ABSTRACT

For what one may perhaps be permitted to call the personal history of these deities, there are but two sources, the Kojiki and Nihonshoki, and before embarking on any account of their virtues, (御神德), or considering their worship, it will be well to establish their identity. In the Kojiki we learn that the great progenitor, Izanagi no Mikoto, after visiting his spouse in Yomotsu Kuni (Hades), performed lustration at a small river mouth at Tachibana in the country of Hyūga, and that from his purification 14 deities were born. Of these 14, we are informed that Sokotsutsunoo no Mikoto was born while His August-ness was bathing at the bottom of the river, Nakatsutsunoo no Mikoto while in the middle, and Uwatsutsunoo no Mikoto on the surface, and collectively they are called the three deities of Suminoe (墨江) i. e. the Inlet of Sumi, or Ink. This account is exactly confirmed in Nihonshoki (日本書紀), except that instead of the characters 墨江: we have 住吉, which might, perhaps, be rendered “auspicious dwelling.” It is, I think, probable that both sets of characters are purely phonetic. It has to be noted that (住吉), now generally read Sumiyoshi, was, in old days, read Suminoe, and it was not till the Heian era that the former reading was adopted, possible owing to its felicitous meaning.