Ame-no-Minakanushi
Ame-no-Minakanushi (アメノミナカヌシ, lit. "Lord of the August Center of Heaven") is a deity ("kami") in Japanese mythology, portrayed in the "Kojiki" and the "Nihon Shoki" as the very first or one of the first deities that created heaven and earth came into existence. Name. The "kami" is given the name 'Ame-no-Minakanushi-no-Kami' (天之御中主神; Old Japanese: "Ame-no-Minakanusi") in the "Kojiki" (ca. 712 CE). The same deity is referred to as 'Ame-no-Minakanushi-no-Mikoto' (天御中主尊) in a variant account cited in the "Nihon Shoki" (720 CE). Mythology. The "Kojiki" portrays  Ame-no-Minakanushi as the first god to appear in the heavenly realm of Takamagahara after the emergence of heaven and earth from the primeval chaos: Unlike later generations of "kami", the first seven gods were "single" or "solitary" in that they came into being one by one, without any counterparts, and are described as hiding their presence upon coming into existence. Ame-no-Minakanushi is reckoned as the first of the "three deities of creation" (造化三神, "zōka sanshin") and one of the five "distinguished heavenly gods" (別天津神, "kotoamatsukami"). In the "Nihon Shoki"'s main narrative and many of the  variant accounts cited in it, the very first "kami" is identified instead as Kuni-no-Tokotachi; Ame-no-Minakanushi only appears in passing in one of these variants: In the "Sendai Kuji Hongi", the first deity to appear is named 'Ame-Yuzuruhi-Ame-no-Sagiri-Kuni-Yuzurutsuki-Kuni-no-Sagiri-no-Mikoto' (天譲日天狭霧国禅月国狭霧尊). Here, Ame-no-Minakanushi - given the alias 'Ame-no-Tokotachi-no-Mikoto' (天常立尊; the name of a distinct "kami" in the "Kojiki") - along with the deity Umashi-Ashikabi-Hikoji is instead counted as the first generation that emerged after this god. No further mention is made of  Ame-no-Minakanushi in these texts. Descendants. An imperially commissioned genealogical record known as the "Shinsen Shōjiroku" (815 CE) identifies two clans as the progeny of deities descended from Ame-no-Minakanushi: Analysis. There is no extant undisputed record of Ame-no-Minakanushi being worshiped at any known ancient shrines (the "Engishiki", compiled in the early 10th century, never mentions any shrines to this deity); this, combined with the lack of information concerning the god outside of documents associated with the imperial court such as "Kojiki" and the "Shoki" (as seen above, even in these texts, barely any mention is  made of this god), has led some scholars to consider Ame-no-Minakanushi to be an abstract deity (i.e. a god that only exists on paper, with no actual worshipers or cult dedicated to him) created under the influence of Chinese thought. Other scholars, however, argue that the paucity of evidence for the worship of Ame-no-Minakanushi in antiquity does not necessarily mean that the god is purely a literary invention. Kawai Hayao compared Ame-no-Minakanushi with the moon deity Tsukuyomi and Hosuseri (one of Konohanasakuyahime's three children), in that all three are portrayed as belonging to  a triad of important deities and yet are not recorded as doing anything of significance. He considered these three 'inactive' deities to serve a mythic function as the 'hollow center' acting as a buffer zone between two opposite or conflicting forces (Kamimusubi and Takamimusubi, Amaterasu and Susanoo, Hoderi and Hoori). During the medieval and early modern periods. Until the medieval era, the "Nihon Shoki", owing to its status as one of the six national histories, was more widely read and commented upon than the "Kojiki", which was regarded as an ancillary work. In a similar vein, the "Sendai Kuji Hongi , due to its preface claiming it to be compiled by Prince Shōtoku and Soga no Umako, was seen as being earlier and more reliable. (Modern consensus holds the Kuji Hongi" to actually have been compiled during the Heian period, although certain portions of it may indeed preserve genuine early traditions.) References to Ame-no-Minakanushi were thus solely in terms of his role as one of the primeval "kami". During the Kamakura period, the school of thought developed by the priestly house of the Outer Shrine of Ise ("Gekū") known as (also known as Watarai Shinto), identified the shrine's  deity, Toyouke (Toyoukehime), with Ame-no-Minakanushi and Kuni-no-Tokotachi. By doing so, the Outer Shrine asserted superiority over the Inner Shrine ("Naikū") and its goddess, Amaterasu. It was upon the flourishing of nativist studies ("kokugaku") and the rediscovery and reappraisal of the "Kojiki" in the Edo period that Ame-no-Minakanushi's significance was reevaluated, with different authors expressing their own opinions on the god's role and importance. Motoori Norinaga, in his commentary on the "Kojiki", criticized the Watarai priesthood for laying emphasis on the importance of Ame-no-Minakanushi, arguing that the deities' order of appearance  in time has no bearing on their rank or status. In his view, while Ame-no-Minakanushi is indeed the first among the gods to manifest, he is neither the ruler of heaven nor the "first ancestor" of the imperial line (that being Amaterasu), as some in his time believed. Motoori instead characterized Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi as the "first ancestors of heaven and earth, of the "kami", and of all existence." By linking gravity to Ame-no-Minakanushi, Tsurumine identifies the deity as the "lord" who oversees the process whereby the activity of the two gods of "coalescing" ("musubi") results  in the creation of all things out of the basic elements represented by "particles." Using language apparently borrowed from Christian conceptions of God, Tsurumine then went on to describe the three deities of creation as "the ancient ancestral "kami" of heaven and great "kami" sovereign over first origins ... who have made all things, from sun and moon, the planets, and earth to every other thing." Motoori's admirer and self-proclaimed disciple Hirata Atsutane, in contrast to Motoori, described Ame-no-Minakanushi as a supreme deity with no beginning and no end who holds sovereignty over all existence, residing in  the pole star at the very center of heaven. A number of Hirata's disciples, meanwhile, came to formulate different understandings of Ame-no-Minakanushi from their mentor. One such disciple, (1798-1864), for instance argued that all the stars in the sky have their own planetary system similar to the Sun; the "Kojiki"'s description of the generation of heaven and Earth thus does not refer to the entire cosmos as Hirata interpreted it, but the Solar System (which Mutobe equates with the mythical Takamagahara) alone. According to Mutobe, all the stars with their respective planetary system were formed  by the three deities of creation, who then came down to dwell in our Solar System. Unlike Hirata, Mutobe relegated Ame-no-Minakanushi and the other two deities of creation to a minor role and instead accorded high status to the earthly deity Ōkuninushi, who he argued was given jurisdiction by the gods Takamimusubi and Amaterasu not only over the lives and fates of human beings but also over grains and other foods. He thus took the evaluation Hirata had given to the three "kami" of creation and reapplied it to Ōkuninushi, essentially elevating him to a kind of supreme  deity. Worship. The Buddhist deity Myōken, who was worshiped in Japan since at least the 7th century, became conflated with Ame-no-Minakanushi during the early modern period due to Myōken's association with the Big Dipper and the northern pole star. When the Meiji government mandated the separation of Buddhism and Shinto, many shrines dedicated to Myōken became shrines to Ame-no-Minakanushi. Ame-no-Minakanushi was also one of the patron deities of the ('Great Teaching Institute'), a short-lived government organization that promoted a state-sponsored fusion of Buddhism and Shinto after the earlier separation policy was  deemed as being too divisive. Counterparts of Ame-no-Minakanushi in other cultures