were called, and of the civil wars arising out of these enterprises which distracted Japan for more than forty years.
The edition entitled Taiheiki Sōmoku has an introduction purporting to relate the circumstances under which this work was compiled, on the authority of a "tradition," the sources of which are unknown to us. Begun, it is said, at the instance of the Mikado Go Daigo, by a priest named Genye, it was continued by other priests at various times, until its completion in 1382. These writers, we are told, based their narratives on information obtained directly from the Shōgun Takauji, Nitta Yoshisada, Kusunoki Masashige, and other chief actors in the political events of the day. Recent investigation, however, seems to show that the author was really a priest named Kojima, probably belonging to one of the three thousand monasteries of Hiyeisan, who died in 1374, but of whom nothing further is known. If this be correct, either the former account is an imposture, of which there are not a few in the literary annals of Japan, or Kojima may have utilised materials collected in the manner just described. Internal evidence points to the Taiheiki being the work of one person who wrote some time after the events related, and who owed much more to his imagination than to direct communication with the heroes of his story.
It begins with a sketch of the history of the Shogunate from its foundation by Yoritomo in 1181, and then goes on to describe the political condition of Japan at the accession of Go Daigo in 1319. The events of this reign, which ended in 1339, are given in considerable detail, and the work is continued to the close of the reign of Go Murakami (1368).
