful woman and asked whose daughter she was. She said: I am the daughter of Ōyamatsumi, the Great Mountain kami, and my name is Konohana-sakuya-hime, Blossoming Like the Flowers of the Trees; I have an elder sister, Iwanaga-hime, Long as the Rocks. He asked her father for her, and the father, delighted, sent her with her elder sister and gifts on a hundred tables. Ninigi found the elder sister very ugly, was frightened at the sight of her and sent her back, keeping the younger one for one night. Her father, ashamed, sent word: I sent both so that the lives of heaven's offspring would stand firm as the rocks, though snow fall and wind blow, if you kept the elder, and flourish like the flowers of the trees if you kept the younger; since you sent back the long-lasting one, their lives will be as brief as the blossoms. That, says the Kojiki, is why the lives of the emperors are not long to this day. The Nihon shoki lays the curse on all people: Iwanaga-hime spat and wept and said: the race of visible men shall change swiftly like the flowers of the trees and decay and pass away, and this is why human life is short.

Konohana-sakuya-hime conceived that night, and Ninigi doubted: pregnant after one night? It is not my child but the child of a kami of the land. She built a hall without a door, plastered up its entrance, set it on fire when her labour came and said: if it is the child of a kami of the land, the birth will not go well. In the height of the fire she bore Hoderi, then Hosuseri, then Hoori.

The idea the story turns on is that heaven's line came to a human span when it came down to the earth and made a choice. Ninigi brought with him what had drawn the sun from the cave, the mirror and the jewels, the sword that came out of the serpent, and the company that had performed the rite, so the light of heaven passed into the hand of the one who rules the land. But two women were offered to him, the rock and the blossom, and he took the blossom and sent back the rock, so long endurance passed out of his hand. In the Nihon shoki Amaterasu gives, with the mirror, the rice ears of her sacred field in heaven, and Takamimusubi wraps him in the coverlet of his couch and sends him down as a newborn is carried. He is a child who came down with rice, and then a man who dies as the crop dies.

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this, as a reading proposed on the method, since neither essay reads it. His full name in the Kojiki is 天邇岐志国邇岐志天津日高日子番能邇邇芸命, Ame-nigishi kuni-nigishi amatsu-hidaka hiko-ho-no-ninigi-no-mikoto: Heaven-Plenty, Earth-Plenty, Sun-High of Heaven, Prince, Lord of the Rice Ears, Ninigi. We remove the titles and the first ni, which Japanese commentators explain as "ruddy" or "jewel", and nigi remains, Japanese for plenty; the name itself repeats it twice at its head, nigishi in heaven and nigishi on earth. We read it from Arabic n-j-ʿ: n is n, j is pronounced g as in Cairo, and ʿ drops because Japanese has no ʿ. Lane gives "najaʿa of food and medicine: it was wholesome, it did him good", intajaʿa, "he sought herbage in its place", and nujʿa, "the going to seek herbage in its place". On this reading Ninigi is the man of the nujʿa: the one who comes down with food that does good, the rice ears, and who goes to seek good land in its place, which is what he said on Takachiho: this is a very good place.

Linguistic Root

The Kojiki writes ho with 番, which commentators explain as an ear of rice; the Nihon shoki writes it 火, fire, and Chamberlain allows both senses. The Kokugakuin database records five explanations of ninigi: "ruddy plenty of rice ears", making the name one of rice; one who looks down from heaven on the land; "the one who grasped the jewel", since he receives the jewels at his descent; "gentle and clear-eyed"; and "one who rewards and pleases". It notes that amatsu hidaka is a title borne by him, his son and his grandson, the three generations in Hyūga between gods and emperors, and that some scholars see him as the kami nearest to humans, a bridge between the two.

Lane gives, under n-j-ʿ: "najaʿa fīhi, of speech, exhortation, medicine or fodder: it entered into him and took effect", "najjaʿa, of food and drink: it was wholesome, it agreed", "intajaʿa: he sought herbage in its place, or went to seek it", and "muntajaʿ: a place where herbage is sought". The sound match runs like this: the n of n-j-ʿ is the n of ni in nigi; the j is the hard g that answers Japanese g, as it does in the reading of Izanagi from nājī; and the ʿ drops, as it does in Raijin from raʿd. The reading meets the first Japanese explanation, plenty of rice, and the story of the rice ears from the sacred field. What remains against it is that the first ni is left unread, and that the Japanese explanations of the name compete without a decision.

Key Mythic Narratives

In the Nihon shoki

The main text of the Nihon shoki does not mention the treasures: Takamimusubi wraps Ninigi in the coverlet of his couch, and he pushes apart the clouds and comes down on Takachiho. In a first variant Amaterasu gives him the three treasures, the jewel, the mirror and the sword Kusanagi, and says: this land of rice ears is the region my descendants shall rule; go and govern it, and may your rule endure like heaven and earth. The scout describes Sarutahiko: his nose seven hands long, his back more than seven fathoms, light shining from his mouth and his rear, his eyes like a mirror glowing red. In a second variant Amaterasu gives her son the mirror, saying: when you look on it, let it be as if you looked on me, and gives him the rice ears of the sacred field from which she eats in heaven; Ninigi is born in the void between heaven and earth and is sent down in his father's place.

The descendants

Hoori, the third of the sons born in the fire, bears the title "Sun-High of Heaven" after his father, and his son after him; the Kokugakuin database calls Ninigi, his son and his grandson "the three generations of Hyūga" and places them between the gods and the emperors. Hoderi is the ancestor of the Hayato of Ata.

Symbolic Reading

The Japanese essay in this project reads the cave story politically: Amaterasu is the ancestor of the ruling house and the mirror a sign of the emperor's authority, so the sun's absence is the absence of authority and her emergence the return of rule. The essay does not mention Ninigi, but his descent is where that very mirror passes from heaven into the hand of the ruler on earth, with the charge to revere it as Amaterasu's spirit. The Kokugakuin database notes that the story of the two sisters belongs to a type known in Southeast Asia as the "banana type": a person is offered a stone and a banana, rejects the stone because it cannot be eaten, and so has a life as short as a plant's. It holds that the Nihon shoki version, which lays the curse on all people, is the older, and that the Kojiki narrowed it to the emperors.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

In the Akkadian story Adapa is offered the bread and water of life in Anu's house and refuses them because Ea told him not to eat or drink, so humankind remains without everlasting life. Ninigi is offered long endurance in the form of an ugly sister and sends it back because he could not bear to look at her. In both stories long life is offered once and refused, and human life is shortened; they part in the reason: Adapa refused out of obedience to his adviser, Ninigi because he chose beauty.

The Sumerian King List begins: "After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug." Ninigi is that kingship descending from heaven as a person, carrying its tokens to a mountain peak and marrying the daughter of the mountain kami, so that the line of heaven and the line of the land meet in his house.

His marriage to the mountain kami's daughter, and her bearing his sons in a burning hall to prove they are heaven's children, are a case of the sacred marriage, and his descent with rice ears from heaven's field belongs with the gifts from heaven in the culture heroes.