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132-410: A cosmic ocean , primordial waters , or celestial river is a mythological motif that represents the world or cosmos enveloped by a vast primordial ocean. Found in many cultures and civilizations, the cosmic ocean exists before the creation of the earth. From the primordial waters the earth and the entire cosmos arose. The cosmic ocean represents or embodies chaos. The cosmic ocean takes form in

264-613: A moral , fable , allegory or a parable , or collection of traditional stories, understood to be false. It came eventually to be applied to similar bodies of traditional stories among other polytheistic cultures around the world. Thus "mythology" entered the English language before "myth". Johnson 's Dictionary , for example, has an entry for mythology, but not for myth. Indeed, the Greek loanword mythos ( pl. mythoi ) and Latinate mythus (pl. mythi ) both appeared in English before

396-449: A "disease of language". He speculated that myths arose due to the lack of abstract nouns and neuter gender in ancient languages. Anthropomorphic figures of speech , necessary in such languages, were eventually taken literally, leading to the idea that natural phenomena were in actuality conscious or divine. Not all scholars, not even all 19th-century scholars, accepted this view. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl claimed that "the primitive mentality

528-449: A book on the comparative study of mythology and religion—argued that humans started out with a belief in magical rituals; later, they began to lose faith in magic and invented myths about gods, reinterpreting their rituals as religious rituals intended to appease the gods. Historically, important approaches to the study of mythology have included those of Vico , Schelling , Schiller , Jung , Freud , Lévy-Bruhl , Lévi-Strauss , Frye ,

660-417: A cave. It would take the combined efforts of many other kami, and the erotic dance of a particular goddess named Ame no Uzume, to lure Amaterasu from the cave again. Ame no Uzume exposed herself while dancing and created such commotion that Amaterasu peeked out from her cave. The myth of Amaterasu's entering and emerging from a cave is depicted in one of the most iconic images of Japanese mythology which

792-415: A celestial being, which, with the help of fire, dries up part of the primordial ocean, thus reclaiming a place for the earth. The motif of the struggle of water and fire in connection with the theme of the world ocean is also present in other traditions. Hindu mythology is characterized by the image of the creator god Vishnu and the creator goddess Lakshmi, floating on the primary waters in a lotus flower, on

924-531: A cosmic mountain in the form of a hemisphere, which later became the earth. An arc of shiny tin, encircling the hemisphere vertically, later became the sky. In the Babylonian version, in the endless primordial Ocean there was nothing but two monsters – the forefather Apsu and foremother Tiamat . Vourukasha is the name of a heavenly sea in Zoroastrian mythology. It was created by Ahura Mazda and in its middle stood

1056-453: A cow with a sun disk between her horns, gives birth to the sun, said to have risen from the waters of creation and to have given birth to the sun god Ra in some myths. The universe was enrapt by a vast mass of primordial waters, and the Benben , a pyramid mound, emerged amid this primal chaos. There was a lotus flower with Benben, and this when it blossomed emerged Ra. There were many versions of

1188-477: A failed or obsolete mode of thought, often by interpreting myth as the primitive counterpart of modern science within a unilineal framework that imagined that human cultures are travelling, at different speeds, along a linear path of cultural development. One of the dominant mythological theories of the latter 19th century was nature mythology , the foremost exponents of which included Max Müller and Edward Burnett Tylor . This theory posited that "primitive man"

1320-510: A firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.'" ( Genesis 1:6 ). It is clear that this upper water refers to the waters present in the clouds. There are points though that indicate the cosmic ocean was enveloped in thick clouds. In Exodus, the cosmic ocean is Yam Sûf and is mentioned in Exodus 15:4. The army of the Pharaoh was thrown into this "Sea of Extinction" and

1452-529: A flood or a drought, that is, a violation of the measure, the water "balance". Since the cosmos is identified with order and measure, chaos is associated with the violation of measure. The Egyptian Ra fights and kills the underground serpent Apep , the Hindu Indra fights and kills the demon Vritra , who took the form of a snake , the Mesopotamian Enki , Ninurta and Inanna fight with Kur and kill him,

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1584-434: A kami according to this system. Myths often tell stories of particular, local deities and kami; for example, the kami of a mountain or a nearby lake. Most kami take their origins from Shinto beliefs, but the influence of Buddhism also affected the pantheon. Contact with other cultures usually had some influence on Japanese myth. In the fourteenth century, Christianity found its way to Japan through St. Francis Xavier and there

1716-646: A kami who looks almost human in depictions is the ruler of the Seas Ryujin . On the other hand, kami like Ninigi and Amaterasu are often depicted as human in their forms. Shinto originated in Japan, and the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki tell the tales of the Shinto pantheon's origins. Shinto is still practiced today in Japan. In Shinto belief, kami has multiple meanings and could also be translated as "spirit" and all objects in nature have

1848-465: A lumberjack who worked in that forest was not lucky enough to escape the mythological creature. The Jorōgumo spider is commonly told in Japanese folklore. The word itself translate to the meaning,"whore spider". Every story commonly states, that the creature captures it's prey by first seeming like a beautiful women than after seduction is complete turning into the much more bitter better half. This creature

1980-446: A methodology that allows us to understand the complexity of the myth and its manifestations in contemporary times, is justified. Because "myth" is sometimes used in a pejorative sense, some scholars have opted for "mythos" instead. "Mythos" now more commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a "plot point" or to a body of interconnected myths or stories, especially those belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. It

2112-535: A myth can be highly controversial. Many religious adherents believe that the narratives told in their respective religious traditions are historical without question, and so object to their identification as myths while labelling traditional narratives from other religions as such. Hence, some scholars may label all religious narratives as "myths" for practical reasons, such as to avoid depreciating any one tradition because cultures interpret each other differently relative to one another. Other scholars may abstain from using

2244-420: A nap. He rested near, the waterfall and there is when Jorōgumo, caught her first prey. Taking on the persona of a beautiful woman, the man simply thought she was merely a woman. After she saw he was asleep, she quickly turned to her true form, top half a beautiful woman and the bottom half is a spider. The man awoke in a web, and was lucky enough to escape said web, to tell the tale to local citizens. Unfortunately,

