Izanagi (Izanagi-no-Mikoto) is, with his spouse Izanami, one of the primordial creator kami of Japanese myth as told in the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720). Standing on the floating bridge of heaven, the pair stir the brine below with a jewelled spear, and from the drops that fall from its tip they form the first island; descending to it, they marry and give birth to the islands of Japan and to a host of kami, the great cosmogony of the Japanese tradition.
Izanagi's story continues beyond the creation of Japan into one of Shinto's most vivid myths. Grieving his wife Izanami's death after she bore the fire-kami Kagutsuchi, Izanagi follows her into Yomi, the land of the dead, but breaks her plea not to look at her and sees her body already decayed and crawling with maggots; horrified, he flees, pursued by furious underworld spirits and finally by Izanami herself, and seals the entrance to Yomi with a great boulder, ending their marriage. Returning to the world of the living, Izanagi purifies himself by bathing in a river, and from this act of purification, misogi, are born three of Shinto's most important kami: Amaterasu, goddess of the sun, from his left eye; Tsukuyomi, god of the moon, from his right eye; and the storm-god Susanoo from his nose, so that the sun, moon and storm of the Japanese cosmos all trace their origin to this single act of ritual cleansing.