Fire is perhaps one of the most symbolically complex phenomena in the history of human culture. It renders raw meats and vegetables into cooked and edible food, base minerals into useful and durable metals, and porous dirt and clay into watertight pottery. It destroys the forests and brushlands, but its ashes make the earth fertile and productive. Fire is thus viewed as a powerful transformer of the negative to the positive. Because of such properties, fire is commonly found in purification rites throughout the world. Polluted persons may be required to walk around, jump over, or jump through fire. Polluted items may be singed, fumigated, or smoked. The widespread use of incense smoke in purification rites is based on the transforming powers of fire, as well as on the additional purificatory powers of sweet smells. Polluted persons or things may be rubbed with ashes or soot, and polluted objects may be boiled, subject to the double purificatory powers of fire and water. Exposure to sun and to intense heat are also regarded as practices falling into this same general category. The extinguishing of old fires in temples and villages and the kindling of new ones are common practices after a death or as part of annual renewal and purification ceremonies. Alchemic experiments, which attempt to purify mineral substances and turn them into gold, involve boiling or melting down the solution or elements over pure and intense heat and then recrystallizing them in newer and higher forms (see also alchemy; Taoism).

The introduction of purity

In addition to the cleansing, purging, destruction, and transformation of pollution, most purification rites involve the positive introduction of purity. Many phenomena are considered inherently pure; ingestion of, or contact with, or simply exposure to such phenomena is believed to bring purity to the object of the ritual.

Objects, activities, or persons commonly considered to have intrinsic purity cross-culturally include: fire; water; sweet smells created by flowers, fragrant plants and herbs, perfumes, fragrant oils, or incense; milk, ghee, and other dairy products; white objects; earth in its natural form; sacred objects (e.g., relics) and sacred personages (e.g., priests); the recitation of spells, incantations, and names of gods; magical amulets and stones; gold and, in one culture or another, silver, bronze, jade, and crystal; virgins; the right as opposed to the left side of things in many cultures (e.g., the Abaluyia of Kenya); morning, sunshine, and daylight as opposed to darkness; whole or perfect objects, including circles and wheels and perfect numbers—e.g., the number nine (because the digits of any of its square products always add up to nine) or four (because quaternity is viewed as perfection); and physically perfect specimens of their species. In addition, cultures idiosyncratically define certain things as pure because of special cultural associations: cow dung and cow urine are pure in Hinduism because of the sacredness of the cow; dogs are considered to be pure in Zoroastrianism (a religion founded in the 6th century bc by the Iranian prophet Zoroaster) because as scavengers they purify the world for everyone else (most cultures view dogs as impure because of their scavenging habits); and all cool things are considered pure among the Lovedu of South Africa because pollution is associated with heat.

Other purification rites

Purification practices in which pollution is introduced qua pollution in order to achieve purity are also found in various religions and cultures. These rather paradoxical practices work on several different principles. The use of garlic, sulfur, or an amulet made of impure materials apparently operates on the principle of like attracting like; the impure amulet draws the impurity encountered in some situation toward itself, thus preventing it from polluting the wearer of the charm. Another set of practices apparently works on an inoculation principle—a baby, a magical implement, or a special work area may be briefly exposed to menstrual blood, for example, to protect it against future pollution from the same kind of item. A third group of such paradoxical practices, found primarily in Asian religions, involves immersing oneself in what is viewed as utter pollution, either by meditating on foul things or by actually keeping oneself permanently unclean, in order to achieve transcendence over pollution. Ordeals, mutilations, and blood rituals in general may also be regarded as fitting the transcendence pattern.

In highly developed and elaborated systems of thought, purity and pollution meet and merge. Buddhist monks are considered to be extremely pure, yet they are directed to make their robes from cemetery cloths, and beds or litters used in funerals may be donated to their monasteries. Buddhist relics with great purifying power are often composed of bits of hair, nails, and bones (albeit of the Buddha or other great saints); in Sri Lanka the word (dhātu) for such relics is the same as the word for semen. Monks and nuns of Jainism (an Indian religion founded by Mahavira in the 6th century bc) are ordered not to bathe and under no circumstances to clean their teeth. In Hinduism, if a Brahmin (a member of the highest caste) enters a street of the untouchables (outcastes), he is polluted, but the whole street also falls prey to disease, famine, and sterility. In a Burmese folktale, an alchemist became discouraged with his experiments and threw his alchemic stone into a latrine pit; on contact with the excrement, the stone achieved purity—thus indicating that contacts with pollution may bring about purity.

Many rituals considered to effect purification do not utilize any of the specific purifying techniques outlined above. They simply make use of techniques believed to have generalized ritual efficacy, no matter what the disorder. Thus, some purification rites involve reversals, especially reversals of roles between men and women, on the general principle that they represent a return to chaos and then a change back to order. Another widely practiced ritual principle involving the symbolism of reversal is that of death and rebirth; man and the world, with all their disorders, are symbolically put to death and then symbolically renewed in a purer and better state. Because blood is associated with both life and death, the use of blood in purification rites is often central to the symbolic renewal process. Nearly all rituals involve the reading or reciting of spells, texts, or prayers that have a generalized efficacy over negative forces, and in many cases purification may be accomplished by these means without any further symbolization of cleansing or a re-creation of purity. When pollution becomes one of many possible offenses against the gods, purification may be accomplished simply by making sacrifices or offerings to the gods. Pollution often becomes identified with immoral or sinful behaviour and in such instances purification may be effected by punishment of the offender, by the offender’s spiritual atonement, or by acts of penance and virtue, such as giving alms. Purity also may become identified with the struggle against the demonic forces, and in this transcendent dimension purification is effected in rites of exorcism or in rites that placate the demons. The use of weapons in purification rites is often based on a symbolic battle with the forces of evil; the use of firecrackers in some purification rites is viewed as a means of frightening away the demons; the use of curses, abuse, ridicule, and ribaldry in purification rites among the ancient Greeks, for example, was regarded as forms of protection against the demons. Some purification rites involving blood are structured in terms of giving demons what they want in order to turn away their polluting presences (see also sacrifice).