Jinnō Shōtōki

Jinnō Shōtōki (神皇正統記^?, "Chronicles of the Authentic Lineages of the Divine Emperors") is a Japanese historical book written by Kitabatake Chikafusa . The work sought both to clarify the genesis and potential consequences of a contemporary crisis in Japanese politics, and to dispel or at least ameliorate the prevailing disorder.

The text begins with these statements as prologue:

Chikafusa had been a careful student of the book Nihon Shoki (日本書紀, "The Chronicles of Japan"), and this background is reflected in the narrative structure of his Jinnō Shōtōki. He was also well acquainted with Watarai Ieyuki (度会家行), a prominent Shinto priest at the Ise Shrine. Watarai's life of study had added significantly to clarifying the theory of Ise Shintoism, and this point-of-view is reflected in the tone of Jinnō Shōtōki.

The work as a whole was written in the years 1338-1341 at Oda fortress in Hitachi Province, Japan (present-day Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture) then amended in 1343 at Seki fortress.

It is believed that the major portions of the text were probably drafted in the autumn of 1339, around the time Emperor Go-Daigo died and his successor Go-Murakami was enthroned. Current scholars accepts that the original text is missing and that all extant versions of the text thus are manuscript versions which differ slightly from the original. A sense of immediacy seems to inform the writing, and this may be due to the narrative having a specific, more narrowly focused purpose—to instruct the young Emperor Go-Murakami (r. 1339-1368). A curious sentence on the last page of the work, "This book is directed to some child", has been interpreted as a dedication to either Go-Murakami or Yuki Chikatomo.

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