百物語怪談会 Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai

Translated from Kitaro no Tengoku to Jigoku

There are many different legends about what is called the Root Country (Ne no Kuni), and no one really knows for sure what the original concept was. 

According to one story, the Root Country is the deepest part of an underground land, that is to say the roots of the Earth.  This gives it the name Root Country.   Another legend says that the Root Country is the source of all vegetables and all food harvested from the soil, and that is where the name comes from.

In the Kojiki, the Record of Ancient Matters, there is a myth that records the Emperor’s visit to the Root Country, where everything was much the same as the above-ground world including a great palace.  This palace was the home of Susanoo, one of the major deities of Shinto.

Translated from Kitaro no Tengoku to Jigoku

The oldest of Japan’s concepts of Heaven was known as the Distant Land (Tokoyo no Kuni), and was considered the land of the ancestor spirits.   It was a magical land where rice was abundant as well as other treasures, and no one ever grew old or died.

The ancestor spirits lived in the Distant Land in much the same way as they did in life.  They ate and drank, they slept and woke.  If asked exactly where this Distant Land lied, the location depended on the local beliefs.  Most traditionally, the Distant Land was on the far side of the ocean, in an unseen island.   Here on this island the ancestor spirits would swim and play about in boats, and sometimes travel back to Japan via the secret pathways of wells.

The ancestors in the Distant Land took the form of kami, and still looked over and occasionally helped their living relatives on Earth.