Kagura reenactment of the Rock Cave myth, with strong man Tajikarao about to force open the stones
Sun worship was common across the ancient world, and it’s no surprise that there should be common elements between Japanese beliefs about Amaterasu, the sun goddess, and continental versions of the solar myth. However, the similarities in the Cave Myth episode, in which Amaterasu plunges the world into darkness by withdrawing into a cave, suggest that the story must have been imported through immigrant communities in the Yayoi period.
The fascinating ‘Japanese Mythology and Folklore’ site has an article which suggests the origins of the story may in fact lie even further back than Korea and China. The piece below is extracted from a much lengthier (and rambling) article entitled “Isani-and-Iswara vs Izanagi and Izanami: Similarities and common Saka-Sassanian-Sila roots of the royal myths of Indian and Japanese tribes’. (Click here for the original.)
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On solar myths, in “Vala and Iwato: The Myth of the Hidden Sun in India, Japan, and beyond” Michael Witzel draws close parallels between the RigVedic Indian winter solstice and release of dawn myth and the Japanese Amaterasu sun myth: “The ancient Japanese myth of the sun deity Amaterasu-ō-mikami hiding in and reemerging from the Iwato cave is first recorded in the oldest Japanese texts, the Kojiki and Nihonshoki (712/720 CE). The Indian version, the myth of Indra’s opening the Vala cave and his release of the ‘first dawn’ is found in the oldest Indian text, the gveda (c. 1200-1000B.C.) the Vedic myth of the Usas – Dawn”.
Its classical Indo-European form is found in the Vedic literature of oldest India, from the gvedic hymns onwards. According to these poems that are meant for praise of the gods, the early morning sun, is regarded as a beautiful young woman who heralds the rising of the sun. One of the most prominent myths [tells how she] was hidden in a cave found on an island in the middle of the stream at the end of the world. The cave is opened by the strong warrior god Indra, who is accompanied by poets and singers.
They recite, sing, shout, and make a lot of noise outside the cave that is blocked by a robust lock. The ‘strong-armed’ god Indra smashes the gate with his weapon. He is helped by the recitations and the noise made by his friends. Helped by their various combined efforts, he opens the cave and the “first dawn” emerges, illuminating the whole world.
Witzel finds most of the elements of the Indian and Indo-Iranian (East Iran and Nuristan, Afghanistan myths) to be intact and to correspond in the Japanese Amaterasu version, but finally concludes that the Japanese myth takes an intermediate position between the Indo-Iranian version and the ones belonging to Southeast Asia — the Austro-Asiatic Khasi, and the Tibeto-Burmese Naga (both in Assam), and the Austric Miao (Hmong) in S. China.
Modern manga version of the sun deity, Amaterasu (from Izanagi Jingu in Awajima)
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