Norito: A Translation of the Ancient Japanese Ritual Prayers - Updated Edition

by Donald L. Philippi, Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa (Preface)

This volume presents the only English translation of the prayers of Japan's indigenous religious tradition, Shinto. These prayers, norito, are works of religious literature that are basic to our understanding of Japanese religious history. Locating Donald Philippi as one of a small number of scholars who have developed a perceptive approach to the problem of "hermeneutical distance" in dealing with ancient or foreign texts, Joseph M. Kitagawa recalls Mircea Eliade's observation that "most of the time [our] encounters and comparisons with non-Western cultures have not made all the `strangeness' of these cultures evident. . . . We may say that the Western world has not yet, or not generally, met with authentic representatives of the `real' non-Western traditions." Composed in the stately ritual language of the ancient Japanese and presented as a "performing text," these prayers are, Kitagawa tells us, "one of the authentic foreign representatives in Eliade's sense." In the preface Kitagawa elucidates their significance, discusses Philippi's methods of encountering the "strangeness" of Japan, and comments astutely on aspects of the encounter of East and West.

136 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1990

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's just a pretty straight-forward translation of ancient Japanese Shinto prayers. Not much explanatory text or cultural explanation to go with it - which is really needed for casual Western readers to understand what's going on.

[Teresa Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been a valuable resource in my continuing explorations of Shinto, Japanese Mythology, and ritual prayer.