(444 — 27 February 484) was the 22nd legendary

Emperor of Japan The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial House of Japan, 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 positio ...

Imperial Household Agency The (IHA) is an agency of the government of Japan in charge of state matters concerning the Imperial Family, and also the keeping of the Privy Seal and State Seal of Japan. From around the 8th century AD, up until the Second World War, it ...

(''Kunaichō'')
清寧天皇 (22)
retrieved 2013-8-28. according to the traditional order of succession. No firm dates can be assigned to this Emperor's life or reign, but he is conventionally considered to have reigned from 480 to 484.

Legendary narrative

Seinei was a 5th-century monarch. The reign of

Emperor Kinmei was the 29th Emperor of Japan, Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 欽明天皇 (29) retrieved 2013-8-22. according to the traditional order of succession. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834)pp. 34–36 Brown, Delmer. (1979) ''Gukanshō,'' pp. 261– ...

( – 571 AD), the 29th Emperor,Titsingh
pp. 34–36
Brown
pp. 261–262
Varley, pp. 123–124. is the first for which contemporary historiography is able to assign verifiable dates; however, the conventionally accepted names and dates of the early Emperors were not to be confirmed as "traditional" until the reign of

Emperor Kanmu , or Kammu, was the 50th emperor of Japan, Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 桓武天皇 (50) retrieved 2013-8-22. according to the traditional order of succession. Kanmu reigned from 781 to 806, and it was during his reign that the sco ...

(737–806), the 50th sovereign of the Yamato dynasty. According to ''

Kojiki The , also sometimes read as or , is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the , and the Japanese imperia ...

'' and '' Nihonshoki'', he was a son of Emperor Yūryaku and his consort Katsuragi no Karahime. Seinei's full sister was Princess Takuhatahime. His name in birth was . It is said that the color of his hair was white since birth. After the death of his father, Seinei won the fight against Prince Hoshikawa, his brother, for the throne and so succeeded his father. Seinei's contemporary title would not have been ''tennō'', as most historians believe this title was not introduced until the reigns of

Emperor Tenmu was the 40th emperor of Japan, Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 天武天皇 (40) retrieved 2013-8-22. according to the traditional order of succession. Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). ''The Imperial House of Japan'', p. 53. Tenmu's re ...

and Empress Jitō. Rather, it was presumably , meaning "the great king who rules all under heaven". Alternatively, Seinei might have been referred to as or the "Great King of Yamato". Seinei fathered no children; however, two grandsons of the 17th Emperor, Emperor Richū, were found—later to ascend as Prince Woke and Prince Oke. Seinei adopted them as his heirs. The actual site of Seinei's

grave A grave is a location where a dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as grave ...

is not known. The Emperor is traditionally venerated at a

memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or works of a ...

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy sacred space, space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor worship, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, Daemon (mythology), daem ...

(''misasagi'') at

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

. The

designates this location as Seinei's

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...

. It is formally named ''Kawachi no Sakado no hara no misasagi''.Ponsonby-Fane, p. 419.

Ancestry

Notes

References

* Aston, William George. (1896)
''Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697.''
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. * Brown, Delmer M. and Ichirō Ishida, eds. (1979)
''Gukanshō: The Future and the Past.''
Berkeley: University of California Press. ; * Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai (1969). ''The Manyōshū: The Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai Translation of One Thousand Poems.'' New York:

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...

. * Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959)
''The Imperial House of Japan.''
Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. * Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). ''

Nihon Ōdai Ichiran , ', is a 17th-century chronicle of the serial reigns of Japanese emperors with brief notes about some of the noteworthy events or other happenings. According to the 1871 edition of the ''American Cyclopaedia'', the 1834 French translation of ...

''; ou
''Annales des empereurs du Japon.''
Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. * Varley, H. Paul. (1980)
''Jinnō Shōtōki: A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns.''
New York: Columbia University Press. ;

External links

Nihon Shoki
Online English Translations
Scroll 15 – Emperors Seinei, Kenzo, and Ninken
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seinei Japanese emperors 5th-century births People with albinism People of Kofun-period Japan 5th-century monarchs in Asia 5th-century Japanese monarchs 484 deaths

Legendary narrative

Ancestry

See also

Notes

References

External links