SOURCE: Basil Hall Chamberlain, in his introduction to Translation of "Ko-Ji-Ki "; or, "Records of Ancient Matters, " second edition, J. L. Thompson & Co., 1932, pp. i-lxxxi.

Chamberlain, a professor of Japanese and Philology at the Imperial University of Tokyo, was responsible for bringing many central works of classical Japanese literature into English. His translation of the Kojiki, first printed in 1882, has remained authoritative; excerpts from his original introduction appear below.

Of all the mass of Japanese literature, which lies before us as the result of nearly twelve centuries of bookmaking, the most important monument is the work entitled Ko-ji-ki or Records of Ancient Matters, which was completed in A.D. 712. It is the most important because it has preserved for us more faithfully than any other book the mythology, the manners, the language, and the traditional history of Ancient Japan. Indeed it is the earliest authentic connected literary product of...