Norito [Paperback]

Donald L. Philippi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1990

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A welcome republication . . .of a group of important norito brought out by the Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics . . . The new Preface supplied by Kitagawa is . . .a subtantial essay worthy of attention in its own right. It scetches the cultural, historical, and religious contexts in which the earliest written collection of norito emerged -- Monumenta Nipponica

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (December 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691014892
• ISBN-13: 978-0691014890
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 4.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #459,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #21 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Earth-Based Religions > Shintoism

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A prayer-book for the Shinto religion, December 9, 2004

By 

Zack Davisson "japanreviewed" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Norito (Paperback)

The Japanese religion of Shinto has no holy book, no guide for how to live a moral life and achieve glory in heaven. It is very much a "this worldly" religion, trading worship of the kami in return for blessings on crops and weather. The traditions of worship, the calls to the kami for their blessing, have been handed down through the centuries and remain some of the little Japanese writing unaltered by outside influence.

In "Norito," Donald L. Philippi has gathered together these calls to the kami, these prayers, from many ancient sources such as the "Engi-shiki" ("Procedures of the Engi Era,") the "Nihongi," the "Kojiki," the "Hitachi Fudoki" and the twelfth-century diary of a Fujiwara nobleman. He has brought them all together into this single book, and undertook modern translations, attempting as much as possible to retain the intended flavor of the original, without allowing the Western way of thinking about religion to influence the translations. The norito are heavily footnoted, introducing the formal thinking of the Emperor and the royal family, and the role of the kami deities. Reading these original prayers helps frame an understanding of Shinto, and the culture that spawned it.

In addition to this valuable collection of norito, Joseph Kitagawa provides us with a lengthy opening preface discussing the norito and "The "Strangeness" of non-Western Traditions." This article, with insights into the norito, their origin and evolution, is as interesting as the prayers themselves.

My only complaint of "Norito" is that I wish it were a bilingual edition, with the original Japanese norito included along with the translation. The ability to compare the original along with Philippi's interpretation would make a great book even better.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a wonderful journey to another time and place, October 4, 2003

By 

Merrily Baird (atlanta, ga USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Norito (Paperback)

Few books can match Donald Philippi's "Norito" in its ability to transport us back to the very earliest days of Japanese history and thinking. This slender volume provides as fine an understanding as it is possible to obtain of Japan's original conceptions of religion. In the centuries that would follow the era that these "songs" represent, Japan would be transformed by the Buddhism introduced from China. By this process of cultural sharing, a native religion (Shinto) that had existed without written texts or formal doctrine, without much real estate or a church hierarchy, would be changed forever, losing its essential innocence and intimate relationship to nature.

Philippi's "Norito" would be especially well teamed with a reading of Michiko Aoki's translation of the "Fudoki" ("Records of Wind and Earth"). This eighth-century gazeteer of regional information provides, far more than the contemporaneous and now better known "Kojiki" and "Nihongi" histories, a view of early Japanese life still relatively untouched by outside influences.