 Motoori Norinaga made pioneering and lasting contributions in all aspects of Kokugaku: he elevated literary criticism on The Tale of Genji to new heights, with an impact that endures into the present; his magnum opus was a philological analysis of and complete commentary on the 712 CE Kojiki, which was the last of Japan’s most ancient classics to be linguistically deciphered; and he used that analysis to construct a new form of Shinto, the kami no michi or Way of the kami (deities) that he claimed to be the original. Furthermore, his scholarship was known to Kyoto courtiers, and his counsel sought by daimyo. Remarkably Norinaga accomplished all this while spending almost his entire life in Matsusaka in the virtual shadow of the Ise Shrines.