In the seventh century C.E. the Emperor Temmu ordered that the myths preserved in written fragments and the oral tradition be gathered together to establish aristocratic genealogies. His ultimate purpose, in all likelihood, was to trace the genealogy of the imperial family to the creation of the Japanese islands. The works which emerged eventually from Temmu’s orders, the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki, or Nihongi, became the primary sources for Japanese mythology.