6
. Rice
The Kojiki calls the earthly world "Toyoashihara no chiaki no nagaihoaki no mizuho no kuni," while the Nihon shoki calls it "Chiihoaki no mizuho no kuni," IV appelations idealizing it as an ideal land where forever ripen bountiful ears of rice. Further, the Kojiki and Nihongi include the motif of rice within both names and attributes of figures in the lineage from Amaterasu to the first emperor Jimmu, thus indicating how closely rice cultivation was linked to kingship. For example, Amaterasu cultivates rice in her sacred paddies on the Plain of High Heaven. And the names of her child Oshihomimi and his younger brother Amenohohi --- who was sent on the first mission to Izumo in preparation for the "transfer of the land"V --- both include the character ho, which means "rice ears." Oshiho means "stalwart rice ears" or "teeming rice ears," while hohi means the "spiritual power of the rice ears".
The child of Oshihomimi was Ho no Ninigi, the grandchild of Amaterasu who finally descended to Japan, and his name likewise means something akin to "luxuriantly ripening ears of rice." The place where Ho no Ninigi descended was called Takachiho-mine, or "high-thousand rice-ears peak," with the similar meaning of a place where innumerable ears of rice are piled up. Finally, the three children produced by Ho no Ninigi and Konohanasakuya-bime[Glossary: konohanasakuyahime_no_mikoto] (Kamuatakashitsu-hime), namely, Hoderi, Hosuseri, and Hoori (also called Hikohohodemi), all contain the common "ho," which originally did not mean "fire,"VI but "rice ear," with the result that their three names mean "rice-ear-shining" (hoderi), "rice-ear advancing" (hosuseri or hosusumi), and "rice-ear breaking" (hoori, from being so heavily weighted down with the ripe rice grain).
Further, the child of Hoori (Hikohohodemi) was Ugayafukiahezu[Glossary: ugayafukiaezu_no_mikoto], whose offspring were named Itsuse, Inahi, Mikenu, and Wakamikenu (also called Toyomikenu). These deities' names all contain elements related to rice and foodstuffs; for example, the se of Itsuse came from the primitive word sa which meant the spirit of the rice grain, and thus indicated "divine rice." The hi of Inahi, on the other hand, was the same hi (bi) of the word musibi, which referred to the creative power of becoming and thus indicated the rice spirit, while the mike of Mikenu meant "food," or "food offering."
Also, in the second alternate "one writing" relating the "descent of the heavenly grandchild" in the Nihon shoki,VII Amaterasu orders Amanokoyane and Futotama to "take the rice from my gardens in the Plain of High Heaven and present it to my offspring," thus indicating that the divine rice from heaven was entrusted by Amaterasu to Oshihomimi. However, since it later came about that Ho no Ninigi descended in place of Oshihomimi, it appears that in the end, rice was brought to the earthly world by Ninigi.
According to a fragmentary passage from the Hyuga no kuni fudoki[Glossary: fudoki], at the time Ho no Ninigi descended from heaven, the earth was in a condition of chaos, with "a darkened sky lacking any distinction of night and day, so that people lost their way and could not discriminate things." But Ho no Ninigi plucked a thousand stalks of rice and scattered the unhulled grain in the four directions, whereupon "the sky was brightened, and the sun and moon shone brightly," thus showing that rice and king were viewed as equivalent, both conceived as possessing the power to change darkness to light and chaos to order.
Further, the third alternate "one writing" provided by the NihongiVIII as a description of Ho no Ninigi's descent relates that Ho no Ninigi's wife Kamuatakashitsu-hime "selected a field by divination, giving it the name Sanada. From the rice of that field she brewed sweet rice wine of heaven, which she gave [him] to drink. And using the rice of the field Nunata, she prepared cooked rice which she gave him to eat." In short, sake and steamed rice were produced from the rice grain and presented as offerings to the ruler of the divine land, reflecting a concept similar to that evident in the previous passage.
As the embodiment of the rice grain, Ho no Ninigi thus represented not only the ancestor of the imperial family, but also the spirit of rice and grains presented from heaven to the world of human beings. In this context, it should be noted that the rice cultures around Southeast Asia frequently treat rice as a sacred grain unique in status compared to other agricultural products. Many of those cultures also personify the spirit of the rice as a goddess, calling it "grain mother," or "mother of the rice."6
The divine genealogy from Amaterasu to Jimmu is intimately linked to rice, thus revealing a conceptual identification of rice with kingship. Forming the basic structural motif of the kingship myths of Kojiki and Nihongi, this linkage identifies the king (i.e., tennô) with the rice spirit, thus suggesting one factor that motivated the identification of the imperial ancestral deity Amaterasu with the goddess "rice mother."
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Originally Posted by Michalis Moriopoulos
