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ERA

A Book That Took 250 Years: Tokugawa Mitsukuni and the Grand Dream of the Dai Nihon Shi

Tokugawa Mitsukuni, the 'Water Mito Lord' of TV fame, was inspired by China's Shiji to begin compiling Japan's own national history — Dai Nihon Shi (Great History of Japan). At 397 volumes, this project took over 250 years to complete. How one lord's dream changed Japan.

A deep read

Tokugawa Mitsukuni was inspired by China’s Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) to commission Japan’s own national history. Beginning in 1657, the Dai Nihon Shi took 249 years and 397 volumes to complete — outlasting Mitsukuni himself by over 200 years. The project gave birth to Mito-gaku (Mito school of thought), whose reverence for the emperor became a philosophical source of the Meiji Restoration.

Tokugawa Ieyasu — Mitsukuni's grandfather. Mitsukuni was the second lord of the Mito Tokugawa branch, one of the Three Great Families of the Edo Shogunate

Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

Battle of Sekigahara — one generation before Mitsukuni's era. The Dai Nihon Shi he devoted his life to covered Japan's history up to the Muromachi period, before Sekigahara

Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

Kenchoji, Kamakura — one of the historical sites covered by the Dai Nihon Shi, which chronicled the era of Kamakura culture that Mitsukuni passionately documented

Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

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Key Figures

Tokugawa Mitsukuni

2nd Lord of Mito & Compiler of Dai Nihon Shi

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