This page looks at the importance of purity in Shinto's understanding of good and evil.
Purity in Shinto
Last updated 2009-10-30
Purity
Purity is at the heart of Shinto's understanding of good and evil.
Impurity in Shinto refers to anything which separates us from kami, and from musubi, the creative and harmonising power.
The things which make us impure are tsumi - pollution or sin.
Purity is so important in Shinto that, as one book puts it...
in the West we have the saying that 'cleanliness is next to godliness' but the Japanese conception may be closer to 'cleanliness is not distinct from godliness'.
Brandon Toropov and Luke Buckles O.P.
Human beings are born pure
Shinto does not accept that human beings are born bad or impure; in fact Shinto states that humans are born pure, and sharing in the divine soul.
Badness, impurity or sin are things that come later in life, and that can usually be got rid of by simple cleansing or purifying rituals.
The causes of impurity
Pollution - tsumi - can be physical, moral or spiritual. 'Tsumi' means much the same as the English word 'sin', but it differs from sin in that it includes things which are beyond the control of individual human beings and are thought of as being caused by evil spirits. In ancient Shinto, tsumi also included disease, disaster and error. Anything connected with death or the dead is considered particularly polluting.
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