Ame-no-Minakanushi (天之御中主, lit. "Lord of the August Center of Heaven") is a deity (kami) in Japanese mythology, portrayed in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki as the very first or one of the first deities who manifested when heaven and earth came into existence.
Name
The kami is given the name 'Ame-no-Minakanushi-no-Kami' (天之御中主神; Old Japanese: Ame2-no2-Mi1nakanusi) in the Kojiki (ca. 712 CE). The same deity is referred to as 'Ame-no-Minakanushi-no-Mikoto' (天御中主尊) in a variant account cited in the Nihon Shoki (720 CE).
Mythology
The Kojiki portrays Ame-no-Minakanushi as the first god to appear in the heavenly realm of Takamagahara after the emergence of heaven and earth from the primeval chaos:
Unlike later generations of kami, the first seven gods were "single" or "solitary" in that they came into being one by one, without any counterparts, and are described as hiding their presence upon coming into existence. Ame-no-Minakanushi is reckoned as the first of the "three deities of creation" (造化三神, zōka sanshin) and one of the five "distinguished heavenly gods" (別天津神, kotoamatsukami).
In the Nihon Shoki's main narrative and many of the variant accounts cited in it, the very first kami is identified instead as Kuni-no-Tokotachi; Ame-no-Minakanushi only appears in passing in one of these variants:
In the Sendai Kuji Hongi, the first deity to appear is named 'Ame-Yuzuruhi-Ame-no-Sagiri-Kuni-Yuzurutsuki-Kuni-no-Sagiri-no-Mikoto' (天譲日天狭霧国禅月国狭霧尊). Here, Ame-no-Minakanushi - given the alias 'Ame-no-Tokotachi-no-Mikoto' (天常立尊; the name of a distinct kami in the Kojiki) - along with the deity (宇摩志阿斯訶備比古遅神) is instead counted as the first generation that emerged after this god.
No further mention is made of Ame-no-Minakanushi in these texts.
Descendants
An imperially commissioned genealogical record known as the Shinsen Shōjiroku (815 CE) identifies two clans as the progeny of deities descended from Ame-no-Minakanushi:
The Hattori no Muraji (服部連) clan, descended from Ame-no-Mihoko (天御桙命), the 11th generation descendant of Ame-no-Minakanushi The Miteshiro no Obito (御手代首) clan, descended from Ame-no-Minakanushi's 10th generation descendant Ame-no-Morokami (天諸神命)
Analysis
There is no extant undisputed record of Ame-no-Minakanushi being worshiped at any known ancient shrines (the Engishiki, compiled in the early 10th century, never mentions any shrines to this deity); this, combined with the lack of information concerning the god outside of documents associated with the imperial court such as Kojiki and the Shoki (as seen above, even in these texts, barely any mention is made of this god), has led some scholars to consider Ame-no-Minakanushi to be an abstract deity (i.e. a god that only exists on paper, with no actual worshipers or cult dedicated to him) created under the influence of Chinese thought. Other scholars, however, argue that the paucity of evidence for the worship of Ame-no-Minakanushi in antiquity does not necessarily mean that the god is purely a literary invention.
Konishi Jin'ichi (1984) saw the creation narratives of the Kojiki and the Shoki as a combination of three different traditions: one which traces the origin of the gods to Ame-no-Minakanushi, another that began with Umashi-Ashikabi-Hikoji, and a third one starting with Kuni-no-Tokotachi. He saw similarities between Ame-no-Minakanushi and the sky deities Tangaloa (Polynesian mythology) and Tengri (Turkic and Mongol mythology), suggesting that these myths may ultimately share a common origin.
Kawai Hayao compared Ame-no-Minakanushi with the moon deity Tsukuyomi and Hosuseri (one of Konohanasakuyahime's three children), in that all three are portrayed as belonging to a triad of important deities and yet are not recorded as doing anything of significance. He considered these three 'inactive' deities to serve a mythic function as the 'hollow center' acting as a buffer zone between two opposite or conflicting forces (Kamimusubi and Takamimusubi, Amaterasu and Susanoo, Hoderi and Hoori).