Iwanaga-hime

Iwanaga-hime is a kunitsukami recorded in Kojiki (712 CE) and Nihon Shoki (720 CE). She is the daughter of Oyamatsumi-no-Kami and the elder sister of Konohanasakuya-bime-no-Mikoto. Kojiki, upper volume, post-Tenson Korin section, records that when Ninigi-no-Mikoto asked Oyamatsumi for his two daughters, the father offered both Iwanaga-hime and Konohanasakuya-bime, but Ninigi found Iwanaga-hime unattractive and returned her. Ashamed, Oyamatsumi declared: 'Had you taken Iwanaga-hime, the life of the heavenly grandchild would have endured like the rocks, eternal and unmovable; had you taken Konohanasakuya-bime, it would have flourished like the cherry blossoms.' This is given as the reason the lifespans of subsequent heavenly descendants are shortened. Her father is Oyamatsumi-no-Kami; her younger sister Konohanasakuya-bime (Kamuata-tsu-hime). Since Ninigi returned her she has no formal consort, but the contrast between her enduring rock-permanence and her sister's flourishing cherry-blossom transience presents a paired symbolic structure. Her principal place of veneration is Kumomi Sengen Shrine in Matsuzaki, Kamo, Shizuoka, dedicated solely to Iwanaga-hime and oriented to face the summit of Mount Fuji. She is also enshrined at Kifune Shrine's middle shrine in Sakyo, Kyoto.