Chronicles

Works that set out the past of a tradition as a sequence of reigns, generations and events, and that the tradition itself treats as authoritative. The Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki are here. Both narrate the descent of the imperial line from the kami, and both are foundational to Shinto and to Japanese historiography at once, which is the pattern of the form: a chronicle is very often a religious text and a dynastic claim in the same breath. Chronicles without scriptural standing, such as the Primary Chronicle, are filed under Other Writings.