Note 1 — Chapter XIX · Rival Deities of Life and Death, Sunshine and Storm
Reading edition
After Izanagi had slain his son, the fire-god, and brought into being new gods, including dragons, he was seized with longing to see Izanami once more. Accordingly he set out to find her in Yomi (“Yellow stream”), the dark Hades of the Underworld. “The orthodox Japanese derivation of Yomi,” says Chamberlain, “is from yoru, ‘night’, which would give us for Yomo-tsu-kuni some such rendering as ‘Land of Gloom’.” Another view is that “Yomi” is a mispronunciation of “Yama”, the name of the Aryo-Indian god of death.1