Norito: A Translation of the Ancient Japanese Ritual Prayers - Updated Edition / Edition 1

by Donald L. Philippi, Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691014890
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	12/21/1990
Edition description:	Updated Edition
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

	Preface	vii
	Introduction	1
	Notes on Individual Norito	5
	Bibliography of Modern Works Consulted	16
	Glossary	84

Editorial Reviews

"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

"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

From the Publisher