A Summary of the Sacred Sakura Cleansing Ritual

A tattered volume recording matters of the "Great Purification of the Sacred Sakura." One page bears a vermilion seal that looks as if it came from a shrine.

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"First confess the sins of Heaven's Narukami; then confess the sins of the land's Watatsumi. Recite again the white words of pacification, and quiet the wrath of the gods."

The above is fixed custom, and is set down before all sacrificial, purification, prayer, and spell rites. When performing the Great Purification, one must follow prior precedent.

The Thunder Sakura trees are transplanted branches of the Sacred Sakura—branch-spirits of Narukami's total spirit, linked to the branch shrines of the Grand Shrine.

In those days there were calamities of reversed heaven and monsters of reversed earth; the land was fouled, fierce generals ran wild, and a hundred ghosts leapt about. The Grand Shrine broke off branches and transplanted them to suppress the unclean.

Years and months piled up, and material harm accumulated. Purification and prayer were needed to still the turmoil.

The Thunder Sakura purification takes a sexagenary cycle as its period. Great and small rites differ. After several rounds of the lesser purification, a greater purification must follow.

In the season of the lesser purification, confess the sins of heaven and land, bind the notes into a boundary, and chant the verse of "awe." Wall the miasma within the bounds; hide root-galls to spare the villages. Then overcome them with offerings. Perform this in turn at Narukami's five places.

The lesser purification aims to separate impurity. By it, several years of peace may be gained.

In the season of the greater purification, confess the sins of heaven and land. By eye, mouth, nose, hand, and foot take the five pacifying objects, and break the barriers of the lesser purification. Then dispel impurity with the great divine mantra.

The principle of the greater purification is to remove impurity so that sin may scatter.

Thus ends the summary; details follow below.

[The rest can no longer be read, owing to weathering, staining, and damage.]