The Tale of Genji

Murasaki Shikibu composes The Tale of Genji at the Heian court

The earliest dated evidence is not a title page — it is court gossip in Murasaki Shikibu's own diary from 1008.

The 1010 date is a convention

No evidence identifies a completion, or any other discrete event, in 1010. The work was composed gradually in the early eleventh century, before and during Murasaki Shikibu's service at court.

Museum chronology therefore dates the work broadly to about 1000, or to the early eleventh century, rather than to a securely documented year of completion.

What the diary actually records

Murasaki's diary establishes that portions of Genji were already circulating at the imperial court in 1008. It records court personnel preparing copies with fine paper, brushes and ink, and it associates Fujiwara no Michinaga with supplying those materials.

Murasaki served as a lady-in-waiting in the household of Empress Shoshi, where chapters were copied and read. 'Murasaki Shikibu' is an appellation rather than a securely known personal name.

The diary says Emperor Ichijo heard part of the tale and commented on its author's learning.

The outer bounds of the guess

The diary proves that at least some of the tale existed in 1008, but it does not say how many chapters were then complete. Chapters circulated in manuscript within a courtly network; there was no publication day.

The Sarashina Diary indicates that a fifty-plus-chapter collection was circulating by about 1020–21. That sets a later bound for something close to the received fifty-four-chapter form, rather than proving an authorial completion date.

The order of composition, the completeness of the ending and the authorship of the latest chapters have all been debated; a recent quantitative study supports single authorship but does not settle the date.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 8 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~1010.

What the sources leave uncertain

The listed year 1010 is conventional and approximate, not a documented completion date.
Murasaki's diary proves that at least some of the tale existed in 1008, but it does not identify how many chapters were then complete.
The Sarashina Diary indicates that a fifty-plus-chapter collection circulated by about 1020–21, setting a later bound for something close to the received form rather than proving an authorial completion date.
The order of composition, completeness of the ending and authorship of the latest chapters have all been debated. A recent quantitative study supports single authorship but does not settle the date.