Amaterasu-o-mi-kami: The Japanese Sun Goddess

Susan Carter presented Amaterasu-o-mi-kami: The Japanese Sun Goddess:

Of all the world’s main religions, only in Shinto is a goddess, Amaterasu-o-mi-kami, preeminent without a male consort. Today Japan’s Emperor and average Japanese citizens alike worship this Sun Goddess. From a western feminist perspective, this is remarkable. How might Amaterasu-o-mi-kami have emerged, and why has she survived in Japan’s patriarchal society? Is she relevant to women’s lives today? Drawing on interdisciplinary research I argue how early religious and political development in Japan provided fertile ground for the myth of Amaterasu-o-mi-kami and her emergence in female form. Her continuing spiritual reign and survival today, in part, can be attributed to the remaining characteristics of an earlier more woman-centered culture and to the political success of the Yamato clan, who claimed her as their tutelary deity, and came to be Japan’s ruling imperial family. Amaterasu-o-mi-kami’s reign continues to shape the social, political, and spiritual lives of the Japanese in surprising ways.