His name is given in the Kojiki both as Izanagi-no-Kami and Izanagi-no-Mikoto, while the Nihon Shoki refers to him as Izanagi-no-Mikoto, with the name written in different characters. The names Izanagi and Izanami are often interpreted as being derived from the verb izanau 'to invite', with -ki / -gi and -mi being taken as masculine and feminine suffixes, respectively. Shiratori Kurakichi proposed an alternative theory which instead sees the root iza- to be derived from isao meaning 'achievement' or 'merit'.
Mythology
In the ''Kojiki''
The birth of the land
The Kojiki portrays Izanagi and his younger twin sister Izanami as the seventh and final generation of deities that manifested after the emergence of the first group of gods, the Kotoamatsukami, when heaven and earth came into existence. Receiving a command from the other gods to solidify and shape the earth, the couple use a jeweled spear to churn the watery chaos. The brine that dripped from the tip of the spear congealed and turned into an island named Onogoro. The two descended to the island and, setting up their dwelling, erected a 'heavenly pillar' on it. Izanagi and Izanami, realizing that they were meant to procreate and have children, then devised a marriage ceremony whereby they would walk in opposite directions around the pillar, greet each other and initiate intercourse. After Izanami greeted Izanagi first, Izanagi objected that he, the man, should have been the first to speak. True enough, the first offspring that resulted from their union, the 'leech-child' Hiruko, was considered imperfect and set adrift on a boat of reeds. Izanagi and Izanami then also begat the island of Awa, but this too was not counted among their rightful progeny. Izanagi and Izanami then decided to repeat the ritual, with Izanagi greeting Izanami first. This time, their union was a success, with Izanami giving birth to the various islands that comprise the Japanese archipelago, which include the following eight islands :
The two then proceeded to beget the various deities who are to inhabit these lands. Izanami, however, was badly injured and eventually died after giving birth to the fire god Kagutsuchi. In an act of grief and rage, Izanagi killed Kagutsuchi with his 'ten-grasp sword'. More gods manifest into existence out of Izanami's excreta, Kagutsuchi's blood and mutilated remains, and Izanagi's tears.
Izanagi, wishing to see Izanami again, went down to Yomi, the land of the dead, in the hopes of retrieving her. Izanami reveals that she had already partaken of food cooked in the furnace of the underworld, rendering her return impossible. Izanagi, losing his patience, betrayed his promise not to look at her and lit up a fire, only to find that Izanami is now a rotting corpse. To avenge her shame, Izanami dispatched the gods of thunder, the "hags of Yomi", and a horde of warriors to chase after him. To distract them, Izanagi threw the vine securing his hair and the comb on his right hair-knot, which turned into grapes and bamboo shoots that the hags devoured. Upon reaching the pass of Yomotsu Hirasaka, Izanagi took three peaches from a nearby tree and repelled his pursuers using them. He then declared the peach fruit to be divine and bade it to grow in the land of the living to help people in need. When Izanami herself came in pursuit of him, Izanagi sealed the entrance to Yomi using a huge boulder. Izanami then pronounces a curse, vowing to kill a thousand people each day, to which Izanagi replies that he will then beget a thousand and five hundred people everyday to thwart her.
Purification (''Misogi'')
Izanagi, feeling contaminated by his visit to Yomi, went to " Awagihara by the river-mouth of Tachibana in Himuka in Tsukushi" and purified himself by bathing in the river; various deities came into existence as he stripped off his clothes and accoutrements and immersed himself in the water. The three most important kami, the "Three Precious Children" - the sun goddessAmaterasu Ōmikami, the moon deity Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, and the impetuous god Susanoo-no-Mikoto - were born when Izanagi washed his left eye, his right eye, and his nose, respectively.
Izanagi and Susanoo
Izanagi divides the world among his three children: Amaterasu was allotted Takamagahara, Tsukuyomi the night, and Susanoo the seas. Susanoo did not perform his appointed task and instead kept crying and howling "until his beard eight hands long extended down over his chest," causing the mountains to wither and the rivers to dry up. After saying to his father that he wished to go to his mother's land, Ne-no-Katasu-Kuni, a furious Izanagi then expelled Susanoo "with a divine expulsion," after which he disappears from the narrative.
In the ''Nihon Shoki''
While the first generations of kami including Izanagi and Izanami are implied in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki's main narrative to have manifested independent of each other, one variant cited in the Shoki instead describes them as the offspring of Aokashikine-no-Mikoto, another name for the goddess Ayakashikone-no-Mikoto, of the sixth of the first seven generations of gods. Another variant meanwhile portrays Izanagi as the offspring of a deity named Awanagi-no-Mikoto and the fifth-generation descendant of the primordial deity Kuninotokotachi-no-Mikoto. In the Shoki's main narrative, the couple first begets the following eight islands after performing the marriage ceremony :
Awaji, which "was reckoned as the placenta, and their minds took no pleasure in it"
Kibi-no-Kojima, identified with the :ja:児島半島|Kojima Peninsula in southern Okayama Prefecture
Both Ōshima and Kibi-no-Kojima are not reckoned among the eight great islands in the Kojiki, instead being identified as being born after them. The other remaining islands, such as Tsushima and Iki, are said to have been produced by the coagulation of the foam in sea water.
Parallels
Izanagi's visit to his wife Izanami in Yomi-no-kuni somewhat parallels the Greek Orpheus's visit to Eurydice in the underworld, but a more striking resemblance is his wife's inability to return after eating the food in hell, matched by Persephone of Greek myth.
