Encyclopedia of Shinto
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詳細表示 (Complete Article)
| カテゴリー1： | 7. Concepts and Doctrines |
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| カテゴリー2： | Basic Terms |
| Title | Iwau |
| Text | Written 祝う or 斎う. To maintain taboos or to physically abstain in order to seek the auspicious. It has the meaning of a period of abstinence (kessai), maintaining physical purity as a prerequisite for serving the kami. Later it came to be used to mean both praying for auspicious things and celebrating their arrival. Today it is used most widely in the sense of "celebrate." It was also used to mean "receiving the protection of the kami," as we can see in the words of the Toshigoi no matsuri norito in the Engishiki: "May (iwau) this reign be everlasting, as firm as solid rock, as enduring as hard rock," and in the Ōtori hogai norito: "May (iwau) they make this reign as firm as solid rock, as enduring as hard rock." Motoori Norinaga said that originally iwau and itsuku were synonyms, but there is no accepted opinion on this. —Nishioka Kazuhiko |
Pronunciation in Japanese/用語音声
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