TYPE: Supreme God
ORIGIN: Shinto [Japan]
KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP: Circa 600 CE until present.
SYNONYMS: none significant
CENTER(S) OF CULT: none
ART REFERENCES: None
LITERARY SOURCES: Kojiki (Japanese sacred texts)
INFORMATION: The highest deity of the Shinto pantheon and the first to emerge in Takama-No-Hara (the plain of high heaven) when heaven and earth were fashioned. He was born alone, resides in the ninth heaven and has always hidden himself from mortal eyes. A remote and vague figure of whom no images are ever made and toward whom no cult is directed, his name only appears once in the Kojiki and never in the Nihongi. Originally his identity may have been strongly influenced by Chinese religion. His name is linked closely with those of two other lesser primordial beings, Taka-Mi-Misubi-No-Kami and Kami-Misubi-No-Kami.