The Kojiki stands at the wellspring of Japan’s mythic imagination, offering narratives of creation, divine genealogy, and sacred geography that have nourished literature and the arts for centuries. Its accounts of deities such as Amaterasu and Susanoo, and of the divine origins of the imperial line, established a cosmology within which later writers and artists could situate their own visions. These stories furnished archetypal characters, symbols, and narrative patterns—divine conflict, heroic journeys, descent and return—that became enduring templates for Japanese storytelling. In this way, the text functions less as a mere chronicle and more as a reservoir of images and meanings that subsequent generations continually draw upon.

Within the literary sphere, the Kojiki shaped both form and sensibility. Its interweaving of prose and poetic passages offered early models for Japanese poetic expression and narrative structure, influencing later poetry and prose alike. Classical chronicles and collections, including court histories and early anthologies, absorbed its themes and mythic framework, while its preservation of ancient language forms contributed to the development of literary diction and storytelling conventions. The emotional tone of its tales—where divine and human lives are marked by transience and vulnerability—helped cultivate an aesthetic that later literature would further refine.

The performing arts also found in the Kojiki a rich scriptural ground. Noh and other theatrical traditions adapted its myths into dramatic form, staging divine conflicts, sacred dances, and heroic exploits so that the old stories could be heard and seen rather than merely read. Shrine dances and ritual performances likewise embody episodes from the text, allowing myth to unfold as living gesture, sound, and movement. Through such enactments, the boundary between scripture, ritual, and art becomes porous, and the myths continue to breathe within communal practice.

In the visual realm, the Kojiki’s narratives have been translated into images that shape how the sacred is seen. Painters, sculptors, and artisans have repeatedly depicted its deities and scenes, giving recognizable form to kami and mythic events and establishing enduring iconographic conventions. Architectural elements of shrines and the use of ritual objects reflect these same stories, embedding myth into wood, stone, and metal. Over time, such visualizations have helped to make the Kojiki’s invisible world of gods and origins a tangible presence in everyday cultural space.

Across these literary, performative, and visual channels, the Kojiki has helped articulate a distinct sense of Japanese cultural identity. By offering a coherent mythic past and a sacred genealogy for land and people, it has provided shared points of reference for poets, dramatists, artists, and communities. Later reinterpretations in various media continue to return to its figures and themes, not merely to repeat them, but to explore anew questions of origin, meaning, and belonging. In this ongoing dialogue, the text remains a quiet but persistent voice, shaping how Japan imagines itself and its place in the cosmos.