image: Wikimedia commons (link).
The Kojiki (古事記) is the oldest surviving chronicle of ancient Japan.
It contains three sections or books, the first of which recounts the age of spirit-deities (more properly known by the name, Kami) of ancient Japan, including a creation account and the adventures of the first and succeeding generations of gods and goddesses (such as Izanagi and Izanami, shown in the background of the center panel above, and Amaterasu shown at the top of the right panel above).
The second volume recounts adventures in a heroic age in which legendary warriors, as well as warrior-kings and warrior-queens, battled one another as well as spirits and deities (beginning with the exploits of the first emperor Jinmu, the son of the goddess Amaterasu, who is depicted on the far right of the right-hand panel above, holding a tall bow with an eagle on top). The third book describes successive rulers, lineages, wars and feuds.
The ancient myths of Japan contained in the Kojiki can be conclusively demonstrated to share the same foundation of celestial metaphor which can also be seen at the foundation of all the world's other ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories, on every populated continent on our planet (as well as the islands scattered across the vast Pacific).
For example, there is an episode in which a baby is cast adrift by his parents (who are the creator god and goddess Izanagi and Izanami), a story which most closely parallels the story of baby Maui in the myths and sacred stories of Aotearoa and the other Polynesian cultures across the Pacific islands. This story of the baby being cast adrift also of course parallels the story of baby Moses in the book of Genesis in the ancient Hebrew scriptures, as well as ancient legends surrounding the birth of the ancient king Sargon of Akkad, and the story of the birth of Karna (or Karnataka) in the Sanskrit texts of ancient India. All of these stories can be shown to be related to celestial figures, and set adrift in the band of the Milky Way in the sky.
There is also an episode in the Kojiki in which the Kami known as Great Deity has his hair tied to the rafters while he is asleep, by the Kami known as Great-Name-Possessor (see Kojiki volume one, section 23). When Great Deity's heavenly musical stringed-instrument is being carried away by Great-Name-Possessor, the instrument brushes against a tree and lets out a sound so resonant that the entire earth vibrates, awakening Great Deity, who shakes himself with his great strength and brings down the entire house, rafters and all.
As the authors of Hamlet's Mill point out, there is a direct parallel here to the Old Testament story of Samson, during the contending with Delilah in chapter 16 of Judges, when she is trying to coax Samson into telling her the secret of his great strength. Samson at first tells Delilah various false methods of robbing him of his power (which she immediately tries upon him: if this were actually a literal and historical story, you would think that after two or three examples of her treachery, Samson would learn not to tell Delilah the real secret to robbing him of his strength).
One of the false methods Samson tells Delilah involves weaving his hair into the web of her loom, which she promptly proceeds to do as soon as he is asleep -- and when he awakens, the ancient text tells us that Samson "went away with the pin of the beam, and with the web" (Judges 16: 14), in a direct parallel to the ancient myth recorded in the Kojiki from half a world away. The authors of Hamlet's Mill point out these parallels regarding pulling down buildings with one's hair on page 172, in the chapter entitled "Samson Under Many Skies."
All of these parallels are very unlikely to have simply popped-up independently of one another in the myths around the world -- the more so because they can all be shown to be connected to very specific constellations in very specific regions of the sky, constellations with features which manifest themselves in the Star Myths of the world by taking on the same familiar patterns over and over again.
And yet, these constellational features are by no means obvious -- in many cases they are very obscure -- and therefore it is very difficult to argue that very different cultures around the world all decided to settle on the same way of incorporating these constellational features into their myths. It is far more likely that they all belong to some extremely ancient system which lies back of the different cultures of the world, some ancient system belonging to a culture or civilization in extreme antiquity, predating even the earliest Pyramid Texts of ancient Egypt and the earliest cuneiform tablets of ancient Mesopotamia (which can also be shown to be using the same system right from the outset) -- some forgotten ancient origin situated so far back in time that today we have no record of its existence.
Another ancient myth of Japan which is recorded in the Kojiki is an example of the "failed rescue from the land of the dead," which is also a familiar myth-pattern which shows up in many other cultures in lands very far removed around the globe and separated by vast oceans from the islands of Japan. The great goddess Izanami is burned to death while giving birth to the Swift-Burning-Flame-Child, and Izanagi buries her atop a mountain (he also grasps his awesome sword and cuts off the head of the Burning-Flame-Child).
Later, Izanagi cannot bear to be without her, so he goes down to the underworld to ask her to come again and help him in the unfinished work of the lands of the world that they were creating together, but she laments and tells him that he is too late -- she has eaten of the food of the underworld and can no longer return (this is a clear parallel to the story of Persephone in the myths of ancient Greece: its celestial import is addressed in Star Myths of the World, Volume Two, which is all about the myths of ancient Greece).
Then, Izanami tells Izanagi that she still desires to go with him, but that she must go discuss the matter with the deities of the underworld -- and warns him sternly that he must not look back at her if she is allowed to follow him. As in so many other manifestations of this pattern around the world, of course, Izanagi fails to heed her warning, and he breaks off one of the end-teeth of his comb which he carries in in his piled-up topknot of hair and lights this broken-off tooth as a torch. He is horrified to find that Izanagi is rotting and swarming with maggots -- and he flees in fear, as she sends out beings of the underworld to pursue him (the episode is described in the Kojiki, volume 1 and section 9).
This pattern, of the failed underworld rescue, repeats itself around the world, such as in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in ancient Greece and in the story of Balder in the Norse myths of ancient Scandinavia. There is also a Lakota myth about an encounter with a powerful spirit-being named White Buffalo Woman which contains some parallels to the episode in the Kojiki.
Just like all these other patterns found in the myths of ancient Japan which appear in the myths of other cultures around the globe, this one too can be shown to be based on the stars. In this particular version of the "failed underworld rescue," Izanagi is almost certainly associated with the figure of Hercules in the heavens. The details of the comb, and the torch which he makes from one of the teeth of his comb, are clues to that (as is the fact that the constellations Hercules and Virgo are sometimes paired in ancient myth, and probably represent Izanagi and Izanami, the first two Kami, while Izanami is still alive and before her descent to the underworld):
