Yomi, Purification, and the Birth of the Great Kami

The most consequential episode follows Izanami's death in giving birth to the fire-kami. Izanagi journeys to Yomi, the land of the dead, to bring her back, but breaks the injunction not to look upon her and, seeing her decayed and defiled, flees, sealing the entrance with a great rock as she pursues him, a myth that establishes the separation of the living from the dead and the pollution (kegare) of death, ideas central to later Shinto.

On his return Izanagi purifies himself in a river, and from this first act of ritual misogi, purificatory washing, are born the highest kami: from his left eye Amaterasu, the sun-goddess and ancestress of the imperial line; from his right eye the moon-kami Tsukuyomi; and from his nose the storm-kami Susanoo. That the chief deities are produced by an act of cleansing makes Izanagi the mythic source of the Shinto concern with purity and renewal.