Kojiki-den

Kojiki-den is Motoori Norinaga’s 44-volume commentary on the Kojiki, completed in 1798. It interprets the chronicle’s language, myths, and account of ancient Japan.

Kojiki: An eighth-century Japanese chronicle combining myths, genealogies, and accounts of early rulers. This is the text Norinaga annotates and interprets throughout Kojiki-den.
Kojiki-den textual commentary: The layer-by-layer annotations in Kojiki-den explaining the Kojiki’s words, readings, and passages. These notes show how Norinaga builds interpretations from the chronicle’s language.
Edo-period Japan: The period of Japanese history under Tokugawa rule, conventionally dated 1603–1868. Norinaga’s scholarship developed within the period’s expanding study of classical texts.
Hirata Atsutane: An Edo-period Kokugaku scholar who expanded Norinaga’s thought into influential religious teachings. Atsutane carried Norinaga’s legacy into later interpretations of Shinto and the afterlife.
Nihon Shoki: An official Japanese chronicle completed in 720, presenting history and myth in a Sino-Japanese literary style. Its parallel accounts offer a contrasting source against which Kojiki narratives were interpreted.
Motoori Norinaga: An Edo-period Japanese scholar of classical literature and Shinto thought. He spent decades composing this commentary and developed its interpretive principles.
Old Japanese: The earliest historically attested stage of the Japanese language, known chiefly from eighth-century texts. Norinaga’s readings depend on reconstructing the language in which the Kojiki was recorded.
Kamo no Mabuchi: An Edo-period scholar of Japanese classical poetry and a leading figure in Kokugaku. Mabuchi’s scholarship influenced Norinaga’s approach to ancient Japanese language and literature.
State Shinto: The modern system of state-supported Shinto institutions and practices in Japan, especially before 1945. Later national interpretations of antiquity drew on traditions of scholarship shaped by Norinaga.
Aston's Nihongi: Basil Hall Chamberlain's English translation of the Kojiki, published in 1882. A later translation illustrates a different scholarly approach to rendering the chronicle.

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