Japan's Sun God

I saw a reference to the story of Amaterasu being lured out of her cave and looked up the story. 

Japan's Shinto religion is often described as animistic, rather than polytheistic, and it does have many small gods (kami). But the story of Amaterasu has strong echos of the Greek gods, with odd births and amoral gods. I had been unaware that the story including siblings having children together, a moderately unusual theme in legends. As the reference below notes, it is also one of the only religions with a female sun god and a male moon god.

Of course, the existing Japanese royal family is one of the oldest still extant royal dynasties on Earth, and the only one of which I am aware that claims divine ancestry.

Amaterasu, (Japanese: “Great Divinity Illuminating Heaven”), the celestial sun goddess from whom the Japanese imperial family claims descent, and an important Shintō deity. 

She was born from the left eye of her father, Izanagi, who bestowed upon her a necklace of jewels and placed her in charge of Takamagahara (“High Celestial Plain”), the abode of all the kami. 

One of her brothers, the storm god Susanoo, was sent to rule the sea plain. Before going, Susanoo went to take leave of his sister. As an act of good faith, they produced children together, she by chewing and spitting out pieces of the sword he gave her, and he by doing the same with her jewels. Susanoo then began to behave very rudely—he broke down the divisions in the rice fields, defiled his sister’s dwelling place, and finally threw a flayed horse into her weaving hall. Indignant, Amaterasu withdrew in protest into a cave, and darkness fell upon the world.

The other 800 myriads of gods conferred on how to lure the sun goddess out. They collected cocks, whose crowing precedes the dawn, and hung a mirror and jewels on a sakaki tree in front of the cave. The goddess Amenouzume (q.v.) began a dance on an upturned tub, partially disrobing herself, which so delighted the assembled gods that they roared with laughter. Amaterasu became curious how the gods could make merry while the world was plunged into darkness and was told that outside the cave there was a deity more illustrious than she. She peeped out, saw her reflection in the mirror, heard the cocks crow, and was thus drawn out from the cave. The kami then quickly threw a shimenawa, or sacred rope of rice straw, before the entrance to prevent her return to hiding.

Amaterasu’s chief place of worship is the Grand Shrine of Ise, the foremost Shintō shrine in Japan. She is manifested there in a mirror that is one of the three Imperial Treasures of Japan (the other two being a jeweled necklace and a sword). The genders of Amaterasu and her brother the moon god Tsukiyomi no Mikato are remarkable exceptions in worldwide mythology of the sun and the moon. See also Ukemochi no Kami.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica. Simple English Wikipedia's retelling of the story is here.

Fun fact: The most energetic particle in a cosmic ray ever seen by astronomers has been named after Amaterasu.