Prologue

PROLOGUE

BEFORE JAPAN HAD novels, samurai, or even the word “Shinto” was in use, there was the Kojiki.

It means Record of Ancient Matters.
Written in 712 CE.
Commissioned by the imperial court.
And it wasn’t just to preserve old tales; it was to forge a divine ancestry.

Picture the scene: a young Japan, still consolidating its political power, still organizing its lands, still locking in its lineages. The emperor, Tenmu, wants a clear origin, one that says: We were born of the gods. Our authority is sacred. Our reign is righteous. But it’s not him who finishes it. His wife, Empress Genmei, finalizes the request.

Enter Ō no Yasumaro, the court scribe, and Hieda no Are, the oral memorizer known for an extraordinary memory.
Together, they reconstruct the cosmos.

The Kojiki begins not with farmers, swords, or shrines, but with creation itself.
From the swirling mist of chaos, the heavens part.
From the heavens, the first gods appear.
From the gods, the islands of Japan are born.
From those islands, the imperial bloodline is sealed.

This wasn’t casual storytelling.
This was political theology.

The Kojiki does two things simultaneously:

1. It canonizes Shinto mythology, giving us Amaterasu, Susanoo, Izanagi and Izanami, the raw spiritual DNA of Japan.
2. It establishes divine legitimacy for the Yamato clan, saying their rule isn’t political… it’s cosmic.

For over a thousand years, emperors would trace their right to rule back to this scroll. And when modernity came, they still clung to it, even as World War II loomed.

This book isn’t a neutral document.
It’s a weapon, a myth, and a mirror.
Now, we read it not as believers or bureaucrats, but as translators of an ancient code that still echoes in modern Japan.