“The Tale of Heike” is one of the war chronicles about Taira-Minamoto War, 1156-1185. The title was connected with Taira family that was called Heike. There was a lot of theory about which ages it was written in and who the author was. Almost scholars say it was written in 13th century. Taira-Minamoto War is the most famous incident in Japan. A lot of stories were written about it, and they all were based to “The Tale of Heike”.

“The Tale of Heike” is also a history of Taira family, the rise and the fall. It was recited by blind persons accompanying of the biwa that was one of the string instruments. They were called biwa minstrels. The story recounts in the context of the Buddhism philosophy of impermanence.

Minamoto family has been called Genji. So the incident is called Genji-Heike clan war. It is a similar incident of War of the Roses as a clan war in Britain. But the contents were different very much.

War of the Roses, 1455-1485, was an incident to reorganization of feudalism in England. Many feudal lords fought and killed each other, and they were collapsed. It means that centralization of power had been being built during the incident gradually. Henry�Z was progressing of it, then Elizabeth�T established the absolute monarchy in 16th century.

Taira-Minamoto War was an incident to build feudalism in Japan. Minamoto-no Yoritomo started Kamakura Shogunate Government in 1192. The government had been progressing of feudalism. Muromachi Shogunate Government that started in 1338 heired it. Reorganization of feudalism started when Onin incident happened in 1467. After the incident, the Warring States Period had started.

Oda Nobunaga was one of the feudal lords. He devised new rule to regulate society on a nationwide basis. Nobunaga had been thinking his own central government system. He had almost built it, but he couldn’t finish, because he was killed at Honnoji incident in 1582. Centralization of power in Japan was established, when Ieyasu started Tokugawa Shogunate Government in 1603.

Most foreigners know the title “The Tale of Genji”. But it wasn’t a war chronicle. It was a fiction about a lot of love affairs of Genji. He was an emperor’s son. He didn't have any relation to Minamoto family. Some people give it a kind of authority. But I think it is porno story. Then“The Tale of Genji” has been read for a long time.