Long before Tokyo, before samurai, before tea ceremony, eight million gods walked the islands of Japan. Their stories were written down in the year 712 in a book called the Kojiki — and the places where those stories happened are still there. You can stand on the beach where the gods bargained for a country, climb the mountain where heaven touched earth, and pray at the cave where the sun once hid from the world.
“In the beginning, when heaven and earth had not yet separated, the islands of Japan rose from the sea like drops of water from a heavenly spear.”
— Kojiki, Volume I · 712 CE
The Kojiki Trail is organized as a single continuous narrative — and as a real geography you can walk. Begin wherever curiosity takes you: the stories themselves, the places they occurred, the journey you might plan, the basics every traveler needs, or the field journal of recent visits.
Eleven foundational tales — from the creation of the islands to the first emperor’s eastern march. Read them as a continuous epic.
Twenty-three sacred sites across Awaji, Izumo, Takachiho, Ise, and Asuka — each tied to a specific verse of the Kojiki.
Practical routes from five days to two weeks. JR Pass strategy, seasonal timing, and the festivals you’ll want to plan around.
What the Kojiki is, how it differs from the Nihon Shoki, who the eight major gods are, and how to bow at a shrine without offense.
Seasonal essays, festival reports, and dispatches from the trail. Cherry blossoms at Kashihara. Autumn leaves at Takachiho Gorge.
Provoked beyond endurance by her brother Susanoo's violence, the sun goddess Amaterasu retreated into the cave of Ama-no-Iwato and sealed it with a great stone. The world fell dark. Crops withered. Calamities multiplied. The eight million gods gathered before the cave to plot her return — and what they did next is the reason Japanese shrines still hang mirrors, ropes, and roosters at their gates.
You can visit the cave. It's in Takachiho, a small town in the Kyushu mountains, where every night of the year a kagura dance retells the story by firelight.
The Kojiki is not a single place — it is a journey. The gods are born in the south, fight in the west, descend in the southwest, settle in the center, and the first emperor finally arrives in the east. Trace the entire arc, or take just one chapter.
国生み — The Creation of the Country
The cave where the sun once hid, and the gorge down which heaven descended.
The home of the sun goddess. A shrine that has been rebuilt every twenty years for thirteen centuries.
Where myth becomes history. The basin where the first earthly emperor was crowned.
A single illustrated chart of all eight million gods, the eleven foundational myths, and where in Japan each one took place.
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