Hosuseri-no-Mikoto

Hosuseri-no-Mikoto is a deity of the heavenly descent lineage recorded in the *Kojiki* (Records of Ancient Matters, 712 CE). He is one of three children born to Ninigi-no-Mikoto and Konohanasakuya-hime-no-Mikoto, and holds a central place in the fire-birth narrative alongside his brothers Hoteri-no-Mikoto and Wotosaka-no-Mikoto.

In the *Kojiki*, the account of Konohanasakuya-hime's labour follows the heavenly descent narrative. There, he is described as "the child born when the fire was fierce." The passage records how Konohanasakuya-hime, pregnant after a single night with Ninigi-no-Mikoto, set fire to the birthing chamber to answer his doubts of paternity, then delivered all three children amid blazing flames—a central moment of the fire-birth mythology. The *Nihon Shoki* (Chronicles of Japan, 720 CE) preserves variant names for this deity across its variant traditions, recording him as Honosusumi-no-Mikoto or Honosusori-no-Mikoto in its variant accounts.

Hosuseri-no-Mikoto is the son of Ninigi-no-Mikoto and Konohanasakuya-hime-no-Mikoto, with Hoteri-no-Mikoto as his elder brother and Wotosaka-no-Mikoto as his younger. His maternal grandfather was Ōyamatsum-no-Kami. While the imperial line continues through his younger brother Wotosaka-no-Mikoto to Ugayafukiaezu-no-Mikoto and ultimately Emperor Jinmu, Hosuseri-no-Mikoto himself lies outside the main imperial genealogy, remaining a secondary figure in the lore of the two brothers.

He is venerated alongside Ninigi-no-Mikoto and Konohanasakuya-hime-no-Mikoto as a subsidiary deity at shrines including Kirishima Jingu (Kirishima City, Kagoshima Prefecture) and Nitta Shrine (Sendai City, Kagoshima Prefecture, the first shrine of Satsuma Province). In ancient shrines of southern Kyushu that preserve the three-generation lineage of the Hyūga era, he is commonly enshrined with his brothers as one of the three fire-birth deities.