SOURCE: An introduction to The Tale of the Heike, translated by Helen Craig McCullough, Stanford University Press, 1988, pp. 1-11.

In the following essay, McCullough considers the political and social changes taking place in twelfth-century Japan which inspired the creation of the Heike Monogatari.

As the twelfth century waned, no thoughtful Japanese could have failed to recognize that the long Heian interlude of peace, economic security, and cultural florescence was nearing its end, and that a new political force was threatening the imperial court's hegemony. The signs were unmistakable.

In the countryside, there had been a steady evolution away from the institutions established by the seventh-century Taika Reform, which had brought all rice lands under state control and had created organs of local government to collect taxes and maintain order. At the time of the Reform, some powerful families had stayed on the land, where they had typically occupied...