Recently, I've been thinking a lot about how exactly purity works in Touhou. And to clarify, I'm not refering to Junko's version of purity which is explicitly different, I'm referring to the Shinto/Buddhist concept of purity that is applied by the lunarians.What defines a being as being "pure"? Lunarians absolve themselves from sin and "impure" thoughts. Apparently drinking the Hourai Elixir makes one impure because you are tainted with the desire for the removal of death but Mokou mentions says in IN: "To be devoid of death is to be devoid of life.
Without the unnecessary states of life and death,
I'm about as close as you can get to a pure human." Ghosts are also pure and so are celestials as well so should hermits have to purify themselves in order to ascend to Heaven or do their souls get purified once they get ascended? Are divine spirits and yaoyorozu no kami also pure since they're also spirits. Also why does being in a pure land make you not age? I think that there's a through line in this that would make everything else fall in place but I don't really understand it.
What I'm basically asking is: What is a concise definition for purity in Touhou.
Ghosts are also pure and so are celestials as well so should hermits have to purify themselves in order to ascend to Heaven or do their souls get purified once they get ascended? Are divine spirits and yaoyorozu no kami also pure since they're also spirits. Also why does being in a pure land make you not age? I think that there's a through line in this that would make everything else fall in place but I don't really understand it.
Apparently drinking the Hourai Elixir makes one impure because you are tainted with the desire for the removal of death but Mokou mentions says in IN: "To be devoid of death is to be devoid of life.
Without the unnecessary states of life and death,
I'm about as close as you can get to a pure human."
This is why Ghosts aren't Pure, they exist purely because they have a Fetter not letting them pass on. Hermits should have to purify themselves to ascend to Heaven (Or Nirvana, if you want to use that word), Buddhists specifically seek to free themselves of all worldly desires (Yearning) to be Pure. This usually leads to a long life without short-cuts.I have a question regarding this, if ghosts aren't pure then why were Yuyuko and Youmu capable of sneaking into the Lunar Capital? Since in Cage in Lunatic Runagate it says: "Ghosts inherently reside in a Pure Land. This meant they have not been tainted by life nor death, and as a result they were able to act without leaving behind any traces of their presence". This would mean that Youmu and Yuyuko are pure beings because the udonge trees on the moon didn't bloom in their presence. Considering their personalities, I wouldn't really call them pure so can an impure being become pure by simply living in a pure land? Does this mean that Suika could theoretically become pure if she lives in the portion of Heaven that she has long enough?
I say Should because, as we all know, The Nai Clan became Divine Spirits after death and their servants (including Tenshi which makes her the techincal third Miko) ascended to Heaven for their servitude during life. Is this nepotism? Yes. So it's entirely possible to gain Purity and access to Heaven by serving the Heavens and gaining their favour.
I have a question regarding this, if ghosts aren't pure then why were Yuyuko and Youmu capable of sneaking into the Lunar Capital? Since in Cage in Lunatic Runagate it says: "Ghosts inherently reside in a Pure Land. This meant they have not been tainted by life nor death, and as a result they were able to act without leaving behind any traces of their presence". This would mean that Youmu and Yuyuko are pure beings because the udonge trees on the moon didn't bloom in their presence. Considering their personalities, I wouldn't really call them pure so can an impure being become pure by simply living in a pure land? Does this mean that Suika could theoretically become pure if she lives in the portion of Heaven that she has long enough?
Yes to both of your questions. It's possible for them to become Pure if they live in a Pure Land long enough, or at least gain the same level of Purity as the Lunarians wherein they only have a miniscule amount of Impurity. The waiting areas for Ghosts and Phantoms in general are usually Pure Lands like Higan or the Netherworld curiously.I guess this would bring into question why Lunarians are so up-tight about "acting pure", since Kaguya who is an impure being was able to create a pure land herself and theoretically could reach the same amount of purity as a Lunarian even though she drank the Hourai Elixir.
Suika is a bit tricky. If she decided to hole up in the portion of Heaven she has for a prolonged period of time, sure. Whether she will? That's a different question.
This is probably the reason Lunarians and Celestials rarely come down to Earth. The opposite is also true.
One weird thing is that according to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense and Phantasmagoria of Flower View, Youmu's Hakurouken can cause Phantoms to go to Nirvana when used on them by destroying their regrets and doubts.
Maybe they're just really arrogant :cirnotan:
A side note: Be wary of trusting the wiki at face value on this topic. I've done a fair amount of research on the topic recently for a story, and a lot of the wiki page's statements on impurity and pure lands beyond the basics of its relation to death are either incorrect, based on outdated translations, or pure conjecture. In reality, I believe the only two places explicitly identified as pure lands are the moon and the netherworld (I mean, the idea of a place directly adjacent to hell and frequented by shinigami like Higan being a pure land is pretty suspect), and Youmu and Yuyuko are stated as having "almost no impurity" rather than none at all. In addition, whoever made the page conflated Kaguya's manipulation of eternity with elements of a pure land, when they're similar but quite distinct subjects (Eientei was a pure land because her power of eternity halted the flow of impurity from entering Eientei, not because eternity and purity are the same thing).That's mainly why I came here. The wiki page on Impurity is rather vague and is really short so I asked here to get clarification.
For the best source of canonical information on impurity, I recommend reading the first few chapters of Cage in Lunatic Runagate, which most of the page's theories are based on. Trying to gain a complete understanding of any topic in Touhou is a fool's errand due to how open to interpretation much of the information is, but you can at least build a solid theory of it from reading the official works and coming to your own conclusions.
Another hint of the nature of Purity is in Buddhism. One of the natures that can cause Impurity is Yearning. Clinging onto the past or feeling discontent with your place.
A side note: Be wary of trusting the wiki at face value on this topic. I've done a fair amount of research on the topic recently for a story, and a lot of the wiki page's statements on impurity and pure lands beyond the basics of its relation to death are either incorrect, based on outdated translations, or pure conjecture.
The "impurity" that the Lunar Capital detested was life and death. They believed Earth was a world where simply living invites death. There were even those who called Earth a land of impurity, where every being had to compete to live, and the Moon a "pure land" where that filth had been purified. A world without life or death is the most beautiful thing, but it's still different from a world which had nothing in it. A world where one did not need to take from others to live and could live by what they had made themselves. That was said to be an ideal world.
Whenever impurity has been mentioned, it's always been in relation to life and death.There is actually also another suspicious brand(?) of impurity that the Lunarians are clearly not afraid of and is probably less related to life and death but probably more of it being impure as it's from earth : to illustrate, we have the Lunarian space probe from LoLK, which was virtually invisible to Youkai (who couldn't do anything about it) because the Youkai were too impure ; and we have the fact that Celestial flesh (actual pure beings) is toxic to Youkai and even have an uncomfortable presence to them ; and the fact that the Ultramarine orb's purification effect would instagib native gods such as Suwako ; and small speculation here but the possibility that the Youkai's defeat in the Lunar War, aside from technological inferiority, could have anything to do with their impurity imo.