Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/242

232 word means literally "bird-perch," in the sense of a hen-roost. By analogy it was applied to anything of the same shape, as a clothes-horse, or the lintel of a door or gateway. As an honorary gateway, the tori-wi is a continental institution identical in purpose and resembling in form the turan of India, the pailoo of China, and the hong-sal-mun of Korea. When introduced into Japan at some unknown date (the Kojiki and Nihongi do not mention them) the Japanese called them tori-wi, which then meant simply gateway, but subsequently acquired its present more specific application. It sometimes serves the purpose of marking the direction of a distant object of worship.

Hyaku-do ishi.—Near the front of the shrine may sometimes be seen a hyaku-do ishi, or hundred-time-stone, from which the worshipper may go back and forward to the door of the shrine a hundred times, repeating a prayer each time.

A sori-bashi or taiko-bashi, representing the mythical floating bridge of Heaven (the rainbow), is also to be seen at the approach to some shrines.

Prayer.—Private individual prayer is seldom mentioned in the old Shinto records, but of the official liturgies or norito we have abundant examples in the Yengishiki and later works. The authors are mostly unknown, but they were no doubt members of the Nakatomi House. Their literary quality is good. Motoöri observes that the elegance of their language is an offering acceptable to the Gods. The Sun-Goddess is represented in the Nihongi as expressing her satisfaction with the beauty of the norito recited in her honour.

The norito are addressed sometimes to individual deities, sometimes to categories of deities, as "the celebrated Gods"