The original authors of this major Japanese epic are not recorded. It was passed down by generations of bards until a "definitive" oral text was said to be established by Shōbutsu and written down by Yukinaga. The 1371 C.E. text recorded by Kakuichi was long regarded as the reference text.
Several translations have been made into English as The tale of the Heike: by Arthur Lindsay Sadler in 1918–1921, by Hiroshi Kitagawa & Bruce T. Tsuchida published in 1975, by Helen Craig McCullough in 1988, an abridged translation by Burton Dewitt Watson published in 2006, and by Royall Tyler in 2012.
