(750? – November 8, 785) was the fifth son of Prince Shirakabe (later

Emperor Kōnin was the 49th emperor of Japan, Emperor Kōnin, Tahara no Higashi Imperial Mausoleum, Imperial Household Agency according to the traditional order of succession. Kōnin's reign lasted from 770 to 781. Traditional narrative The personal name of ...

), by Takano no Niigasa.

Biography

In 781 he was named

heir-presumptive An heir presumptive is the person entitled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of an heir apparent or a new heir presumptive with a better claim to the position in question. ...

after his elder brother succeeded the abdicated

as the

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 ...

. In 785, the administrator in charge of the new capital of Nagaoka-kyō, Fujiwara no Tanetsugu, was assassinated. Prince Sawara was implicated because of his opposition to the move of the capital, exiled to

Awaji Province was an old province of Japan covering Awaji Island, between Honshū and Shikoku. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Awaji''" in . Today it is part of Hyōgo Prefecture. It is sometimes called . Awaji is divided into three municipal secti ...

, but starved himself (although a mystery remains) and died on the way there. He was made a Crown Prince by the

after his wife died and his son fell ill (the son allegedly possessed by the spirit of Sawara). Later that year, he was elevated posthumously to become . This is the then only recorded instance of posthumously raising someone to the rank and title of emperor.Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). ''The Imperial House of Japan,'' p. 128. He was reburied in

Yamato was originally the area around today's Sakurai City in Nara Prefecture of Japan, which became Yamato Province and by extension a name for the whole of Japan. Yamato is also the dynastic name of the ruling Imperial House of Japan. Japanese his ...

. Additional concerns led to the decision to move the capital again, to Heiankyō (

Kyōto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

). He was also made part of pantheon of

onryō In Japanese traditional beliefs and literature, are a type of ghost () believed to be capable of causing harm in the world of the living, injuring or killing enemies, or even causing natural disasters to exact vengeance to "redress" the wron ...

, "disgraced" figures enshrined at the Shinsenen in

, in 863, to appease (rather than banish) troubled, even vengeful, souls. The others were

Mononobe no Moriya was an '' Ō-muraji'', a high-ranking clan head position of the ancient Japanese Yamato state, having inherited the position from his father Mononobe no Okoshi. Like his father, he was a devoted opponent of Buddhism, which had recently been int ...

(killed 587), Prince Iyo (executed 807),

Fujiwara no Nakanari was a Japanese noble of the early Heian period. He was the eldest son of the ''chūnagon'' Fujiwara no Tanetsugu of the Fujiwara Shikike. He reached the court rank of and '' sangi''. Life When Nakanari's father Tanetsugu was assassinated ...

(executed 810),

Tachibana no Hayanari was a Heian period Japanese government official, calligrapher, and member of the Tachibana family. He travelled to China in 804, returning in 806. He died while traveling to exile in Izu Province for supposed participation in an imperial success ...

(died 842) and Bunya no Miyatamaro (died 843). The ''

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

'' of Prince Sawara is venerated at Sudō jinja in Shūgaku-in,

Yamashiro province was a province of Japan, located in Kinai. It overlaps the southern part of modern Kyoto Prefecture on Honshū. Aliases include , the rare , and . It is classified as an upper province in the ''Engishiki''. Yamashiro Province included Kyoto its ...

. The prince (Sawara''-shinnō'') was posthumously elevated as Emperor Sudō (Sudō''-tennō'').

Notes

References

* Plutschow, Herbert
"Tragic Victims in Japanese Religion, Politics, and the Arts,"
''Anthropoetics'' Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 2000/Winter 2001) * Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959)
''The Imperial House of Japan.''
Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society
OCLC 194887
750s births 785 deaths 8th-century Japanese people Japanese princes Suicides by starvation Suicides in Japan Year of birth uncertain Emperor Kanmu Deified Japanese people Sons of emperors {{Japan-noble-stub