Kojiki
It is claimed in its preface to have been composed by Ō no Yasumaro at the request of Empress Genmei in the early 8th century (711–712), and thus is usually considered to be the oldest extant literary work in Japan.
According to the preface, Emperor Tenmu (reigned 673–686) ordered the review and emendation of clan documents and commissioned a certain court attendant (toneri) of exceptional memory named Hieda no Are to memorize records and oral traditions concerning the imperial lineage.
Apart from furthering the imperial agenda, an increased interest in the nation's origins in reaction to the influx of foreign culture and the need for an authoritative genealogical account by which to consider the claims of noble families and to reorganize them into a new system of ranks and titles are also possible factors for its compilation.
[12][13][14] Whereas the Nihon Shoki, owing to its status as one of the six imperial histories, was widely read and studied during the Heian period (794–1185), the Kojiki was mostly treated as an ancillary text.
Indeed, a work known as the Sendai Kuji Hongi (also known as the Kujiki), claimed to have been authored by Prince Shōtoku and Soga no Umako, was considered to be earlier and more reliable than the Kojiki.
(Modern scholarly consensus holds the Kuji Hongi to be a Heian period forgery based on both the Kojiki and the Shoki, although certain portions may indeed preserve genuine early traditions and sources.)
Kokugaku scholars saw Japan's earliest writings as the repository of a uniquely superior Japanese identity that could be revived by recovering the ancient language they were written in; the Kojiki, by virtue of its antiquity, gained the status of a sacred text.
He viewed the Kojiki as a true account of actual events that when read correctly, could reveal Japan in its pristine, ideal state as a community where the kami, the emperor and the people lived in harmony.
[16][19] Norinaga's work was carried on in different directions by his disciple Hirata Atsutane and his rivals Fujitani Mitsue (1781–1849)[20] and Tachibana Moribe (1768–1823),[21] who each produced commentaries and treatises on the text.
At the same time, however, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki achieved a sort of scriptural status under State Shintō, which viewed the stories contained therein as orthodox national history.
Official ideology upheld as unquestionable fact the belief in the emperor's divinity and the idea of Japan as a racially superior "national body" (kokutai), with scholars who questioned their veracity facing the threat of censorship, forced resignation, or even trial in court.
[23] In 1913, Tsuda Sōkichi argued in a study that the Kojiki, particularly in its earlier sections, was neither history nor myth but a document created to legitimize the rule of the imperial line.
While his conclusions led to considerable controversy, his influence remains in subsequent studies of the text (particularly in post-World War II scholarship), which amounts largely to development and correction of the line of thought originally proposed by him.
[16] The Kojiki continued to attract the attention of academics and other specialists in the post-war period, which saw the appearance of numerous editions, translations and commentaries on the text by authors such as Kurano Kenji, Takeda Yūkichi, Saigō Nobutsuna, and Kōnoshi Takamitsu.
Izanagi divides the world among his three children: Amaterasu was allotted Takamagahara (高天原, the "Plain of High Heaven"), Tsukuyomi the night, and Susanoo the seas.
A god in the form of a scarecrow named Kuebiko (久延毘古) identifies the dwarf as Sukunabikona-no-Kami (少名毘古那神), a son of Kamimusubi-no-Kami (神産巣日神), one of the three primordial Kotoamatsukami.
