Completed in 720 CE, the Nihon Shoki grew out of an imperial drive—sparked under Emperor Tenmu and carried forward by Empress Genshō—to weave Japan’s origin tales into a single, authoritative tapestry. Once the ball got rolling around 713 CE, a team of court scholars gathered oral legends, Chinese records and local genealogies. At the helm stood Prince Toneri, a royal scion entrusted with shaping the narrative, and Ō no Yasumaro, the skilled court scribe whose pen brought those 30 volumes to life.

Rather than a solo effort, this who’s who of Nara-period literati pooled talents: some focused on ritual laws, others on genealogies or mythic lineages. Together, they forged the chronicle that still underpins Shinto cosmology and classical Japanese history. Fast-forward to today, and these ancient pages inspire everything from museum exhibitions in Kyoto to a recent streaming-service retelling of Yamato’s divine age. This year even marks roughly 1,305 years since those seminal volumes first saw daylight.