The text known as Kojiki emerges from a web of imperial, clan, and regional memories that had long been preserved through voice rather than ink. At its core stand the imperial genealogies and court records, which traced the lineage of the ruling house and noble families back to divine origins. These “imperial genealogies” and related court chronicles did not merely list names; they offered a sacred history that bound the throne to the realm of the kami. Powerful clans likewise maintained their own records and accounts, shaped to affirm their status and proximity to the sacred. In this way, political legitimacy and mythic narrative were woven together into a single fabric.

Alongside these more formal lineages flowed a wide river of oral traditions: myths, legends, songs, chants, and ritual recitations. Ancient songs and chants, preserved through repeated performance, carried memories of creation, heroic deeds, and the presence of deities in the landscape. Ritual specialists and storytellers recited narratives of the kami, the origins of the land, and the deeds of early rulers, often in ceremonial settings. These living performances ensured that myth was not a distant abstraction but a resonant presence in communal life. Local folk stories and regional legends added further color and variation, so that the sacred past was remembered in many voices, not just one.

Regional mythological traditions contributed another crucial layer. Different territories preserved their own creation stories, deity myths, and tribal legends, which were gradually drawn into a broader, unifying narrative as political power consolidated. These local accounts often paralleled one another in theme while differing in detail, reflecting the diversity of communities that came to be included under imperial rule. Through this process, regional variations were not erased but reinterpreted within a more encompassing vision of the land and its divine guardians. The resulting tapestry allowed multiple local identities to coexist within a single sacred history.

All of these strands—imperial genealogies, clan records, ritual recitations, songs, and regional myths—were entrusted to memory before they were ever entrusted to writing. A key figure in this transmission was Hieda no Are, renowned for exceptional powers of memorization. The compiler Ō no Yasumaro drew upon Are’s recitations, which distilled and preserved this vast body of oral material. The Kojiki thus stands as a crystallization of many centuries of spoken tradition, an attempt to give fixed form to what had long been fluid, while still bearing the echoes of the voices that first gave these stories life.