Chapter XVIII: Japanese Gods and Dragons

Japanese Version of Egyptian Flood Myth—A Far Eastern
Merodach—Dragon-slaying Story—The River of Blood—Osiris as a Slain
Dragon—Ancient Shinto Books—Shinto Cosmogony—Separation of Heaven
and Earth—The Cosmic “Reed Shoot” and the Nig-gil-ma—The Celestial
Jewel Spear—Izanagi and Izanami—Births of Deities and Islands—The
Dragons of Japan—The Wani—Bear, Horse, and other
Dragons—Horse-sacrifice in Japan—Buddhist Elements in Japanese
Dragon Lore—Indian Nagas—Chinese Dragons and Japanese Water-Snakes.

There is no Shinto myth regarding the creation of man; the Mikados and the chiefs of tribes were descendants of deities. Nor is there a Deluge Myth like the Ainu one, involving the destruction of all but a remnant of mankind. The Chinese story about Nu Kwa, known to the Japanese as Jokwa, was apparently imported with the beliefs associated with the jade which that mythical queen or goddess was supposed to have created after she had caused the flood to retreat, but it does not find a place in the ancient Shinto books. There is, however, an interesting version of the Egyptian flood story which has been fused with the Babylonian Tiamat dragon-slaying myth. Susa-no-wo, [567] a Far Eastern Marduk, slays an eight-headed dragon and splits up its body, from which he takes a spirit-sword—an avatar of the monster.

Hathor-Sekhet, of the Egyptian myth, was made drunk, so that she might cease from slaying mankind, and a flood of blood-red beer was poured from jars for that purpose. Susa-no-wo provides sake (rice beer) to intoxicate the dragon which has been coming regularly—apparently once a year—for a daughter of an earth god. When he slays it, the River Hi is “changed into a river of blood”.

Another version of the Egyptian myth, as the Pyramid Texts bear evidence, appears to refer to the “Red Nile” of the inundation season as the blood of Osiris, who had been felled by Set at Nedyt, near Abydos. [568] Lucian tells that the blood of Adonis was similarly believed to redden each year the flooded River of Adonis, flowing from Lebanon, and that “it dyed the sea to a large space red”. [569] Here Adonis is the Osiris of the Byblians. Osiris, as we have seen, had a dragon form; he was the dragon of the Nile flood, and the world-surrounding dragon of ocean. [570] He was also the earth-giant; tree and grain grew from his body. [571] The body of the eight-headed Japanese dragon was covered with moss and trees.

Susa-no-wo, as the rescuer of the doomed maiden, links with Perseus, the rescuer of Andromeda from the water-dragon. [572] The custom of sacrificing a maiden to the Nile each year obtained in Ancient Egypt. In the Tiamat form of the Babylonian myth, Marduk cut the channels of the dragon’s blood and “made the north wind bear it away into secret places”. [573] The stories of Pʼan Ku of China and the Scandinavian Ymir, each of whose blood is the sea, are interesting variants of the legend. [574]

The Japanese dragon-flood myth is merely an incident in the career of a hero in Shinto mythology, which is a mosaic of local or localized and imported stories, somewhat clumsily arranged in the form of a connected narrative.

Our chief sources of information regarding these ancient Japanese myths are the Shinto works, the Ko-ji-ki and the Nihon-gi. [575] Of these works, the Ko-ji-ki (“Records of Ancient Matters”) is the oldest; it was completed in Japanese in A.D. 712; the Nihon-gi (“Chronicles of Japan”) was completed in A.D. 720 in the Chinese language.

Although the myths, formerly handed down orally by generations of priests, were not collected and systematized until about 200 years after Buddhism was introduced into Japan, they were not greatly influenced by Indian ideas. Dragon-lore, however, became so complex that it is difficult to sift the local from the imported elements.

In the preface to the Ko-ji-ki, Yasumaro, the compiler, in his summary, writes:

“Now when chaos had begun to condense, but force and form were not
yet manifest, and there was nought named, nought done, who could
know its shape? Nevertheless Heaven and Earth first parted, and the
Three Deities performed the commencement of Creation; the Passive
and Active Essences then developed, and the Two Spirits became the
Ancestors of all things.”

The myth of the separation of Heaven and Earth dates back to remote antiquity in Egypt. Shu, the atmosphere-god, separated the sky-goddess Nut from the earth-god Seb. In Polynesian mythology Rangi (Heaven), and Papa (Earth), from whom “all things originated”, were “rent apart” by Tane-mahuta, “the god and father of forests, of birds, of insects”. But in this case the earth is the mother and the sky the father. [576]

About the “Three Deities” referred to by Yasumaro, we do not learn much. The idea of the trinity may have been of Indian origin. The Passive and Active Essences recall the male Yang and its female Yin principles of China. These are represented in the Ko-ji-ki by Izanagi (“Male who Invites”) and Izanami (“Female who Invites”).

Dr. Aston translates the opening passage of the Nihon-gi as follows:

“Of old, Heaven and Earth were not yet separated, and the In and
the Yo not yet divided. They formed a chaotic mass like an egg,
which was of obscurely defined limits, and contained germs. The
purer and clearer part was thinly diffused and formed Heaven, while
the heavier and grosser element settled down and became Earth. The
finer element easily became a united body, but the consolidation of
the heavy and gross element was accomplished with difficulty.
Heaven was therefore formed first, and Earth established
subsequently. Thereafter divine beings were produced between them.”

Here we meet with the cosmic egg, from which emerged the Chinese Pʼan Ku, the Indian Brahma, the Egyptian Ra or Horus, and one of the Polynesian creators. It might be held that China is the source of the Japanese myth, because the In and the Yo are here, quite evidently the Yang and the Yin, representing not Izanagi and Izanami as in the Ko-ji-ki, but the deities of heaven and earth. But the Ko-ji-ki form of the myth may be the oldest, and we may have in the Nihon-gi evidence of Chinese ideas having been superimposed on those already obtaining in Japan, into which they were imported from other areas.

But to return to the Creation myth. An ancient native work, the Kiu-ji-ki, which has not yet been translated into English, refers to seven generations of gods, beginning with one of doubtful sex, in whose untranslatable name the sun, moon, earth, and moisture are mentioned. This First Parent of the deities was the offspring of Heaven and Earth. The last couple is Izanagi and Izanami, brother and sister, like Osiris and Isis, who became man and wife.

According to the Ko-ji-ki the first three deities came into being in Takama-no-hara, the “Plain of High Heaven”. They were alone, and afterwards disappeared, i.e. died. The narrative continues: “The names of the deities that were born next from a thing that sprouted up like unto a reed-shoot when the earth, young and like unto floating oil, drifted about medusa-like, [577] were the Pleasant-Reed-Shoot-Prince-Elder-Deity, next the Heavenly-Eternally-Standing-Deity. These two Deities were likewise born alone, and hid their persons.” [578] Earth and mud deities followed, and also the other deities who were before Izanagi and Izanami.

It may be that the “reed-shoot” was the Japanese nig-gil-ma. (See