Myth Reading Group 9 February: Susanowo

The Myth Reading Group will meet on ‘Zoom’ on Thursday 9 February 2023, 5:30-6:30 pm (UK time). The link to join is posted in the comments for this post. All are welcome.

The theme for the Spring Term is Japanese Myth.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Susanoo no Mikoto kills the Eight-headed Serpent, woodblock print triptych, 1887 (Philadelphia Museum of Art)

Last term we encountered the Japanese deity Susanowo in his dealings with the sun goddess Amaterasu. At the end of the tale, Susanowo is expelled from the High Plain of Heaven in punishment for his destructive behaviour.

This week’s text picks up his story as told in the Nihonshoki (‘Chronicles of Japan’, also called Nihongi, completed 720 CE). Here, Susanowo demonstrates his ‘culture-hero’ status as he defeats the ‘eight-forked serpent’ Yamata-no-Orochi. The section here concludes with Susanowo’s descendant Ōnamuji (or Ōkuninushi) completing the creation of the world alongside the diminutive Sukunabikona.

Susanowo’s full name is given as Take-paya-susa-nö-wo-nö-mikötö, and can be translated ‘Valiant intrepid raging male lord’ or ‘Reckless Rushing Raging Man’. This edition transliterates his name as ‘Sosa no wo no Mikoto’. The extract begins with Susanowo announcing that he must return for ever to the Nether Land in obedience to the assembled deities…

Text:

• Nihongi, trans. W. G. Aston (1896), pp. 52-63.

Further reading:

• The full text of Aston’s translation of Nihongi can be found as a scanned book at Internet Archive, or as plain text at Wikisource.
• The version of the story as told in the Kojiki (in Basil Hall Chamberlain’s 1919 translation) can be found at Sacred Texts.