Naru-Ikazuchi

Naru-Ikazuchi is a thunder deity recorded in Kojiki (712 CE) Upper Volume. The Yomi passage records that when Izanagi-no-Mikoto looks upon the body of Izanami, maggots gather and eight thunder deities arise on her form; Naru-Ikazuchi is one of them. The name signifies the booming sound of thunder, read as a deification of thunder noise itself. Commentaries place Naru-Ikazuchi as the thunder arising on the left foot among the eight, in the sequence Great Thunder (head), Fire Thunder (chest), Black Thunder (belly), Cleaving Thunder (genitals), Young Thunder (left hand), Earth Thunder (right hand), Naru-Ikazuchi (left foot) and Hiding Thunder (right foot). No father or mother is recorded as such; the sibling deities are the other seven thunders, forming the eight-fold thunder genealogy. As thunder deity in general he is revered as guardian against lightning strikes, as the bringer of rain for rice and the focus of rain-petition rites. At shrines associated with thunder such as Kamigamo-Wake-Ikazuchi Jinja in Kyoto he may be enshrined among the related thunder deities.