Ōharae no Kotoba, the Great Purification Prayer: Full Text from the Engishiki of 927, the Four Deities of Harai-do and the Chinowa Reed-Ring Rite

Every major Shinto liturgy begins by anchoring the present ritual moment in cosmic origins upon Takama no hara (the Plain of High Heaven), realm of the celestial deities (Amatsu-kami). The compound verb kamu-tsumarimasu joins the sacred prefix kamu (kami) with tsumaru (to gather densely) and the honorific auxiliary masu. Presiding over the council are the twin ancestral progenitors Kamu-rogi (commonly identified with the generative deity Takamimusubi-no-Kami) and Kamu-romi (the female ancestral sovereign, identified with the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki).

The phrase yaoyorozu no kami-tachi (the eight million kami) expresses boundless multiplicity rather than a fixed census. Through solemn cognate repetition, the deities assemble in divine assembly (kamu-tsudoe ni tsudoe-tamai) and deliberate in divine council (kamu-hakari ni hakari-tamaite), entrusting the sovereign mandate (koto-yosashi) to the Heavenly Grandchild (Sumeragi no mikoto, namely Ninigi-no-Mikoto, grandson of Amaterasu) to govern Toyo-ashihara no mizuho no kuni, the classical poetic name for Japan meaning the Land of Luxuriant Reed Plains and Fresh Rice Ears.

Before the Heavenly Grandchild can descend, the terrestrial world is portrayed in early Japanese myth as a realm teeming with untamed, chaotic vitality: araburu kami (unruly, violent spirits) roam the land, and even iwa-ne ki-ne tachi, kusa no kakiha (great boulders, ancient tree stumps and single blades of grass) possess the power of speech (koto-toishi), murmuring and clamoring in the night. In the ancient Yamato worldview, rocks and plants speaking aloud signify a pre-ritual state of nature in which boundaries between the wild and human order have not yet been harmonized.

Envoys dispatched from High Heaven question and negotiate with these unruly forces (kamu-towashi ni towashi-tamai) and sweep away those that resist (kamu-harai ni harai-tamaite), quieting the speaking rocks, trees and grass blades (koto-yamete). Once the land is pacified, Ninigi leaves his ame no iwakura (heavenly rock-throne) and parts the eightfold clouds with mighty sacred force (ame no yaegumo wo izu no chiwaki ni chiwakite) in the mythic descent known as Tenson Kōrin.

From the mythic descent in Kyūshū, the narrative moves directly to the central Yamato basin where the imperial court established its capital, celebrated as Ōyamato Hidakami no kuni (Great Yamato, the Sun-High Land at the center of the four quarters). The architectural formula here recurs across classical norito: below ground, massive cypress palace pillars (miya-bashira) are planted firmly upon the deepest subterranean bedrock (shitatsu iwa-ne ni miya-bashira futo-shiki-tate); above the thatched roof, crossed wooden gable finials (chigi) soar toward the Plain of High Heaven (Takama no hara ni chigi takashirite).

By sinking pillars into the earth's bedrock and lifting chigi finials into the sky, the sanctuary becomes a living axis mundi uniting Heaven and Earth, an architectural ideal preserved to this day in the Shinmei-zukuri sanctuaries of Ise Grand Shrine. The paired phrase ame no mikage hi no mikage praises the sovereign's hall as both shelter beneath the canopy of heaven and dwelling blessed by the radiance of the sun.

Verse 7 pivots from primordial myth to historical human society. Humanity is called by the life-affirming compound ame no masuhito (the ever-increasing people beneath heaven, echoing Izanagi's vow at the pass of Yomi that fifteen hundred people would be born each day to outnumber the thousand claimed by death). Yet wherever human beings live and labor together, errors, transgressions and impurities (ayamachi-okashikemu kusagusa no tsumi-koto) inevitably arise.

