Editing Amaterasu (section)

====Amaterasu and Susanoo====
{{see also|Susanoo-no-Mikoto#Susanoo and Amaterasu}}

When Susanoo, the youngest of the three divine siblings, was expelled by his father Izanagi for his troublesome nature and incessant wailing on account of missing his deceased mother Izanami, he first went up to Takamagahara to say farewell to Amaterasu. A suspicious Amaterasu went out to meet him dressed in male clothing and clad in armor, at which Susanoo proposed a trial by pledge (''[[ukehi]]'') to prove his sincerity. In the ritual, the two gods each chewed and spat out an object carried by the other (in some variants, an item they each possessed). Five (or six) gods and three goddesses were born as a result; Amaterasu adopted the males as her sons and gave the females – later known as the [[Munakata Taisha|three Munakata goddesses]] – to Susanoo.<ref>Chamberlain (1882). [http://sacred-texts.com/shi/kj/kj020.htm Section XIII.—The August Oath.]</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Philippi |first1=Donald L. |title=Kojiki |year=2015 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1400878000 |pages=72–78}}</ref><ref>{{cite wikisource |author-first= William George |author-last= Aston |chapter= Book I |wslink= Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 |plaintitle= Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 |year= 1896 |publisher= Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.|wspages=35-39}}</ref>

[[File:須佐之男命の乱暴 - Susanoo's Rampage.jpg|thumb|270px|[[Susanoo]] throwing the heavenly horse into Amaterasu's loom]]
Susanoo, declaring that he had won the trial as he had produced deities of the required gender,{{efn|Female in the ''Kojiki'', male in the ''Shoki''.}} then "raged with victory" and proceeded to wreak havoc by destroying his sister's rice fields and defecating in her palace. While Amaterasu tolerated Susanoo's behavior at first, his "misdeeds did not cease, but became even more flagrant" until one day, he bore a hole in the rooftop of Amaterasu's weaving hall and hurled the "heavenly piebald horse" ({{Lang|ja|天斑駒}}, {{Lang|ja-latn|ame no fuchikoma}}), which he had flayed alive, into it. One of Amaterasu's weaving maidens was alarmed and struck her genitals against a [[Shuttle (weaving)|weaving shuttle]], killing her. In response, a furious Amaterasu shut herself inside the [[Ama-no-Iwato|Ame-no-Iwayato]] ({{Lang|ja|天岩屋戸}}, {{Gloss|Heavenly Rock-Cave Door}}, also known as Ama-no-Iwato), plunging heaven and earth into total darkness.<ref>Chamberlain (1882). [http://sacred-texts.com/shi/kj/kj022.htm Section XV.—The August Ravages of His Impetuous-Male-Augustness.]</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Philippi |first1=Donald L. |title=Kojiki |year=2015 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1400878000 |page=79}}</ref>

The main account in the ''Shoki'' has Amaterasu wounding herself with the shuttle when Susanoo threw the flayed horse in her weaving hall,<ref name="Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co"/> while a variant account identifies the goddess who was killed during this incident as Wakahirume-no-Mikoto ({{lang|ja|稚日女尊}}, {{Lit|young woman of the sun / day(time)}}).<ref>{{cite wikisource |author-first= William George |author-last= Aston |chapter= Book I |wslink= Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 |plaintitle= Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 |year= 1896 |publisher= Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.|wspage=46}}</ref>

Whereas the above accounts identify Susanoo's flaying of the horse as the immediate cause for Amaterasu hiding herself, yet another variant in the ''Shoki'' instead portrays it to be Susanoo defecating in her seat:
{{blockquote|In one writing it is said:—"The august Sun Goddess took an enclosed rice-field and made it her Imperial rice-field. Now Sosa no wo no Mikoto, in spring, filled up the channels and broke down the divisions, and in autumn, when the grain was formed, he forthwith stretched round them division ropes. Again when the Sun-Goddess was in her Weaving-Hall, he flayed alive a piebald colt and flung it into the Hall. In all these various matters his conduct was rude in the highest degree. Nevertheless, the Sun-Goddess, out of her friendship for him, was not indignant or resentful, but took everything calmly and with forbearance.<br />
When the time came for the Sun-Goddess to celebrate the feast of first-fruits, Sosa no wo no Mikoto secretly voided excrement under her august seat in the New Palace. The Sun-Goddess, not knowing this, went straight there and took her seat. Accordingly the Sun-Goddess drew herself up, and was sickened. She therefore was enraged, and straightway took up her abode in the Rock-cave of Heaven, and fastened its Rock-door.<ref>{{cite wikisource |author-first= William George |author-last= Aston |chapter= Book I |wslink= Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 |plaintitle= Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 |year= 1896 |publisher= Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.|wspage=47}}</ref>}}