2376-486: A pattern of behavior to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the sanctity of cult . Another definition of myth comes from myth criticism theorist and professor José Manuel Losada . According to Cultural Myth Criticism, the studies of myth must explain and understand "myth from inside", that is, only "as a myth". Losada defines myth as "a functional, symbolic and thematic narrative of one or several extraordinary events with

2508-536: A poetic description of the sea as "raging" was eventually taken literally and the sea was then thought of as a raging god. Some thinkers claimed that myths result from the personification of objects and forces. According to these thinkers, the ancients worshiped natural phenomena, such as fire and air, gradually deifying them. For example, according to this theory, ancients tended to view things as gods, not as mere objects. Thus, they described natural events as acts of personal gods, giving rise to myths. According to

2640-600: A primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form. Origin myths explain how a society's customs , institutions , and taboos were established and sanctified. National myths are narratives about a nation's past that symbolize the nation's values. There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and the enactment of rituals . The word "myth" comes from Ancient Greek μῦθος ( mȳthos ), meaning 'speech, narrative, fiction, myth, plot'. In turn, Ancient Greek μυθολογία ( mythología , 'story', 'lore', 'legends', or 'the telling of stories') combines

2772-457: A purification ceremony. As Izanagi cleansed himself, the water and robes that fell from his body created many more gods. Purification rituals still function as important traditions in Japan today, from shoe etiquette in households to sumo wrestling purification ceremonies. Amaterasu, the Sun goddess and divine ancestor of the first Emperor Jimmu, was born from Izanagi's eye. The Moon god and Susanoo

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2904-621: A scholarly term for "[a] traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events." The Greek term mythología was then borrowed into Late Latin , occurring in the title of Latin author Fulgentius ' 5th-century Mythologiæ to denote what is now referred to as classical mythology —i.e., Greco-Roman etiological stories involving their gods. Fulgentius' Mythologiæ explicitly treated its subject matter as allegories requiring interpretation and not as true events. The Latin term

3036-565: A step further, incorporating the study of the transcendent dimension (its function, its disappearance) to evaluate the role of myth as a mirror of contemporary culture. Cultural myth criticism Cultural myth criticism, without abandoning the analysis of the symbolic , invades all cultural manifestations and delves into the difficulties in understanding myth today. This cultural myth criticism studies mythical manifestations in fields as wide as literature , film and television , theater , sculpture , painting , video games , music , dancing ,

3168-436: A transcendent, sacred and supernatural referent; that lacks, in principle, historical testimony; and that refers to an individual or collective, but always absolute, cosmogony or eschatology". According to the hylistic myth research by assyriologist Annette Zgoll and classic philologist Christian Zgoll , "A myth can be defined as an Erzählstoff [narrative material] which is polymorphic through its variants and – depending on

3300-537: A trio of gods who produced the next seven generations of gods . Izanagi and Izanami were eventually born, siblings, and using a naginata decorated with jewels, named Ame-no-nuhoko ("Heavenly Jeweled Spear") that was gifted to them. Izanagi created the first islands of the Japanese Archipelago by dipping the Naginata into the primordial waters. Historians have interpreted the myth of Izanagi's creation of

3432-443: A union ceremony is born with no limbs or bones, and the parents discard the child by sending him to sea in a boat. When Izanagi and Izanami ask the older gods why their child was born without bones or limbs, they are told it was because they did not conduct the ceremony properly and that the male must always speak before the female. Once they follow the directions of the older gods correctly, they produce many children, many of whom are

3564-511: A woman. In the myth of creation of the Tuamotu Islands , the creator Tāne , "Spilling Water", created the world in the waters of the lord of the waters, Pune, and invoked the light that initiated the creation of the earth. The motif of the cosmogonic struggle with the serpent and its killing is widespread in terms of suppressing water chaos. The serpent in most mythologies is associated with water, often as its abductor. It threatens either with

3696-576: A world of the remote past, very different from that of the present. Definitions of "myth" vary to some extent among scholars, though Finnish folklorist Lauri Honko offers a widely-cited definition: Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world , the creation , fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the world, nature and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society's religious values and norms, it provides

3828-421: Is a condition of the human mind and not a stage in its historical development." Recent scholarship, noting the fundamental lack of evidence for "nature mythology" interpretations among people who actually circulated myths, has likewise abandoned the key ideas of "nature mythology". Frazer saw myths as a misinterpretation of magical rituals, which were themselves based on a mistaken idea of natural law. This idea

3960-465: Is a form of understanding and telling stories that are connected to power, political structures, and political and economic interests. These approaches contrast with approaches, such as those of Joseph Campbell and Eliade , which hold that myth has some type of essential connection to ultimate sacred meanings that transcend cultural specifics. In particular, myth was studied in relation to history from diverse social sciences. Most of these studies share

4092-411: Is a motif of the creation of the earth by a celestial being descending from the sky and interfering with the water of the ocean with an iron club, spear or other object. This results in condensation which gives rise to the earth. In Japanese mythology , the islands of Japan arose from dirty foam raised by mixing the waters of the ocean with a spear of gods ( Izanagi and Izanami ). In the mythologies of

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4224-563: Is acting as a boundary between the waters above and the waters below the oceans. Fraxkard ( Middle Persian : plʾhwklt , Avestan : Vourukaša ; also called Warkaš in Middle Persian) is the cosmic ocean in Iranian mythology . In the first creation story in the Bible the world is created as a space inside of the water or Tehom , and is hence surrounded of it, "And Yahweh said, 'Let there be

4356-472: Is an idea of darkness and the abyss, but also of the primary waters generated by night or chaos. Ancient Indian myths about the oceans contain both typical and original motifs. In the tenth mandala of the Rigveda, the original state of the universe is presented as the absence of existing and non-existent, airspace and sky above it, death and birth, day and night, but the presence of water and disorderly movement. In

4488-709: Is believed to be over 400 years old. There is said to be a male version of this horrific creature, commonly called the Tschuigumo. Many deities appear in Japanese mythology, and many of them have multiple aliases. Furthermore, some of their names are comparatively long. This article, therefore, lists only the most prominent names and gives them in one of their abbreviated forms, other abbreviated forms are also in use. (For instance, Ninigi , or Ame-Nigishikuni-Nigishiamatsuhiko-Hikono-no- Ninigi -no-Mikoto in full, may also be abbreviated as Hikoho-no-Ninigi or Hono-Ninigi .) In some parts of this article, proper names are written in

