Moon God, Ruler of the Night
Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto was born when Izanagi washed his right eye during his purification, one of the three noble children alongside Amaterasu and Susanoo, and was assigned the realm of night. His name, usually understood as "moon counting," hints at the moon's role in reckoning months and seasons, and the chronicles spell it in several ways.
For so exalted a deity the records are strikingly thin. The fullest episode appears in a variant passage of the Nihon Shoki: sent by Amaterasu to call on the food goddess Ukemochi, Tsukuyomi watched her produce boiled rice, fish, and game from her mouth to feast him. Judging the offering defiled, he drew his sword and killed her. Amaterasu was furious and refused ever to see him again, which is why sun and moon have kept to day and night ever since. From Ukemochi's corpse came cattle and horses, silkworms, rice, and beans, an origin myth of the five grains. In the Kojiki the same story is told of Susanoo and the goddess Ogetsu-hime instead.
His cult is modest beside his sister's, but auxiliary shrines at both the Inner and Outer Shrines of Ise are dedicated to him, and the Nihon Shoki records a moon-god oracle under Emperor Kenzo that is counted as the origin of the Tsukiyomi Shrine in Kyoto.
