(710-794)
A period during which the imperial capital was at Nara. This period, dominated by Buddhist and Chinese thought, saw the compilation of the Kojiki and Nihongi which fixed the mythological ancestry of the leading clans of Japan, and the establishment of important shrine-temple complexes such as Kasuga, ancestral and tutelary shrine of the Fujiwara family.
A Popular Dictionary of Shinto. Brian Bocking.