4620-449: Is its inclusion of graphic details, with disgusting and horrific images that are considered to be taboo in modern Japanese society, which has many cultural practices associated with purification and cleanliness. After Izanami's death, the myth of Izanagi's efforts to rescue her from Yomi , an underworld described in Japanese mythology, explains the origins of the cycle of birth and death. After killing their child Kagutsuchi , Izanagi

4752-423: Is nobody's truth. Myths are somebody's truth." One theory claims that myths are distorted accounts of historical events. According to this theory, storytellers repeatedly elaborate upon historical accounts until the figures in those accounts gain the status of gods. For example, the myth of the wind-god Aeolus may have evolved from a historical account of a king who taught his people to use sails and interpret

4884-413: Is often thought of as something like the upper sea. The concept of a watery chaos also underlies the widespread motif of the worldwide flood that took place in early times. The emergence of earth from water and the curbing of the global flood or underground waters are usually presented as a factor in cosmic ordering. In ancient creation texts , the primordial waters are often represented as having filled

5016-472: Is often thought to differ from genres such as legend and folktale in that neither are considered to be sacred narratives. Some kinds of folktales, such as fairy stories , are not considered true by anyone, and may be seen as distinct from myths for this reason. Main characters in myths are usually gods , demigods or supernatural humans, while legends generally feature humans as their main characters. Many exceptions and combinations exist, as in

5148-516: Is shown to the right. The sun goddess Amaterasu's importance in Japanese mythology is two-fold. She is the sun, and one of Izanagi's most beloved of children, as well as the ancestor of the Japanese imperial line, according to legend. Her status as a sun goddess had political ramifications for the imperial family, and the Yamato state most likely benefited from the myth when dealing with Korean influences because Korea also had myths of sun god ancestors for

5280-614: Is sometimes known as "mythography", a term also used for a scholarly anthology of myths or of the study of myths generally. Key mythographers in the Classical tradition include: Other prominent mythographies include the thirteenth-century Prose Edda attributed to the Icelander Snorri Sturluson , which is the main surviving survey of Norse Mythology from the Middle Ages. Jeffrey G. Snodgrass (professor of anthropology at

5412-510: Is sometimes used specifically for modern, fictional mythologies, such as the world building of H. P. Lovecraft . Mythopoeia ( mytho- + -poeia , 'I make myth') was termed by J. R. R. Tolkien , amongst others, to refer to the "conscious generation" of mythology. It was notoriously also suggested, separately, by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg . Comparative mythology is a systematic comparison of myths from different cultures. It seeks to discover underlying themes that are common to

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5544-624: The Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki . The Kojiki , or "Record of Ancient Matters," is the oldest surviving account of Japan's myths, legends, and history. Additionally, the Shintōshū describes the origins of Japanese deities from a Buddhist perspective. One notable feature of Japanese mythology is its explanation of the origin of the Imperial Family , which has been used historically to deify to

5676-571: The Iliad , Odyssey and Aeneid . Moreover, as stories spread between cultures or as faiths change, myths can come to be considered folktales, their divine characters recast as either as humans or demihumans such as giants , elves and faeries . Conversely, historical and literary material may acquire mythological qualities over time. For example, the Matter of Britain (the legendary history of Great Britain, especially those focused on King Arthur and

5808-452: The Republic . His critique was primarily on the grounds that the uneducated might take the stories of gods and heroes literally. Nevertheless, he constantly referred to myths throughout his writings. As Platonism developed in the phases commonly called Middle Platonism and neoplatonism , writers such as Plutarch , Porphyry , Proclus , Olympiodorus , and Damascius wrote explicitly about

5940-842: The Theologia Mythologica (1532). The first modern, Western scholarly theories of myth appeared during the second half of the 19th century —at the same time as "myth" was adopted as a scholarly term in European languages. They were driven partly by a new interest in Europe's ancient past and vernacular culture, associated with Romantic Nationalism and epitomised by the research of Jacob Grimm (1785–1863). This movement drew European scholars' attention not only to Classical myths, but also material now associated with Norse mythology , Finnish mythology , and so forth. Western theories were also partly driven by Europeans' efforts to comprehend and control

6072-611: The Colorado State University ) has termed India's Bhats as mythographers. Myth criticism is a system of anthropological interpretation of culture created by French philosopher Gilbert Durand . Scholars have used myth criticism to explain the mythical roots of contemporary fiction, which means that modern myth criticism needs to be interdisciplinary . Professor Losada offers his own methodologic, hermeneutic and epistemological approach to myth. While assuming mythopoetical perspectives, Losada's Cultural Myth Criticism takes

6204-560: The Harvisptokhm or the "tree of all seeds". According to the Vendidad , Ahura Mazda sent the clean waters of Vourukasha down to the earth in order to cleanse the world and sent the water back to the heavenly sea Puitika . This phenomenon was later interpreted as the coming and going of the tide. At the centre of Vourukasha was located the Harvisptokhm or "tree of all seeds", which contains

6336-666: The Mongolian peoples , the role of the compactor of the ocean waters is played by the wind, which creates a special milky substance out of them, which then becomes the earth's firmament. According to the Kalmyks, plants, animals, people and deities were born from this milky liquid. Hindu Mythology has a similar with about the churning of the Churning of the Ocean . Myths about the world's oceans are universally accompanied by myths about its containment when

6468-573: The Olympians and Titans and the other deities. Oceanus and Tethys are the father and mother of Metis , the wise wife of Brontes and mother of Athena and Porus with him (Apollod. I 2, 1). Known for their peacefulness and kindness (Euripides said that they tried unsuccessfully to reconcile Prometheus with the Olympians before Prometheus was freed by the Olympians and Titans and others later on; Prometheus Bound 284–396). Herodotus contains criticism of

6600-759: The Puitika with the Gulf of Oman . Myth Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the veracity of a myth is not a defining criterion. Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality . Many societies group their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths and legends to be factual accounts of their remote past. In particular, creation myths take place in

