In this post, I want to quickly summarise two presentations from the 2026 annual meeting of The Society of Shinto Studies, as reported in issue 279 of their journal. Both concern the Tokugawa period (1603 to 1868). The first, by Satō Mami (佐藤真実) is “The Transition of Beliefs and Conceptions Concerning the Haraedo no Kami (Seoritsuhime) from the Medieval to the Early Modern Period”, and the other, by Kimura Nagisa (木村凪沙) is “Norinaga Motoori’s Theory of the Functions of Hayasasurahime”.
Both presentations concern theories about kami who are named in the Ōharaëkotoba, the most important purification prayer in Shinto, as recorded in the tenth century Engishiki. There, they are invoked as part of the process of purification. Seoritsuhimë dwells in the swift currents of the rivers flowing down from the high mountains and the low mountains, while Hayasasurahimë dwells in the root country, the base country. Notably, neither is mentioned anywhere else in surviving early texts.
This seems to have disturbed early modern scholars. Satō says that the scholars of the “Kimon” (崎門), which means the followers of Yamazaki Ansai (山﨑闇斎), identified Seoritsuhimë with Tagitsuhimë, one of the three kami of Munakata Taisha in northern Kyūshū. These kami are both female, as the “himë” suffix makes clear, and both are associated with water, because Tagitsuhimë is enshrined at the coast. (Her two sisters are enshrined on islands in the seas between Japan and Korea.) Further, the old Japanese for “flowing down” is “ochitagitsu”, providing a verbal parallel. Later scholars in the same tradition appear to have identified her with the aramitama (wild spirit) of Amaterasu Ōmikami as well, but the paper does not go into detail about that.
Kimura reports on Norinaga’s view on Hayasasurahimë. He identifies her with Suseribimë, the daughter of Susano’o, who lives in the underworld and helps Ōnamuchi (the future Ōkuninushi) to overcome the trials set by her father. In this case, the name of the place where she lives is much the same, and both appear to be the underworld, and “Suseri” and “Sasura” are close enough to suggest an identification. Based on Suseribimë’s role, he argued that Hayasasurahimë both took away pollution or sin, and brought good fortune.
Both of these theories are examples of a tendency that seems to have been particularly strong in the Tokugawa period, that of trying to assimilate all the kami in Japan to those mentioned in the Kojiki and Nihonshoki. This project was continued in the Meiji period, when a lot of kami at jinja across Japan were renamed to match them up with kami from those myths.
In my studies so far, I have found nothing that suggests that there is any real basis for doing this. The grounds for the identifications presented in these two cases are clearly weak. They might be enough if you knew that all the kami were named in the Kojiki and Nihonshoki, but we do not know that. Indeed, we know that is not the case, because the Fudoki, which are almost as old, name some additional kami. One consequence of this is that the names given of kami at many jinja are likely to go back no more than 150 years.
It is a good thing that the identity of the kami venerated at a jinja matters very little in Shinto practice.
David, is there more info on Seoritsuhime you have found? I recently visited Mt. Haguro and was very moved by Jinja there at Harahi Gawa to various Kami of purification. And a private shrine to Seoritsuhimë.
I’m wanting to learn more about her!
Satō does say a bit more in the presentation summary, but the earlier interpretations she quotes do not really go beyond the content of the Ōharaëkotoba. I would expect to find more about her in the esoteric interpretations of that prayer, and in other early modern systematisations of Shinto (I imagine Norinaga had something to say about her as well), but I would not expect them to be consistent. I have not come across any more about her that is early (pre-1000 AD), and my guess is that there are a number of local traditions. Purification at rivers is a common feature of Shinto practice, and she is an obvious kami to associate with such practices, after all.
Satō was a graduate student at Kokugakuin when she (I am assuming — “Mami” codes very female) gave the presentation, so I would hazard a guess that Seoritsuhimë is/was the subject of her dissertation. If she goes on to write a full paper for the journal I will be sure to write about it, but it might be possible to contact her through the university and see whether she did write more on the topic. If she did, that might well be the best contemporary source.