Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
This distribution to thousands of homes of fragments of the wands, used to "drive away evils" at the time of the Ise lustration, represents of course the supposed extension of the high-priest's protection to those homes until the time of the next o-harai. The modern domestic form of the harai is very simple. for the women and girls. Thus the community is "lustrated" every six Months.
This box is commonly called by the name of the ceremony, o-harai, or "august purification," and is inscribed with the names of the great gods of Ise. The presence of this object is supposed to protect the home; but it should be replaced by a new o-harai at the expiration of six months; for the virtue of the charm is supposed to last only during the interval between two official purifications.
As a matter of fact, the most important of all Shinto ceremonies is the ceremony of purification, o-harai, as it is called, which term signifies the casting-out or expulsion of evils .... In ancient Athens a corresponding ceremony took place every year; in Rome, every four years. The o-harai is performed twice every year, in the sixth month and the twelfth month by the ancient calendar.
Official registration existed, even in early times; but it appears to have had no particular relation to the o-harai; and the registers were kept, it seems, not by the Shinto, but by the Buddhist parish-priests .... In concluding these remarks about the o-harai, I need scarcely add that special rites were performed in cases of accidental religious defilement, and that any person judged to have sinned against the rules of the public cult had to submit to ceremonial purification.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking