 Before Atsutane, Shinto theologians and Kokugaku scholars said relatively little about the afterlife for human beings. Norinaga had concluded that after death everyone was destined to go to the filthy and unpleasant land of Yomi beneath the earth. In his seminal work, August Pillar of the Soul (Tama no mihashira) which he completed in 1812, however, Atsutane asserts the importance of knowing the destination of human souls after death and, thereby, made eschatology central to Kokugaku scholarship. Atsutane criticized his teacher Norinaga for having overlooked the evidence on the matter. After death human souls go neither to heaven nor the Yomi underworld, according to Atsutane, but rather it is certain concerning the souls of the Japanese, 