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1 This was written early in 1892 2 Quoted from Mr. Satow's masterly essay, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto, published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. By 'gods' are not necessarily meant beneficent Kami. Shinto has no devils; but it has its 'bad gods' as well as good deities. 3 Satow, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto. 4 Ibid. 5 In the sense of Moral Path, i.e. an ethical system.
*The above extracts are all taken from Sir Ernest Satow's Revival of Pure Shinto in the appendix to Vol. III. of the "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan."
We propose to illustrate the dogmas by quoting from the rituals in Mr. Satow's masterly translation. This word and all the others printed in capitals are so rendered in order to express in English the force of "an untranslatable honorific syllable, supposed to be originally identical with a root meaning 'true, but no longer possessing that signification." Ritual in Praise of the Sun-goddess.
These offerings are carried into the temple upon white wooden trays of curious form, and laid upon white wooden tables of equally curious form; the faces of the bearers being covered, below the eyes, with sheets of white paper, in order that their breath may not contaminate the food of the gods; and the trays, for like reason, must be borne at arms' length .... In ancient times the offerings would seem to have included things much more costly than food, if we may credit the testimony of what are probably the oldest documents extant in the Japanese tongue, the Shinto rituals, or norito.* The following excerpt from Satow's translation of the ritual prayer to the Wind-gods of Tatsuta is interesting, not only as a fine example of the language of the norito, but also as indicating the character of the great ceremonies in early ages, and the nature of the offerings:
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