6732-503: The Canaanite deities. Yu the Great 's heroic struggle with the cosmic flood ends with the killing of the insidious owner of the water Gungun and his "close associate" – the nine-headed Xiangliu. The transition from the formless water element to land is the most important act necessary for the transformation of chaos into space. The next step in the same direction is the separation of the sky from

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6864-579: The Internet and other artistic fields . Myth criticism, a discipline that studies myths (mythology contains them, like a pantheon its statues), is by nature interdisciplinary: it combines the contributions of literary theory, the history of literature, the fine arts and the new ways of dissemination in the age of communication. Likewise, it undertakes its object of study from its interrelation with other human and social sciences, in particular sociology , anthropology and economics . The need for an approach, for

6996-597: The Iranian Tishtry (Sirius) – with the deva Aposhi Tishtry kills Aposhi. The killed Apep, Vritra, Kur and Aposhi hold back the cosmic waters. Marduk defeats and kills the progenitors Tiamat and Apsu before resurrecting them back together, the deities of the dark waters of chaos, who has taken the form of snakes. There are stories in Canaanite mythology about the struggle of the Canaanite deities with monstrous snakes, which also represents water chaos ( Rahab , Tehom , Leviathan ) and these monstrous snakes are all killed by

7128-507: The Japanese Archipelago separate the prehistoric history into three eras based on attributes of the discoveries associated with each era. The Jōmun period marks the first cases of pottery found on the archipelago, followed by the Yayoi period and the Kofun period. The Yayoi district of the Japanese capital Tokyo, is the namesake of the Yayoi period because archaeologists discovered pottery associated with

7260-600: The Korean imperial family. The tale of first Emperor Jimmu is considered the origin of the Imperial family. Emperor Jimmu is considered to be the human descendant of Amaterasu the Sun goddess. His ascension to the throne marked the "Transition from Age of the Gods to Human Age". After taking control of Yamato province , he established the imperial throne and acceded in the year of kanoto tori (conventionally dated to 660 B.C.). At

7392-553: The Soviet school, and the Myth and Ritual School . The critical interpretation of myth began with the Presocratics . Euhemerus was one of the most important pre-modern mythologists. He interpreted myths as accounts of actual historical events, though distorted over many retellings. Sallustius divided myths into five categories: Plato condemned poetic myth when discussing education in

7524-417: The Yamato kingdom — the same Yamato state that was responsible for the two most prominent literary sources of Japanese myth, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. Japan's archipelago creation narrative can be divided into the birth of the deities ( Kamiumi ) and the birth of the land ( Kuniumi ). The birth of the deities begins with the appearance of the first generation of gods who appeared out of primordial oil,

7656-464: The adventures and lives of folk heroes. There are many Japanese heroes that are associated with specific locations in Japan, and others that are more well known across the archipelago. Some heroes are thought to have been real people, such as the Forty-seven rōnin , but their legacy has been transformed into great folktales that depict the historical figures as more gifted, powerful, or knowledgeable than

7788-448: The assumption that history and myth are not distinct in the sense that history is factual, real, accurate, and truth, while myth is the opposite. Japanese mythology Japanese myths are tied to the topography of the archipelago as well as agriculturally-based folk religion , and the Shinto pantheon holds uncountable kami (" god(s) " or "spirits"). Two important sources for Japanese myths, as they are recognized today, are

7920-419: The average person. The heroic adventures of these heroes range from acts of kindness and devotion, such as the myth of Shita-kiri Suzume , to battling frightful enemies, as in the tale of Momotaro . Themes that appear in the folklore concerning heroes are moral lessons, or stories that function as parables. The tale of Shita-kiri Suzume, for example, warns of the dangers of greed, avarice, and jealousy through

8052-492: The biblical account of the creation of the world in Book of Genesis , the upper oceans ( Hebrew : המים העליונים , romanized :  HaMaim HaElionim ) refers to the waters located above the firmament . These waters were separated by God from the lower oceans ( Hebrew : המים התחתונים , romanized :  HaMaim HaTahtonim ) on the second day of creation, as described in the genesis creation narrative .The firmament (sky)

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8184-412: The compiler, suggesting that the compiler believed that Izanami was Izanagi's sister. While scholars disagree about the nature of Izanami and Izanagi's relationships, the gods Amaterasu and Susanoo , children of Izanagi, were sibling gods who created children together in a contest preceding Susanoo's desecration of Amaterasu's home which leads to her hiding in a cave. A unique aspect of Japanese mythology

8316-465: The concept of the Oedipus complex in his 1899 The Interpretation of Dreams . Jung likewise tried to understand the psychology behind world myths. Jung asserted that all humans share certain innate unconscious psychological forces, which he called archetypes . He believed similarities between the myths of different cultures reveals the existence of these universal archetypes. The mid-20th century saw

8448-524: The cosmic ocean to bring up and form the earth. A diving bird, catching a lump of earth from the primordial ocean, often appears in the mythologies of the Native Americans and Siberian peoples . In totemic myths , bird people are often presented as ancestors. Eggs are a common theme in creation myths. A waterfowl extracts silt from the sea, from which land is gradually created. In Polynesian mythology , Maui fishes islands. In Scandinavian mythology,

8580-482: The creator deities there respectively. Initially, the existing ocean contains the two primordial deities who are called as the "father and mother of the deities" Nu and Nunnet. In the historical era, the ocean, which was placed underground, gave rise to the river Nile. In the Heracleopolis version of the myth, an internal connection between the ocean and chaos is noted. The ideas of ancient Greaco-Roman mythology about

8712-577: The cultures, stories and religions they were encountering through colonialism . These encounters included both extremely old texts such as the Sanskrit Rigveda and the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh , and current oral narratives such as mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas or stories told in traditional African religions . The intellectual context for nineteenth-century scholars

8844-687: The current constitution of Japan. Japanese gods and goddesses, called kami, are uniquely numerous (there are at least eight million) and varied in power and stature. They are usually descendants from the original trio of gods that were born from nothing in the primordial oil that was the world before the kami began to shape it. There are easily as many kami in Japanese myth as there are distinct natural features, and most kami are associated with natural phenomena. Kami can take many shapes and forms, some look almost human in depictions found by archaeologists; meanwhile, other kami look like hybrids of humans and creatures, or may not look human at all. One example of