Verse 8 in the Engishiki archetype enumerates the eight Heavenly Offenses (Amatsu-tsumi), modeled directly upon the violent outrages committed by the storm deity Susanoo-no-Mikoto on the Plain of High Heaven before Amaterasu withdrew into the Heavenly Rock Cave. The first five offenses are crimes against communal wet-rice irrigation and cultivation: ahanachi (breaking down the ridges between flooded rice paddies), mizoume (filling in irrigation channels), hihanachi (breaking sluice-gates and water pipes), shikimaki (sowing seed a second time over another person's planted field to usurp the crop), and kushisashi (driving concealed or boundary-claiming stakes into rice fields). The remaining three offenses violate life and the purity of ritual space: ikihagi (flaying an animal alive), sakahagi (flaying an animal backward from tail to head), and kusohe (defiling the sacred weaving hall or first-fruits sanctuary with excrement).

Paired with Amatsu-tsumi is the catalog of fourteen Earthly Offenses and Calamities (Kunitsu-tsumi) arising on earth among mortal communities. Reading this list in the 927 CE text immediately reveals how archaic Shinto understood the word tsumi: it encompasses not only intentional moral crimes and incest taboos, but also involuntary contact with blood, bodily afflictions and natural disasters.

The fourteen items fall into four distinct clusters: first, breaches of blood and death taboos, namely ikihadadachi (cutting the skin of a living person and drawing blood) and shini-hadadachi (cutting or defiling a corpse); second, visible cutaneous conditions, namely shirohito (leukoderma or albinism) and kokumi (fleshy growths or tumors); third, five violations of kinship and species boundaries, namely incest with one's mother (onogaha okaseru tsumi), incest with one's child (onogako okaseru tsumi), sexual union with both a woman and her daughter (hahakomi okaseru tsumi), union with a daughter and then her mother (kokomi okaseru tsumi), and bestiality (kemono okaseru tsumi); and fourth, natural calamities and malevolent magic, namely hau mushi no wazawai (bites from venomous snakes and centipedes), takatsu-kami no wazawai (being struck by lightning from thunder deities on high), takatsu-tori no wazawai (defilement or harm from birds overhead), and kemono-taoshi, majimono seru tsumi (killing another's cattle by curses and practicing black sorcery). In modern Jinja Honchō liturgy, to avoid reciting archaic terms for bodily conditions and natural misfortunes as 'offenses', Verses 8 and 9 are condensed into the nine words Amatsu-tsumi Kunitsu-tsumi, kokodaku no tsumi idemu.

Whenever such offenses and pollutions accumulate, their ritual resolution belongs to the hereditary liturgists of the Ōnakatomi clan (descendants of Ame-no-Koyane-no-Mikoto, who chanted the first norito outside the Heavenly Rock Cave). Verse 10 describes the material preparation in balanced parallel verbs: taking pure heavenly saplings (amatsu-kanagi), chopping off the earth-touched roots and trimming the tips (moto uchi-kiri sue uchi-tachite) to keep the unblemished middle shafts, arranging offerings abundantly upon a thousand ritual tables (chikura no oki-kura), and harvesting pure sedge reeds (amatsu-sugaso), cutting roots and tips and splitting them into fine strips with eightfold needles (yahari ni tori-sakite, the prototype of the hemp and paper streamers on a priest's ōnusa wand).

With the ritual implements prepared, Verse 11 rings out as the pivot of the entire liturgy: Amatsu-norito no futo-norito-goto wo nore ('Pronounce the mighty ritual words of the Heavenly Norito!'). From medieval Yoshida Shinto through Edo-period National Learning (Kokugaku) scholars such as Kamo no Mabuchi, Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane, this single clause sparked centuries of commentary: esoteric lineages held that a secret oral formula (preserved today in texts such as Amatsu Norito) was intoned at this pause, whereas philologists note that the entire Ōharae proclamation itself constitutes those mighty ritual words.

Verse 12 depicts the immediate resonance between human ritual speech and the cosmos: as soon as the norito is pronounced, the Heavenly Kami push open the rock door of heaven (ame no iwa-to) and part the eightfold clouds to listen from above, while the Earthly Kami climb to the peaks of high and low mountains and brush aside the swirling mountain mists (ihori) to listen from below.

