THE HIGH-PRIESTESS OF THE SUN.
The earliest temple to Ten-Sio-Dai-Tsin is situated in the province of Ise, and is bathed by the waves of the Pacific Ocean. According to sacred legend, the Goddess Sun was born upon the very site of the temple.
Here antique tradition and vague legends of a bygone age are religiously preserved by the priests, who meditate upon the deep meaning of their symbolism.
In the mysterious time before the world existed, the confused assemblage of elements floated in space. That which afterwards became earth, that which became the heavens, was then mingled together as the yolk and the white are blended in the embryo egg.
But three immaterial gods arose,—the Supreme God, the Creator of Souls, and the Creator of Matter; and chaos ceased. The heavy and opaque bodies were gathered together, and formed the earth; the light and subtile portions rose, and became the heavens.
Soon from the soft and slimy mass constituting the earth arose, among the floating fogs, a half-open, velvety flower, bearing in its cup the nascent Reed God. He brooded for countless years over the infant world. The Spirit of the Waters came after him, and reigned for a thousand million years.
During these immeasurable periods of time one god succeeded to another in heaven, until the seventh of the divine dynasties ruled in the invisible ether.
One day, from the height of a bridge that spanned the clouds, the God Iza-Na-Gi and his companion, Iza-Na-Mi, looked down upon the earth.
"I see nothing but an immense expanse of waters," said the God.