8976-477: The deities also. So, in Scandinavian mythology, frost giants precede time, and in space they are located on the outskirts of the earth's circle, in cold places, near the oceans. In Ancient Egyptian mythology, in the beginning the universe only consisted of a great chaotic cosmic ocean, and the ocean itself was referred to as Nu . In some versions of this myth, at the beginning of time, Mehet-Weret , portrayed as

9108-500: The earth sinking in the ocean, and about the retreat of the ocean. An example of the first type is the legend about the origin of Easter Island , recorded on this island. In the creation myth of the Nganasan people , at first the earth was completely covered with water, then the water subsides and exposes the top of the Shaitan ridge Koika-mou. The first two people fall to this peak – a man and

9240-461: The earth was already created, and myths about the attempts of the ocean to regain its undivided dominance. In Chinese mythology , there is the idea of a giant depression or pit that determines the direction of the ocean waters and takes away excess water. In many mythologies there are numerous narratives regarding the flood. The opposition of two types of myths is known (for example, in Oceania ) – about

9372-415: The earth, which, perhaps, essentially coincides with the first act, given the initial identification of the sky with the oceans. But it was precisely the repetition of the act – first down, and then up – that led to the allocation of three spheres – earthly, heavenly and underground, which represents the transition from binary division to trinity. The middle sphere, the earth, opposes the watery world below and

9504-427: The element of water and with chaos; usually they are conceived on the side of "nature" rather than "culture." Mythical creatures from chaos, defeated and victorious, shackled and released, overthrown and restored, always continue to exist on the outskirts of space, along the shores of the oceans, in the under ground "lower" world, in the above ground "upper" world. Other evil creatures were killed in these mythologies by

9636-477: The end of the seventh century, the Imperial court finally moved from where Emperor Jimmu was said to have founded it in Yamato. The importance of this myth in particular is that it establishes the origins, and the power, of the Japanese imperial family as divine. Although some scholars believe that the myths found in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki are meant to give authority to the imperial family, others suggest that

9768-487: The entire army of the Pharaoh was killed in it. Yahweh rises Egypt up from this sea. King Sargon II is said to have washed his weapons in this cosmic ocean. The cosmic ocean is mentioned again in Joshua 1:4 and signified as a boundary of the universe. In the myth of Noah's Ark , for forty days and nights of rain, the cosmic ocean floods the earth before receding away back into their original place. In Sumerian mythology, there

9900-441: The entire universe and are the first source of the gods . The act of creation is the establishment of an inhabitable space separate from the enveloping waters. The cosmic ocean is the shape of the universe before creation. The ocean is boundless, unordered, unorganized, amorphous, formless, dangerous, terrible. In some myths, its cacophony is noted, opposed to the ordered rhythm of the sea. Chaos can be personified as water or by

10032-474: The example of an old couple's experiences with a fairy who disguised herself as a sparrow to test the old man. The influence of Bushido is noticeable in the behavior of heroes, and heroes often were also warriors. Momotaro, born from a peach for a childless couple to raise, is a mythic hero who embodied courage and dutifulness as he went on a journey to defeat oni who were kidnapping, raping, and pillaging his home island. The tale of Momotaro also shares in

10164-406: The first Japanese Island Onogoro as an early example of phallocentrism in Japanese mythology. The earliest creation myths of Japanese mythology generally involve topics such as death, decay, loss, infanticide, and contamination. The creation myths place great importance on purification, ceremonial order, and the masculine. For example, the first child born to Izanagi and Izanami after they attempt

10296-493: The first example of "myth" in 1830. The main characters in myths are usually non-humans, such as gods , demigods , and other supernatural figures. Others include humans, animals, or combinations in their classification of myth. Stories of everyday humans, although often of leaders of some type, are usually contained in legends , as opposed to myths. Myths are sometimes distinguished from legends in that myths deal with gods, usually have no historical basis, and are set in

10428-402: The foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior and that myths may provide a religious experience. By telling or reenacting myths, members of traditional societies detach themselves from the present, returning to the mythical age, thereby coming closer to the divine. Honko asserted that, in some cases, a society reenacts a myth in an attempt to reproduce the conditions of

10560-609: The form of the primary ocean (Nu) or, in the Hermopolitian version, four divine pairs of primordial deities representing its different aspects. The primary hill is place of the sun god Ra and the sun goddess Raet as the creator deities in Heliopolis. Water chaos is opposed by the first earthly mound protruding from it, with which Ra is associated in Heliopolis, and in Memphis and Thebes , Ptah with Sekhmet and Amun with Amunet as

10692-502: The geographic location where the people who told the stories lived. The Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, completed in A.D. 712 and A.D. 720 respectively, had the two most referenced and oldest sources of Japanese mythology and pre-history. Written in the Eighth century , under the Yamato state , the two collections relate the cosmogony and mythic origins of the Japanese archipelago, its people, and

10824-499: The gods raise the earth, and Thor catches Jörmungandr from the bottom of the ocean. In ancient Egyptian mythology , the earth itself comes to the surface in the form of a mound. In the Hindu Brahmanas it was said that Brahma as Prajapati took the earth out of the water, taking the form of a boar . In the mythologies of many Asian countries, in which there is an image of an endless and eternal primordial ocean or sea, there

10956-411: The heavenly world above. A trichotomous scheme of the cosmos arises, including the necessary space between earth and sky. This space is often represented as a cosmic tree . Earth and sky are almost universally represented as feminine and masculine, a married couple standing at the beginning of a theogonic or theocosmogonic process. At the same time, the feminine and masculine principles are associated with

11088-407: The historical and mythical origins of Japan's people, culture, and the imperial family. Motoori Norinaga , an Edo-period Japanese scholar, interpreted Kojiki and his commentary, annotations, and use of alternate sources to supplement his interpretations are studied by scholars today because of their influence on the current understanding of Japanese myths. Archaeologists studying the history of

11220-405: The history of the Japanese archipelago and its mythological origins were recorded in spite of Emperor Temmu's death before its completion. As a result of Hideya no Are's account, the Kojiki was finally completed, transcribed in kanji characters, during Empress Genshō 's time as sovereign. The Yamato state also produced fudoki and Man'yōshū , two more of the oldest surviving texts that relate