Verses 13 and 14 then unfold four celebrated epic similes (each marked by koto no gotoku, 'just as'), widely admired as a pinnacle of ancient Japanese poetic style: (1) just as the gale wind of Shinato no kaze blows away the eightfold clouds piling across the sky; (2) just as the morning breeze and evening breeze (asakaze yūkaze) sweep away the thick morning mist and evening mist; (3) just as a great ship (ōfune) moored in the spacious harbor of Ōtsu-be has both its prow-line (he) and stern-line (tomo) cast off and is pushed out into the boundless ocean plain (ō-unabara); and (4) just as dense, tangled brushwood on a distant hillside is cleared away at the roots with a sharp sickle tempered in fire (yakigama no tokama). Combining wind, mist, ocean voyage and fire-forged iron, the four similes evoke a decisive, exhilarating release from spiritual obstruction.

Once wind and sickle have severed offenses from the community, where does the displaced pollution go? Verses 15 through 18 answer with a four-stage ecological relay across the geography of the Japanese islands, presided over by the Four Deities of the Purification Place (Harai-do no Ōkami).

In Verse 15, the first deity is the goddess Seoritsuhime-no-kami (Lady Descending the Rapids), who dwells in the rushing mountain torrents (hayakawa no se) cascading down sheer slopes from high and low peaks. She gathers all swept-off impurities and carries them straight out into the vast ocean plain (ō-unabara ni mochi-idenamu). In Verse 16, the second deity is the goddess Hayaakitsuhime-no-kami (Lady of the Swift Open Sea-Mouth), dwelling far out where eight hundred surging brine currents and eight hundred ocean tides collide in a swirling vortex (arashio no shio no yaomichi no, shio no yao-ai). Receiving the polluted waters carried out from the rivers, she gulps them down and swallows them whole into the abyss (mochi-kakami-nomitemu).

Once Hayaakitsuhime has swallowed the impurities down to the ocean floor, Verse 17 introduces the third deity: Ibukido-nushi-no-kami (Lord of the Gate of Breath, Ibukido). The verb ibuku denotes exhaling a powerful blast of vital breath. From the threshold beneath the sea, Ibukido-nushi blows the swallowed mass of offenses down into Ne-no-kuni Soko-no-kuni (the Root Realm and Deep Bottom Land beneath the earth).

There in the subterranean depths of Ne-no-kuni Soko-no-kuni, Verse 18 names the fourth and final deity: the goddess Hayasasurahime-no-kami (Swift Wandering-and-Dispersing Lady). The compound verb sasurai-ushinaitemu joins sasurau (to wander, drift, scatter) with ushinau (to lose, dissolve, cause to vanish). She takes the remnants blown down into the Root Realm, disperses them through the subterranean expanses, and dissolves them until nothing whatsoever remains. Notably, this quartet of deities under these exact names appears neither in the Kojiki nor in the Nihon Shoki, making Verses 15 to 18 a distinctive theological creation of the Engishiki liturgy.

Verse 19 crowns the fourfold journey from mountain summit to subterranean root-land by repeating for the third time the triumphant refrain tsumi to iu tsumi wa araji ('no offense whatsoever that is called an offense shall remain'). In the standard liturgical text of the Association of Shinto Shrines (Jinja Honchō), the prayer concludes with amatsu-kami kunitsu-kami, yaoyorozu no kami-tachi tomo ni, kikoshimese to mōsu, inviting all deities of heaven and earth to witness the completed purification.

Verse 20 provides the direct closing supplication to Harai-do no Ōkami-tachi (the collective title of Seoritsuhime, Hayaakitsuhime, Ibukido-nushi and Hayasasurahime), linking Ōharae no Kotoba with the closing lines of the Haraekotoba and sealing the rite with the classical norito bow of reverence: kashikomi kashikomi mo mōsu ('in deepest awe, in deepest awe I humbly speak').