ABSTRACT
The traditional image of Japanese women has evolved, while the status of women has devolved, in response to the influences of Buddhism, Confucianism, and the Samurai ethic. The forest surrounding the shrine honoring Japan’s supreme deity, the sun goddess Amaterasu, is pervaded by a sense of Japan’s mythic feminine cosmogenesis and matriarchal antiquity. The brightest child produced by Izanami and Izanagi was Amaterasu, a beautiful girl who was promptly named for the sun and given the heavens to reign over. Chinese records state that from A.D. 147 to 190 Japan was divided by civil war and anarchy until the rise of a woman ruler, Pimiku. It is a mixture, then, of fact and myth, Japanese and Chinese thought, which is presented in the early Japanese chronicles. During the reign of Empress Gemmyo the first permanent capital was established at Nara, and the Taiho Code was carefully revised to make it more acceptable to indigenous Japanese custom.
