Therefore, around 681 Emperor Temmu commanded Hieda no Are, a court attendant and reciter, to memorize all the court documents and genealogies so that an authoritative history could be compiled. It is written in formal classical Chinese, which continued to be used in Japan, much like Latin in Europe, for more than one thousand years. Nihon shoki covers much of the same ground as Kojiki. One interesting difference is that it includes many variants of the same myth, whereas Kojiki only presents one version. Therefore, we know that these myths were indeed fluid and flexible and not as stable or static as reading Kojiki might suggest.
Lineage is all-important in the Japanese myths, Shinto religion, and Japanese imperial rule.
Heredity was the primary determinant of one s social position, roles, duties, and possibilities. And Kojiki spends a good deal of time outlining family lines. For Yamato Takeru, it is clearly his paternal lineage that lends him his legitimacy to embark on the path he does. This simple fact endows Yamato Takeru with the lineage of the imperial line, descendants of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess. His connection with this line is reinforced by his visits to his paternal aunt, Yamatohime, the chief priestess at Ise Shrine, where Amaterasu is enshrined.