11352-465: The imperial family. It is based on the records of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki that the imperial family claims direct descent from the sun goddess Amaterasu and her grandson Ninigi . Emperor Temmu enlisted the help of Hiyeda no Are who committed to memory the history of Japan as it was recorded in two collections that are thought by historians to have existed before the Kojiki and Nihongi . Under Empress Gemmei 's rule, Hideya no Are's memory of

11484-412: The imperial line. Japanese is not transliterated consistently across all sources (see spelling of proper nouns ). Japanese myths are passed down through oral tradition , through literary sources (including traditional art), and through archaeological sources. For much of Japan's history, communities were mostly isolated, which allowed for local legends and myths to grow around unique features of

11616-423: The influential development of a structuralist theory of mythology , led by Lévi-Strauss . Strauss argued that myths reflect patterns in the mind and interpreted those patterns more as fixed mental structures, specifically pairs of opposites (good/evil, compassionate/callous), rather than unconscious feelings or urges. Meanwhile, Bronislaw Malinowski developed analyses of myths focusing on their social functions in

11748-415: The islands of the Japanese Archipelago. Among their children are the Ōyashima , or the eight great islands of Japan — Awaji , Iyo , Oki , Tsukushi , Iki , Tsushima , Sado , and Yamato . The last child that Izanami produces is a fire god, Kagutsuchi (incarnation of fire), whose flames kill her; and Izanagi murders the child in grief-driven anger. The child's corpse creates even more gods. Izanami

11880-705: The knights of the Round Table ) and the Matter of France , seem distantly to originate in historical events of the 5th and 8th centuries, respectively, and became mythologised over the following centuries. In colloquial use, "myth" can also be used of a collectively held belief that has no basis in fact, or any false story. This usage, which is often pejorative , arose from labelling the religious myths and beliefs of other cultures as incorrect, but it has spread to cover non-religious beliefs as well. As commonly used by folklorists and academics in other relevant fields, such as anthropology , "myth" has no implication whether

12012-465: The myth-ritual theory, myth is tied to ritual. In its most extreme form, this theory claims myths arose to explain rituals. This claim was first put forward by Smith , who argued that people begin performing rituals for reasons not related to myth. Forgetting the original reason for a ritual, they account for it by inventing a myth and claiming the ritual commemorates the events described in that myth. James George Frazer —author of The Golden Bough ,

12144-583: The mythical age. For example, it might reenact the healing performed by a god at the beginning of time in order to heal someone in the present. Similarly, Barthes argued that modern culture explores religious experience. Since it is not the job of science to define human morality, a religious experience is an attempt to connect with a perceived moral past, which is in contrast with the technological present. Pattanaik defines mythology as "the subjective truth of people communicated through stories, symbols and rituals." He says, "Facts are everybody's truth. Fiction

12276-521: The mythological concept of Oceanus as a poetic invention (Herodot. II, 23, cf. also IV 8, 36, etc.). Euripides called the ocean as the sea ( Orestes 1376). Since that time, a tendency has been established to distinguish between a large outer sea – which is the ocean – and the inland seas. Later, Euripides begins to divide the ocean into parts: the Ethiopian Ocean, Eritrean Ocean, Gallic Ocean, Germanic Ocean, Arctic Ocean, etc. In Hindu mythology, there

12408-409: The mythology of Yazidism , Ahl-e Haqq , Alevism , Ancient Egyptian mythology , Ancient Greek mythology , Canaanite mythology , Ancient Hindu mythology , Ancient Iranian , Sumerian , Zoroastrianism , Ancient Roman mythology and many other world mythologies. The primacy of the ocean in some creation myths corresponds to the cosmological model of land surrounded by the world ocean. The sky

12540-404: The myths in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki are unique accounts meant to give authority to the mythic histories in themselves. The Nihon Shoki and Kojiki have varying accounts of the mythic history of Japan, and there are differences in the details of the origins of the imperial family between the two texts. The imperial dynasty still has a role as a public symbol of the state and people, according to

12672-430: The myths of multiple cultures. In some cases, comparative mythologists use the similarities between separate mythologies to argue that those mythologies have a common source. This source may inspire myths or provide a common "protomythology" that diverged into the mythologies of each culture. A number of commentators have argued that myths function to form and shape society and social behaviour. Eliade argued that one of

12804-553: The narrative may be understood as true or otherwise. Among biblical scholars of both the Old and New Testament, the word "myth" has a technical meaning, in that it usually refers to "describe the actions of the other‐worldly in terms of this world" such as the Creation and the Fall. Since "myth" is popularly used to describe stories that are not objectively true , the identification of a narrative as

12936-426: The ocean ("multiple," it roars at its first spread, giving rise to creations, the bearer of wealth), its thousands of streams flowing from the depths, it is said that the ocean is the spouse of rivers. The cosmic ocean forms the frame of the cosmos, separating it from chaos. The ocean is controlled by the god Varuna and the goddess Varuni. Varuna and Varuni is associated both with the destructive and uncontrolled power of

13068-516: The ocean and set in it (VII 422; VIII 485). The Ocean River touches the sea, but does not mix with it. In its extreme ends at the west, east, north, south, the ocean washes the boundaries between the world of life and the world of death. In Homer , The Ocean is the world encircling river. In Theogony 282, Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή - pēgē 'spring, well', referring to "the Pegai of Oceanus , where he

13200-454: The ocean demonstrate a typologically more advanced stage, when the image of the Ocean becomes the object of "pre-scientific" research and natural philosophy . The Ocean is presented first of all as the greatest world river (Hom. Il. XIV 245), surrounding the earth and the sky with the seas, giving rise to all rivers, springs, sea currents and seas in the world (XXI 196), the shelter of the sun, moon, stars and planets, from which they all rise from

13332-532: The other. Meanwhile, the sun goddess and the storm god Susanoo's conflicts were intense and bloody. Various accounts of Susanoo's temper tantrum in Amaterasu's home depict a variety of disgusting and brutal behaviors (everything from smearing his feces across her home's walls to skinning her favorite horse alive and throwing it at her maid and killing the maid) but it is usually, in depictions of this particular myth, Susanoo's behavior that scares Amaterasu into hiding in

