A Rite for the Whole Community

Unlike prayers spoken by an individual on their own behalf, the Great Purification Prayer is recited by a Shinto priest on behalf of an entire community, historically the imperial court and today typically a shrine's parishioners, at the twice-yearly oharae ceremonies held at the end of June and the end of December, marking the midpoint and close of the ritual year. Participants at these ceremonies often pass through or step over a large ring made of woven chinowa grass, or pass paper effigies over their bodies to transfer impurity, called kegare, onto the effigy before it is disposed of, actions performed alongside rather than instead of the priest's recitation.

The concept of kegare that the prayer addresses is not primarily moral guilt in the Western theological sense but a kind of accumulated ritual pollution that builds up through ordinary life, including illness, death and various forms of disorder, and that periodic purification is understood to be necessary to clear regardless of individual intention or wrongdoing. This distinguishes the Great Purification Prayer sharply from penitential prayers in traditions built around personal confession, since here the ritual specialist acts for the group and impurity is treated as a condition to be removed rather than a sin to be forgiven.