are

liturgical Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

texts or ritual incantations in

Shinto , also called Shintoism, is a religion originating in Japan. Classified as an East Asian religions, East Asian religion by Religious studies, scholars of religion, it is often regarded by its practitioners as Japan's indigenous religion and as ...

, usually addressed to a given ''

kami are the Deity, deities, Divinity, divinities, Spirit (supernatural entity), spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena that are venerated in the traditional Shinto religion of Japan. ''Kami'' can be elements of the landscape, forc ...

''.

History

The first written documentation of ''norito'' dates to 712 CE in the ''

Kojiki The , also sometimes read as or , is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the , and the Japanese imperia ...

'' and 720 CE in the ''

Nihongi The or , sometimes translated as ''The Chronicles of Japan'', is the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history. It is more elaborate and detailed than the , the oldest, and has proven to be an important tool for historians and archaeol ...

''. The

Engishiki The is a Japanese book of laws and customs. The major part of the writing was completed in 927. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Engi-shiki''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 178. History Emperor Daigo ordered the compilation of the ''Engishi ...

, a compilation of laws and minute regulation presented by the court compiled in 927 CE, preserves twenty-seven representative forms of ''norito''.

Etymology

There is no single universally accepted theory to explain the meaning of the term.Philippi (1990). p. 2. One theory derives ''norito'' from ''noru'' ( 宣る, 'to declare'; cf. the verbs '' inoru'' 'to pray' and '' norou'' 'to curse') - combined with the suffix ''-to''. A variant term, ''notto'', is derived from a combination of ''norito'' with ''koto'', 'word'. There are various known ways of writing the word in

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

: aside from 祝詞 (currently the standard), 詔戸言, 詔刀言, and 諄辞 are also attested. One recent writer summed up the original meaning of ''norito'' as "a general term meaning magic by means of words."

Form and content

The Shinto religion did not produce any writings, particularly those that inferred from myths and legends, that would have constituted a religious theology except for the norito. (One should, however, note that the

and the

, while written primarily as historical works rather than sacred scriptures, do contain mythical narratives of the Shinto tradition.) These few prayers were primarily used in purification rituals and articulated gratitude towards the gods for the blessings of ''kami'' or to ask for climate change such as rain. Norito is a form of a rhythmic

poem Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

recited to facilitate the transmission of posterity. The incantation would usually begin with praises for the supreme power of ''kami'' and concludes with an expression of respect and awe. The ''Nakatomi no Harae Kunge'' or the ''Exposition of the Ritual of Purification'' describes norito within a process that implies the idea of human beings as children of the ''kami'' who lost their purity but who return to their

divine Divinity (from Latin ) refers to the quality, presence, or nature of that which is divine—a term that, before the rise of monotheism, evoked a broad and dynamic field of sacred power. In the ancient world, divinity was not limited to a singl ...

origin by restoring it.

Reading

''Norito'' were (and still are) traditionally written in a variety of ''

man'yōgana is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of t ...

'' where

particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

and suffixes are written in a smaller script than the main body of the text. This style of writing, used in imperial edicts (宣命 ''senmyō'') preserved in the ''

Shoku Nihongi The is an imperially-commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 797, it is the second of the '' Six National Histories'', coming directly after the and followed by ''Nihon Kōki''. Fujiwara no Tsugutada and Sugano no Mamichi served as t ...

'' and other texts dating from the 8th century (

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capita ...

), is known as ''senmyōgaki''.

References

{{Authority control Shinto terminology Language and mysticism Shinto

History

Etymology

Form and content

Reading

See also

References