Norito
Also known as: Noritō, Shinto Norito, Ritual Prayers, Engishiki Norito
A corpus of Shinto ritual prayers preserved chiefly in the Engishiki (927 CE), codifying court and shrine liturgies for purification, harvest, enthronement, and major festivals across the realm.
Description
The Norito are formal Shinto proclamations and prayers recited by ritual officials before the kami. Compiled in the Heian period within the Engishiki, they preserve earlier liturgical language used at the imperial court and prominent shrines. The texts invoke heavenly and earthly kami, enumerate offerings, proclaim purification, and petition for cosmic order, prosperity, and protection. Signature pieces include the Great Purification prayer and seasonal or state rites such as the Prayer for the Year and harvest festivals. Their diction is archaic, formulaic, and performative—naming ritual spaces, genealogies, and offerings—bridging mythic memory and administrative order. While standardized in the Engishiki, local variants and later commentarial traditions shaped transmission and contemporary recitation.
Historiography
The Engishiki’s Book 8 records a canonical set of norito, reflecting earlier liturgy shaped by court-shrine relations. Medieval scholastic Shinto (e.g., Yoshida) reinterpreted them doctrinally, while Edo-period kokugaku scholars analyzed their language and ritual logic. Modern shrine practice (post-Meiji) standardized selections for national liturgy; contemporary editions and translations rely on manuscript lines and later printings, with Kokugakuin scholarship clarifying textual variants and ritual settings.
Date Notes
Fixed in written form in the Engishiki (compiled 905–927 CE), preserving earlier court-liturgical prayers that likely circulated orally and in shrine archives from the Kofun–Nara periods.
Themes
Archetypes
Major Characters
- Amaterasu
- Takami-Musubi
- Kuni-no-Tokotachi
- Ōkuninushi
Myths
- The Great Purification (Ōharae)
- Harvest Offerings and First Fruits
- Road and River Purifications
- Installation and Blessing Rites
Facts
- The Engishiki (927 CE) preserves a canonical set of court-recited norito in Book 8.
- Norito are performative proclamations addressed to kami, delivered by ritual officials.
- The Ōharai no Kotoba is the best-known purification prayer and frames state-wide rites.
- Texts specify offerings, spaces, and divine addressees in formulaic, archaic diction.
- Seasonal rites include prayers for planting, harvest, and national prosperity.
- Shrine-specific norito survive for major cult centers such as Ise, Kasuga, and Kamo.
- Medieval and early modern schools reinterpreted norito within doctrinal Shinto systems.
- Modern shrine liturgy uses standardized recensions derived from Engishiki exemplars.
- Purification deities (Harae-do no Ōkami) are central to removing ritual pollution.
- The corpus bridges mythic genealogy with imperial administration and regional cults.