13464-519: The pair were siblings. Hattori Asake, another scholar, argued that Oka was correct because he drew evidence from another myth about humans who had incestuous relations because of a great flood wiping out the rest of the human population. Essentially, Hattori said the myth Oka used as evidence was too different to be the origin of the Izanagi and Izanami myth. In the Man'yōshū, Izanami is also referred to as imo by

13596-417: The presence of a mythological creature in the ocean that promotes generation or, on the contrary, zealously defends the "old order" and prevents the beginning of the chain of births from the ocean. Yu. E. Berezkin and E. N. Duvakin generalize the motif of primary waters as follows: "Waters are primary. The earth is launched into the water, appears above the water, grows from a piece of solid substance placed on

13728-478: The rationalization of myths, putting themes formerly imbued with mythological qualities into pragmatic contexts. An example of this would be following a cultural or religious paradigm shift (notably the re-interpretation of pagan mythology following Christianization ). Interest in polytheistic mythology revived during the Renaissance , with early works of mythography appearing in the sixteenth century, among them

13860-535: The real world. He is associated with the idea that myths such as origin stories might provide a "mythic charter"—a legitimisation—for cultural norms and social institutions . Thus, following the Structuralist Era ( c.  1960s –1980s), the predominant anthropological and sociological approaches to myth increasingly treated myth as a form of narrative that can be studied, interpreted, and analyzed like ideology, history, and culture. In other words, myth

13992-520: The rivers and waters– three thousand daughters – Oceanids ( Theogony 346–364) and three thousand sons – Potamids ( Theogony 367–370). The deities revere Oceanus and Tethys as aged parents, take care of him and her, although he and she live in solitude. Oceanus and Tethys did not participate in the Battle of the Titans and the Olympians against the Olympians and the Titans and thus retained their power and trust of

14124-567: The seeds of all plants in the world. There is a bird Sinamru on the tree which causes the bough to break and seeds to sprinkle all around when it alights. At the center of the Vourukasha also grows the Gaokerena or "White Haoma ", considered to be the "king of healing plants". It is surrounded by ten thousand other healing plants. In later times, Vourukasha was connected with the Persian Sea and

14256-561: The shikome who stop to eat them, granting him time to escape. The peaches he uses to scare the shikome off are then blessed, and peaches appear in many other Japanese myths, especially the tale of Momotarō the peach boy. The origins of the Sun and the Moon are accounted for in Japanese mythology through the myth of Izanagi's return from Yomi. After spending so much time in Yomi, Izanagi cleansed himself with

14388-570: The snake Shesha with Brahma, Shiva, Sarasvati, Parvati also are creator deities in the primary waters together also. Kurma , also known as the Turtle, is the second avatara of Vishnu in the Dashavatara who is depicted as churning the cosmic ocean during Samudra Manthana . Vishnu takes the form of a turtle to help hold the stick used to churn the cosmic ocean during this event in Hindu mythology. According to

14520-498: The storm god were born at the same time as Amaterasu, when Izanagi washed his face. Myths related the Sun, the Moon, and the Storm kami are full of strife and conflict. The Sun goddess and her sibling the moon god's interpersonal conflicts explain, in Japanese myth, why the Sun and the Moon do not stay in the sky at the same time — their distaste for one another keeps them both turning away from

14652-450: The sun's emergence, and it was said to have emerged directly from the mound or from a lotus flower that grew from the mound, in the form of a heron, falcon, scarab beetle, or human child. In Heliopolis , the creation was attributed to Atum , a form of the sun god Ra, who was said to have existed in the waters of Nu as an inert potential being. The concept of chaos is etymologically associated with darkness, but primarily about water chaos in

14784-411: The surface of the water or liquid mud, from an island in the ocean, is exposed when the waters subsided, etc." The idea of the primacy of the ocean as an element, from the bowels of which the earth arises or is created, is universally prevalent. This representation is present in many mythologies of the world. In Asia and North America, the earth-diver myth is found. In this myth a creator god dives into

14916-421: The symbolic interpretation of traditional and Orphic myths. Mythological themes were consciously employed in literature, beginning with Homer . The resulting work may expressly refer to a mythological background without itself becoming part of a body of myths ( Cupid and Psyche ). Medieval romance in particular plays with this process of turning myth into literature. Euhemerism , as stated earlier, refers to

15048-464: The term "myth" altogether for purposes of avoiding placing pejorative overtones on sacred narratives. In present use, "mythology" usually refers to the collection of myths of a group of people. For example, Greek mythology , Roman mythology , Celtic mythology and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures. "Mythology" can also refer to the study of myths and mythologies. The compilation or description of myths

15180-522: The themes of violence, sexual violence, and deities or demons devouring humans. Stories of sexual violence are common in the Buddhist text Nihon ryōiki , while stories of people being devoured by mountain deities are found as if they are historical accounts in the fudoki. In Japanese folklore, heroes like Momotaro rescue women from violent kami and oni . Although the exploits of heroes are well known, Japanese mythology also featured heroines. Ototachibana,

15312-422: The time period there. Contact with Korean civilization in the latter part of the Yayoi period influenced the culture of the Japanese Archipelago greatly, as evidenced by the discovery of artifacts that archaeologists associate with various cultural streams from Korea, and northeast Asia. Finally, Kofun period artifacts, ranging from A.D. 250 to A.D. 600, are the archaeological sources of what historians know about

15444-413: The unorganized interaction of water and fire, The transformation of chaos into order is also the transition from water to land. In many ancient cosmogonic myths, the ocean and chaos are equivalent and inseparable from each other. The ocean remains outside space even after the emergence of the land. At the same time, the ability of the ocean to generate is realized in the appearance of the earth from it and in

15576-483: The variant – polystratic; an Erzählstoff in which transcending interpretations of what can be experienced are combined into a hyleme sequence with an implicit claim to relevance for the interpretation and mastering of the human condition." Scholars in other fields use the term "myth" in varied ways. In a broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story , popular misconception or imaginary entity. Though myth and other folklore genres may overlap, myth

