out and restore light to the world. Their solution was to have
Ame no Uzume, a female deity, perform an erotic dance in
front of the cave. This caused laughter among the deities, and
Amaterasu, curious about the noise outside, opened the door
a crack and peered out. Then Tajikara no Kami (god of
strength) took her by the hand and led her out, and the radi-
ance of the supreme deity filled the universe. For his role in
provoking this event, the deities punished Susano-o on the
sacred ground. They cut off his beard and his fingernails and
toenails, and expelled him from the heavenly world. Because
of the banishment of Susano-o, the evil deity, a good crop
was expected in the coming new season.
In this myth, Susano-o plays a negative role, but his later
activities are more positive. Following his expulsion from the
realm of the gods, Susano-o descended to the province of
Izumo, which was located in western Honshu, the main is-
land of Japan. There he learned that an eight-headed serpent
appeared in Izumo each year to devour a young girl. Su-
sano-o intoxicated the serpent with liquor and killed it. As
he cut into the serpent’s body, the blade of his sword broke.
Thinking this strange, he cut open the flesh and discovered
a sword within. The sword, called Kusanagi no Tsurugi, be-
came one of the Three Imperial Regalia. After this incident,
Susano-o became the ancestor god of Izumo.
Susano-o is also the most important deity of northern
Kyushu. Three female descendants of Susano-o were en-
shrined at Munakata, a religious center of that region. Thus
there is a link between the Munakata and Izumo shrines, not
only because Susano-o was the ancestor god of the female de-
ities but also because O ̄kuninushi, the son of Susano-o, mar-
ried Takiribime, one of the three Munakata deities. The
Munakata deities also had ties to western Honshu, for the
deity enshrined at Itsukushima, near present-day Hiroshima
and south of Izumo, is Itsukushima-hime, one of the three
Munakata deities.
This geographical pattern suggests that Susano-o and
his children were the deities of northern Kyushu and the
western tip of Honshu. In sharp contrast, Amaterasu was
originally the goddess of Yamato Province in central Japan.
Susano-o and Amaterasu might therefore represent two sepa-
rate political forces before the emergence of a unified Japa-
nese kingdom—the one centered in northern Kyushu, the
other in Yamato. When the rival forces merged, the myths
were combined as they are found today in the Nihongi and
the Kojiki. The Kojiki states that when Susano-o went to the
heavenly world, there was consternation and alarm. Ama-
terasu said of the ascent of Susano-o that there was “surely
no good intent. It is only that he wishes to wrest my land
from me.” Her reaction is understandable if the two deities
were rivals before they were united as brother and sister.
Susano-o was also the god of the sea. Itsukushima-hime,
one of his three daughters, was also enshrined at Okinoshi-
ma, located in the Tsushima Strait north of Kyushu. In an-
cient times, when the government sent missions to Korea or
China, prayers for a safe voyage were offered at Okinoshima.
This supports the Nihongi’s description of Susano-o as ruler
of the sea.SEE ALSO Amaterasu O ̄mikami; Izanagi and Izanami; Japa-
nese Religions, article on The Study of Myths.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aston, W. G., trans. Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest
Times to A. D. 697 (1896). Reprint, 2 vols. in 1, Tokyo,
1972.
Aston, W. G. Shinto: The Way of the Gods (1905). Reprint, Tokyo,
1968.
Chamberlain, Basil Hall, trans. Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters
(1882). 2d ed. With annotations by W. G. Aston. Tokyo,
1932; reprint, Rutland, Vt., and Tokyo, 1982.
Matsumura, Takeo. Nihon shinwa no kenkyu. Vol. 2. Tokyo,
1955.
Philippi, Donald L., trans. Kojiki. Princeton, 1969.
KAKUBAYASHI FUMIO (1987 AND 2005)SU ̄TRA LITERATURE. The Sanskrit term su ̄tra
means “a thread”; it is also used, however, to refer to a short,
aphoristic sentence and, collectively, to a work consisting of
such sentences. Su ̄ tra literature, as distinguished from ́sa ̄stra
literature, is in prose. The su ̄tra style, characterized by laghut-
va (“brevity, conciseness”), is a mnemonic device that at-
tempts to condense as much meaning as possible into as few
words, even syllables, as possible.
The most important su ̄ tra texts in the context of the re-
ligious literature of India are the Kalpasu ̄ tras. The term kalpa
has been variously explained by different traditional and
modern scholars, but can best be rendered as “ritual.” Kalpa,
together with ́siks:a ̄ (phonetics), chandas (prosody), nirukta
(etymology), vya ̄karan:a (grammar), and jyotis:a (astronomy),
is one of the six Veda ̄n ̇ gas, or branches of learning auxiliary
to the Vedas. The Kalpasu ̄ tras are closely connected with the
individual Vedic schools ( ́sa ̄kha ̄s). (Even though not all the
texts have survived, it may be assumed that at one time each
Vedic school had not only its own sam:hita ̄, bra ̄hman:a,
a ̄ran:yaka, and upanis:ad but also its own kalpa-su ̄tra.) There
are three main classifications of Kalpasu ̄ tra: S ́rautasu ̄ tras,
Gr:hyasu ̄ tras, and Dharmasu ̄ tras.
The ritual performances described in the S ́rautasu ̄ tras
distinguish themselves by their—often extreme—com-
plexity. First, in addition to the yajama ̄na (patron of the sac-
rifice) and his wife, for whose benefit the ritual is performed,
́srauta ritual can involve the presence of up to sixteen special-
ized priests. Second, it requires an elaborately laid-out sacrifi-
cial area in which three sacred fires are kept burning continu-
ally. Third, ́srauta ritual includes not only eka ̄ha (“one-day-
long”) ceremonies but also ah ̄ına rituals, which last up to
twelve days, and sattra “sessions,” which can extend over sev-
eral years. Large sections of the S ́rautasu ̄ tras are devoted to
the Agnis:t:oma sacrifice, which is the prototype (prakr:ti) forSU ̄TRA LITERATURE 8883