When the sun goddess Amaterasu sent her grandson Ninigi down from heaven to rule Japan, she gave him three treasures: a mirror, a jewel, and a sword. These Three Sacred Treasures (Sanshu no Jingi, 三種の神器) became the imperial regalia of Japan, passed down from emperor to emperor as the symbols of their divine descent and right to rule. They are still presented, in closed boxes, at every imperial accession.
No one alive has seen them. They are kept hidden in shrines and in the imperial palace, and even the emperor does not look at them. Their mythical origins are told in the Kojiki (712) and the Nihon Shoki (720), and their history is bound up with some of the most dramatic events in Japanese history.
The Three Treasures
- Yata no Kagami (八咫鏡), the Eight-Span Mirror, representing wisdom or honesty. It is linked to Amaterasu herself.
- Yasakani no Magatama (八尺瓊勾玉), the Jewel — a curved, comma-shaped bead of jade or other stone — representing benevolence.
- Kusanagi no Tsurugi (草薙剣), the Grass-Cutting Sword, representing valour.
Each has its own myth.
The Mirror and the Jewel: The Cave of Heaven
The mirror and the jewel were made during the most famous episode in Japanese mythology: the hiding of the sun in the cave.
Amaterasu’s brother, the storm god Susanoo, behaved outrageously in heaven. He destroyed the rice fields, defiled her palace, and finally threw a flayed horse through the roof of her weaving hall, killing one of her weaving maidens. Horrified and grieving, Amaterasu shut herself inside the rock cave Ame-no-Iwato, and the world was plunged into darkness.
The eight hundred myriad gods gathered to find a way to lure her out. The god Omoikane, the wise, devised a plan. The smith Amatsumara and the goddess Ishikoridome forged a great mirror. The god Tamanoya made a long string of magatama jewels. They hung the jewels and the mirror on a sacred sakaki tree before the cave.
Then the goddess Ame-no-Uzume danced wildly on an upturned tub, exposing herself, and the gods roared with laughter. Amaterasu, curious, opened the door a crack to ask what was happening. Uzume told her that they were celebrating because there was a goddess even greater than she. Amaterasu peered out — and saw her own radiant reflection in the mirror. As she leaned forward to look, the strong god Ame-no-Tajikarao seized her hand and pulled her out, and a sacred rope was stretched across the cave behind her so that she could not go back. Light returned to the world. (The full story is told in Amaterasu and the Cave.)
So the mirror is associated with the moment when the sun was restored, and it is said to hold the spirit of Amaterasu herself.
The Sword: From the Serpent’s Tail
The sword came from Susanoo. After being banished from heaven, he descended to the land of Izumo, where he found an old couple weeping. Seven of their eight daughters had been devoured by the eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent Yamata no Orochi, and it was coming for the last one, Kushinadahime.
Susanoo turned the girl into a comb and put her in his hair. He had eight vats of strong sake prepared. The serpent drank from them with all eight heads and fell into a drunken sleep. Susanoo cut it to pieces. When his sword struck the middle tail, it broke — because inside the tail was another sword. This was the Ame-no-Murakumo no Tsurugi, the “Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven,” so called because clouds always gathered above the serpent. Susanoo presented it to Amaterasu as a peace offering (see Susanoo and the Eight-Headed Serpent).
The Descent of Ninigi
When Amaterasu decided that her grandson Ninigi-no-Mikoto should descend from heaven to rule the Central Land of Reed Plains (Japan), she gave him the three treasures. According to the Nihon Shoki, she said of the mirror: “Look upon this mirror as you would look upon me.”
Ninigi descended to the peak of Mount Takachiho in Kyushu. His great-grandson, Jimmu, became the first emperor of Japan, traditionally in 660 BCE, and the treasures passed to him and his descendants.
The Sword Gets Its Name
The sword received its famous name through the legendary prince Yamato Takeru, son of the twelfth emperor, Keikō. Sent to subdue the rebellious east, he received the sword from his aunt Yamatohime, the priestess of the Ise Shrine.
In the province of Sagami (or Suruga), enemies lured him into a grassy plain and set it on fire to trap him. Yamato Takeru used the sword to cut down the grass around him — and in some versions, discovered that the sword could control the wind, turning the fire back on his enemies. After his escape, the sword was renamed Kusanagi, “Grass-Cutter.” The place is still called Yaizu, “burning port.”
Yamato Takeru later left the sword with his wife Miyazu-hime in Owari, and went to fight a mountain god without it. He fell ill and died. The sword remained in Owari, where it became the treasure of the Atsuta Shrine.
Where Are They Now?
According to tradition:
- The mirror is kept at the Grand Shrine of Ise (Ise Jingū), the holiest shrine of Shinto, in its Inner Shrine (Naikū), dedicated to Amaterasu. A replica is kept in the Kashiko-dokoro sanctuary of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
- The sword is kept at the Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya. A replica is kept at the Imperial Palace.
- The jewel is kept at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
None of these objects has been displayed or photographed. Their appearance is known only from tradition.
The Sword Lost at Sea
The treasures played a dramatic role in the Genpei War (1180–1185) between the Taira and Minamoto clans. The Taira fled from Kyoto with the child emperor Antoku and the treasures. At the final sea battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185, as the Taira were defeated, the emperor’s grandmother, Taira no Tokiko, took the six-year-old emperor in her arms and leapt into the sea with him, taking the sword and the jewel.
The Tale of the Heike describes the scene: the grandmother told the boy that there was a capital beneath the waves. The jewel was recovered, floating in its box. The sword was lost. According to the traditional explanation, the lost sword was a replica (the original remaining at Atsuta), and the court later designated another sword as its replacement.
The Treasures and Imperial Legitimacy
Possession of the treasures was central to legitimacy. During the Nanboku-chō period (1336–1392), when two rival imperial courts competed for the throne, the Southern Court claimed legitimacy because it held the treasures. The reunification of the two courts in 1392 involved the transfer of the treasures to the Northern emperor.
At the end of the Second World War, in 1945, Emperor Hirohito reportedly expressed his concern to protect the treasures, and it has been suggested that this was one of the factors in his decision to surrender.
The Treasures Today
At the accession of Emperor Naruhito in 2019, the sword and the jewel (in their boxes, wrapped in cloth), along with the imperial seals, were presented to him in the Kenji-to-Shōkei-no-Gi ceremony. The mirror, as always, remained at Ise and in the palace sanctuary.
In the 1950s and 60s, the three treasures lent their name to a phrase for three prized household appliances: the television, washing machine, and refrigerator — the “three sacred treasures” of Japan’s postwar economic boom.
The treasures remain one of the most extraordinary survivals of ancient myth in the modern world: objects whose origins are told in the stories of the gods, and whose presence still marks the continuity of an unbroken imperial line.
Last reviewed: September 2026.