15708-403: The waters of the eternal ocean, there was a life-giving principle generated by the power of heat and giving birth to everything else. Another mandala of the Rigveda contains a different version: "Law and truths were born from the kindled heat.", hence the surging ocean. Out of the tumultuous ocean, a year was born, distributing days and nights. " Rigveda " repeatedly mentions the generative power of

15840-450: The waters of the oceans, and with fruitful waters that bring wealth to people. The churning of the cosmic ocean contains the motif of the confrontation between the elements of water and fire. As a result of the rapid rotation, a whorl lights up – Mount Mandara , but trees and grasses emit their juices into the drying ocean. This motif echoes the Tungus myths about the creation of the earth by

15972-518: The wife of Yamato Takeru, threw herself into the sea to save her husband's ship and quell the wrath of the storm that threatened them. Yamato Takeru, once safe, built a tomb for her and his mourning utterance for his wife caused Eastern Honshu to be called Adzuma. Jorōgumo spider: The Jorōgumo spider is commonly known as a member of the Yōkai myths. The myth begins in a waterfall near the city of Izu. A man had been working long hours, and decided to take

16104-739: The winds. Herodotus (fifth-century BCE) and Prodicus made claims of this kind. This theory is named euhemerism after mythologist Euhemerus ( c.  320 BCE ), who suggested that Greek gods developed from legends about humans. Some theories propose that myths began as allegories for natural phenomena: Apollo represents the sun, Poseidon represents water, and so on. According to another theory, myths began as allegories for philosophical or spiritual concepts: Athena represents wise judgment, Aphrodite romantic desire, and so on. Müller supported an allegorical theory of myth. He believed myths began as allegorical descriptions of nature and gradually came to be interpreted literally. For example,

16236-405: The word mȳthos with the suffix - λογία ( -logia , 'study') in order to mean 'romance, fiction, story-telling.' Accordingly, Plato used mythología as a general term for 'fiction' or 'story-telling' of any kind. In Anglicised form, this Greek word began to be used in English (and was likewise adapted into other European languages) in the early 19th century, in a much narrower sense, as

16368-488: Was also contact with westerners. However, during the Tokugawa shogunate Christians were executed in Japan. Twenty Christians were crucified before that while Toyotomi Hideyoshi was consolidating his power after the assassination of Oda Nobunaga . Christianity was banned in Japan until well into the nineteenth century. As in other cultures, Japanese mythology accounts for not only the actions of supernatural beings but also

16500-410: Was an image of the original sea abyss – Apsu , on the site of which the most active of the gods Enki , representing the earth, fresh water and agriculture on irrigated lands, made his home. In the beginning, the entire space of the world was filled with an ocean that had neither beginning nor end. It was probably believed that he was eternal. In its bowels lurked the foremother Nammu . In her womb arose

16632-520: Was born" for a divine winged mythical horse of that name in Greaco-Roman mythology. In Homer and Hesiod, Oceanus and Tethys are divine living beings, the progenitors of many deities (Hom. Il. XIV 201, 246), but Oceanus and Tethys also had parents. According to Hesiod, Oceanus and Tethys is the son and daughter of the primordial deities Uranus and Gaia ( Theogony 133). Oceanus is the brother and husband of Tethys , with whom he and she gave birth to all

16764-1029: Was central to the " myth and ritual " school of thought. According to Frazer, humans begin with an unfounded belief in impersonal magical laws. When they realize applications of these laws do not work, they give up their belief in natural law in favor of a belief in personal gods controlling nature, thus giving rise to religious myths. Meanwhile, humans continue practicing formerly magical rituals through force of habit, reinterpreting them as reenactments of mythical events. Finally, humans come to realize nature follows natural laws, and they discover their true nature through science. Here again, science makes myth obsolete as humans progress "from magic through religion to science." Segal asserted that by pitting mythical thought against modern scientific thought, such theories imply modern humans must abandon myth. The earlier 20th century saw major work developing psychoanalytical approaches to interpreting myth, led by Sigmund Freud , who, drawing inspiration from Classical myth, began developing

16896-618: Was primarily concerned with the natural world. It tended to interpret myths that seemed distasteful to European Victorians —such as tales about sex, incest, or cannibalism—as metaphors for natural phenomena like agricultural fertility . Unable to conceive impersonal natural laws, early humans tried to explain natural phenomena by attributing souls to inanimate objects, thus giving rise to animism . According to Tylor, human thought evolved through stages, starting with mythological ideas and gradually progressing to scientific ideas. Müller also saw myth as originating from language, even calling myth

17028-523: Was profoundly shaped by emerging ideas about evolution . These ideas included the recognition that many Eurasian languages—and therefore, conceivably, stories—were all descended from a lost common ancestor (the Indo-European language ) which could rationally be reconstructed through the comparison of its descendant languages. They also included the idea that cultures might evolve in ways comparable to species. In general, 19th-century theories framed myth as

17160-610: Was still grief-stricken, so he undertook the task of finding a way to bring Izanami back from the dead. After finally locating her, he disobeyed her order to not look at her while she went to ask permission to leave Yomi. He used his hair to create a flame, and when he gazed at Izanami's rotting, maggot-filled flesh he fled in fear and disgust. Izanami felt betrayed and tried to capture him, but he escaped by creating obstacles for Izanami's horde of shikome including using peaches to threaten them. The myth of Izanagi's journey into Yomi features many themes of food, he creates grapes to distract

17292-532: Was then adopted in Middle French as mythologie . Whether from French or Latin usage, English adopted the word "mythology" in the 15th century, initially meaning 'the exposition of a myth or myths', 'the interpretation of fables', or 'a book of such expositions'. The word is first attested in John Lydgate 's Troy Book ( c.  1425 ). From Lydgate until the 17th or 18th century, "mythology" meant

17424-537: Was then buried on Mount Hiba , at the border of the old provinces of Izumo and Hoki , near modern-day Yasugi of Shimane Prefecture . Scholars of Japanese mythology have noted the incestuous themes of the creation myth as represented in the Kojiki, and the first scholar to write about Izanagi and Izanami as siblings was Oka Masao . Izanami is referred to in the Kojiki as Izanagi's imo (meaning both wife or little sister in Japanese) and other scholars dispute that

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