Purification of Offences.
These heaven-descended Yamato people were in the main agriculturists, though of a rude order, while the outlying tribes were mostly hunters and fishermen; and many of the rituals show the class of crimes which nomads, or men of unsettled life, would naturally commit against their neighbors living in comparatively settled order. It is to be noted that in the god-way the origin of evil is to be ascribed to evil gods. These kami pollute, and pollution is iniquity. From this iniquity the people are to be purged by the gods of purification, to whom offerings are duly made.
He who would understand the passion for cleanliness which characterizes the Japanese must look for its source in their ancient religion. The root idea of the word tsumi, which Mr. Satow translated as "offence," is that of pollution. On this basis, of things pure and things defiling, the ancient teachers of Shintō made their classification of what was good and what was bad. From the impression of what was repulsive arose the idea of guilt.
In rituals translated by Mr. Satow, the list of offences is given and the defilements are to be removed to the nether world, or, in common fact, the polluted objects and the expiatory sacrifices are to be thrown into the rivers and thence carried to the sea, where they fall to the bottom of the earth. The following norito clearly shows this. Furthermore, as Mr. Satow, the translator, points out, this ritual contains the germ of criminal law, a whole code of which might have been evolved and formulated under Shintō, had not Buddhism arrested its growth.
Amongst the various sorts of offences which may be committed in ignorance or out of negligence by heaven's increasing people, who shall come into being in the country, which the Sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness, hiding in the fresh RESIDENCE, built by stoutly planting the HOUSE-pillars on the bottom-most rocks, and exalting the cross-beams to the plain of high heaven, as his SHADE from the heavens and SHADE from the sun, shall tranquilly ruin as a peaceful country, namely, the country of great Yamato, where the sun is soon on high, which he fixed upon as a peaceful country, as the centre of the countries of the four quarters thus bestowed upon him—breaking the ridges, filling up water-courses, opening sluices, double-sowing, planting stakes, flaying alive, flaying backwards, and dunging; many of such offences are distinguished as heavenly offences, and as earthly offences; cutting living flesh, cutting dead flesh, leprosy, proud-flesh, ... calamities of crawling worms, calamities of a god on high, calamities of birds on high, the offences of killing beasts and using incantations; many of such offences may be disclosed.
When he has thus repeated it, the heavenly gods will push open heaven's eternal gates, and cleaving a path with might through the manifold clouds of heaven, will hear; and the country gods, ascending to the tops of the high mountains, and to the tops of the low hills, and tearing asunder the mists of the high mountains and the mists of the low hills, will hear.
And when they have thus heard, the Maiden-of-Descent-into-the-Current, who dwells in the current of the swift stream which boils down the ravines from the tops of the high mountains, and the tops of the low hills, shall carry out to the great sea plain the offences which are cleared away and purified, so that there be no remaining offence; like as Shinato's wind blows apart the manifold clouds of heaven, as the morning wind and the evening wind blow away the morning mist and the evening mist, as the great ships which lie on the shore of a great port loosen their prows, and loosen their sterns to push out into the great sea-plain; as the trunks of the forest trees, far and near, are cleared away by the sharp sickle, the sickle forged with fire: so that there ceased to be any offence called an offence in the court of the Sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness to begin with, and in the countries of the four quarters of the region under heaven.
And when she thus carries them out and away, the deity called the Maiden-of-the-Swift-cleansing, who dwells in the multitudinous meetings of the sea waters, the multitudinous currents of rough sea-waters shall gulp them down.
And when she has thus gulped them down, the lord of the Breath-blowing-place, who dwells in the Breath-blowing-place, shall utterly blow them away with his breath to the Root-country, the Bottom-country.
And when he has thus blown them away, the deity called the Maiden-of-Swift-Banishment, who dwells in the Root-country, the Bottom-country, shall completely banish them, and get rid of them.
And when they have thus been got rid of, there shall from this day onwards be no offence which is called offence, with regard to the men of the offices who serve in the court of the Sovran, nor in the four quarters of the region under heaven.
Then the high priest says:
Hear all of you how he leads forth the horse, as a thing that erects its ears towards the plain of high heaven, and deigns to sweep away and purify with the general purification, as the evening sun goes down on the last day of the watery moon of this year.
O diviners of the four countries, take (the sacrifices) away out to the river highway, and sweep them away.