Onin-ki (The Record of the Onin War) (応仁記)
The Onin-ki is a historical work of the Muromachi period. It is a war chronicle focusing on the Onin War that developed out of inheritance disputes within the Ashikaga Shogunal family, the Hatakeyama clan, and the Shiba clan, recounting everything from its origins, through all the battles fought in and around the capital, up until the deaths of Katsumoto HOSOKAWA of the eastern forces and Mochitoyo (Sozen) YAMANA of the western forces.
It has three volumes, with multiple textual lines for each manuscript family. It was influenced by the historical epic 'Taiheiki' (The Record of the Great Peace), and is written in a mixture of kanji and katakana. The author is unknown. There are various theories about when it was written, ranging from the end of the 15th century to the mid-16th century.
The contents cover a span of more than ten years at the end of the Muromachi period from 1467 to 1477, and describe the wars fought in and around Kyoto that devastated the capital, perhaps with the intention of describing the world of 'pandemonium and fighting' prophesied in the last six lines of the "Yamatai shi" (Poem on Japan), said be the work of the Liang monk Baozhi. It depicts in vivid detail the devastated capital and the grieves and laments of war, from the causes to the scenes of fighting, while mixing in the author's own interpretations.
It ends by saying, 'From the city and the country to lands far away, all has become pandemonium.'
From all this, the author is thought to have been someone who was familiar with the Onin War and had some sort of involvement in it, perhaps a monk or court noble who had taken Buddhist orders and lamented the meaninglessness of the warriors' conflict. There is also a strong Confucian influence.