66
kuni, literally the ‘root-region,’ because of its being at the root of the earth, Soko no kuni, or the ‘bottom region,’ Shita-tsu-kuni, or the ‘under region,’ and Ne-no-katasu-kuni, from kata-sumi, one corner, used in the sense of lowermost or most distant. Yomi is explained to mean darkness. The reasons for identifying Yomi ne kuni with the moon are several. In the first place the element Yomi in the name Tsukuyomi no mikoto is evidently the same as Yomi, ‘the kingdom of darkness,’ whither Susanowo no mikoto finally proceeded. Secondly, although in the Kokiji the rule of the sea is given to the latter god, one of the parallel passages of the Nihongi speaks of Tsukuyomi no mikoto as being appointed ruler over the multitudinous salt-waters. The murder of the goddess of food is attributed to the former by the Kojiki, to the latter by the Nihongi.[1] The fact that the tides of the sea actually follow the moon’s movements is another reason for assuming these two gods to have been one. As the whole region pervaded by the light of the sun was called hiru, or day, the expression yoru no wosu kuni, ‘the realm of night,’ over which the Kojiki says Tsukuyomi was appointed to rule, would be extremely appropriate to yomi, from which the sun’s light would be intercepted by the earth[2]. Hirata further points out that the notion of yomi being the abode of the dead is comparatively modern, and that the few gods who are spoken of in the ancient records as having gone thither, were still in the body when they did so.
Diagram 5 exhibits a marked difference between the two writers in their theories as to the subsequent development of the system of the three bodies. In Hatori’s diagrams the sun continues to be attached to the earth until after the descent of Ninigi no mikoto, while Hirata places the separation at some time antecedent to the descent of Izanagi and Izanami. This divergence is owing to the diferent explanations given by them of the ama-no-ukihashi (literally, heaven’s floating bridge) which Hatori represents
