Within the Kojiki, the movement from the age of the kami into the age of human rulers is not a clean break from myth into verifiable history, but rather a continuum in which legendary and semi-historical elements are interwoven. The text presents imperial genealogies beginning with Emperor Jimmu and continuing through successive sovereigns, describing accessions, marriages, offspring, and deaths as a direct unfolding of divine lineage. These genealogies, while framed as sacred history, also mirror the social structure of the ruling elite, where claims of descent from the kami serve to legitimize political authority. In this way, what might be called “historical events” are often less discrete happenings than narrative threads that bind the imperial house, the court, and the land into a single sacred order.

Alongside these genealogies, the Kojiki recounts episodes that resemble political and military developments, though they are cast in a mythic light. The eastern expedition of Jimmu and related campaigns, with their battles against local chieftains and the subjugation of regional powers, can be read as legendary reflections of the expansion and consolidation of Yamato authority. Stories of imperial descendants pacifying local powers and overcoming rival groups suggest a process of unification, where conflicts and alliances among clans are remembered as the “pacification of the realm.” These narratives often blur the line between human opponents and local deities, so that the subduing of kuni-tsu-kami symbolically encodes the subordination of competing lineages and regions to the central court.

The Kojiki also gestures toward the formation of early court structures and ritual frameworks, again in a manner that fuses sacred and political concerns. Descriptions of imperial reigns include the establishment of certain offices, rites, and regulations, presenting the administrative and ceremonial order of the Yamato court as an outgrowth of divine will. The recorded movements, intermarriages, and alliances of powerful clans can be seen as narrative expressions of how various groups were integrated under imperial authority. In this sense, the text does not simply list events; it sacralizes the processes by which power was consolidated, portraying them as the natural extension of a cosmic genealogy.

Because of this deep interpenetration of myth and memory, the Kojiki’s “historical” content is best approached as a spiritualized vision of early Japan rather than as a straightforward chronicle. The accounts of imperial genealogies, courtly activities, conflicts, and clan relationships are less concerned with factual precision than with articulating a meaningful order that links heaven, earth, and the human polity. Reading these passages with a contemplative eye reveals how the text encodes both the aspirations of the Yamato state and the religious imagination of the age, allowing political events and social transformations to be seen as reflections of a larger, sacred drama.