Japanese mythology

Japanese mythology was first written down in the Kojiki (712 AD) and Nihon Shoki (720 AD), court chronicles that wove older oral tradition into a genealogy running from the creator pair Izanagi and Izanami to the sun goddess Amaterasu and, through her, to the imperial line. Unlike the dead pantheons of Greece and Egypt, this is a living tradition: the kami described here are venerated today, from the great shrine of Ise to the thousands of vermilion-gated Inari shrines.