(467 — 15 March 539) was the 28th 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'')
宣化天皇 (28)
/ref> 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 25 January 536 to 15 March 539.

Legendary narrative

Senka is considered to have ruled the country during the early-6th century, but there is a paucity of information about him. There is insufficient material available for further verification and study. When

Emperor Ankan (466 — 25 January 536) was the 27th legendary Emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 安閑天皇 (27)/ref> according to the traditional List of Emperors of Japan, order of succession. No firm dates can be assigned to this ...

died, he had no offspring; and succession passed to his youngest brother , who will come to be known as Emperor Senka. Emperor Senka was elderly at the time of his enthronement; and his reign is said to have endured for only three years. Senka'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, Senka might have been referred to as or the "Great King of Yamato". During this reign,

Soga no Iname was a leader of the Soga clan and a statesman during the reign of Emperor Kinmei in the Asuka period. He was the first person to hold the position of ''Ōomi'' that can be verified with reasonable accuracy, in 536 A.D. Essentially what this me ...

is believed to have been the first verifiable ''

Omi is a hereditary noble title (''kabane'') of ancient Japan. It was given to the descendants of the Imperial Family before Emperor Kōgen. Along with ''Muraji'', ''Omi'' was reserved for the head of the most powerful clans during the Kofun period. ...

'' (also ''Ōomi'', "Great Minister"). 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 Nara. The

designates this location as Senka'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 ''Musa no Tsukisaka no e no misasagi'';Ponsonby-Fane, p. 419. however, the actual sites of the

graves 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 gravey ...

of the early Emperors remain problematic, according to some historians and archaeologists.

Genealogy

*Empress: , Emperor Ninken's daughter **, married to

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– ...

**, married to

** **Child (died early, gender unknown) *Consort: ** *Mother unknown **, married to

**, speculated as

's son

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. ; * 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. ; {{DEFAULTSORT:Senka 466 births 539 deaths Japanese emperors People of Kofun-period Japan People of Asuka-period Japan 6th-century monarchs in Asia 6th-century Japanese monarchs

Legendary narrative

Genealogy

Ancestry

See also

Notes

References