was the seventh son of the

Japanese Emperor The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his position is derived from "the wi ...

Saga is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Square Enix. The series originated on the Game Boy in 1989 as the creation of Akitoshi Kawazu at Square (video game company), Square. It has since continued across multiple platforms, ...

, and was the first courtier to be given the name

Minamoto was one of the surnames bestowed by the Emperors of Japan upon members of the imperial family who were excluded from the line of succession and demoted into the ranks of the nobility from 1192 to 1333. The practice was most prevalent during the ...

. Initially an honorary name given to a number of unrelated courtiers by a number of different Emperors, the Minamoto clan would grow to be an integrated clan family, one of the most powerful and most important in all of

Japanese history The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new invent ...

. Makoto, also known as Kitabe-daijin, was the brother of

Emperor Nimmyō An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

Minamoto no Tokiwa was one of the surnames bestowed by the Emperors of Japan upon members of the imperial family who were excluded from the line of succession and demoted into the ranks of the nobility from 1192 to 1333. The practice was most prevalent during the ...

, and

Minamoto no Tōru was a Japanese poet and statesman. He was born the son of Emperor Saga and a member of the Saga Genji clan. He is sometimes mentioned as the model for Hikaru Genji in important Japanese literary classic '' The Tale of Genji''. Under his titl ...

. He received the name "Minamoto" in 814. Towards the end of his life, in 866, the main gate (''Ōtemmon'') of the Imperial Palace was destroyed by a fire; in one of the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...

's more famous events of court intrigues, Makoto was accused by his political rival

Tomo no Yoshio , or , was a counsellor of the state in pre-feudal Japan. In Japanese mythology, he was the source for Ban no Yoshio, god of pestilence. Arson On the tenth day of the third month of 866, Tomo no Yoshio set fire to the Ōtenmon gate with the in ...

of having set the blaze. This came to be known as the " Ōtenmon Conspiracy" (応天門の変, ''Ōtemmon no Hen''); with the help of his powerful connections at court, Makoto was able to successfully argue his innocence. It was later discovered that Ban Tomo set the fire himself.

References

*Frederic, Louis (2002). "Japan Encyclopedia." Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

References

See also