It is a japan forum after all and I suddenly realized that aside from all the wonderful anime and manga threads there seems to be precious little about japanese history. So I figured it would be best to start out a thread on the historical figures of japan so we can keep adding to them whenever we have information. Doing this not only brings the actual figures to light, it also fills in the history of Japan based on the biography of these figures.
I'm choosing to start with an old historical figure from the Heian era. His name was
Sugaware no Michizane and he was very famous for his poetry. However, his story stands as testimony on how being a scholar or professor could still lead you to the highest echelons of politics.
Sugawara no Michizane:
Sugawara no Michizane was born on March 26, 903 (yes that's just a three digit year! I can't believe it either ^_^)
His entire family were a bunch of scholars. Starting from his grandfather, his family served the court in teaching and other scholarly activities. His dad in fact began a school and taught special classes for the entrance examination to the national school etc.
Talented young Sugawara
aced his exams and got right into national school and continuing in the family tradition, he
joined the court as a scholar upon completion of his studies. As a scholar in court he also took on the
post of a government official.
Sugawara was
skilled in Chinese and oftentimes used this skill to
aid diplomatic negotiations with the foreign embassies of China. Aside from this Sugawara also ran the school his father founded. This not only shows his proclivity for academics but also stands to reason that his family was close knit and served together. He was eventually appointed
Monjo Hakushi, the highest professorial office at the university. This was a tremendous achievement and regardless of which era it was in, the fact that he got this post only means that he could pull a good few strings. Monjo Hakushi, although it sounds like a ninjutsu attack, was actually the
highest office achievable by a historian equivalent pretty much to getting a Nobel prize.
Like all stories however, once you go all the way to the top, there's only one way left to go.... DOWN!... and that's exactly what happened to Sugawara as well. He lost favor in the court and was, so to speak, "
demoted" to be governor of a province. Kinda makes you wonder how high he must have been if an act of stepping down still landed him as a governor
. Obviously though, this means that he lost his office as a professor. No mention has been made as to whether he continued to participate and run the private school his family started during this period.
Power is as addictive as wine and Sugawara kept his eyes open for any other opportunity to regain the favour that he had lost. As fate would have it, such an
opportunity presented itself when a political conflict arose between Emperor Uda and Fujiwara no Mototsune. Sugawara gave his advice to Mototsune and gained his favor resulting in him being called back to Kyoto.
Later in his life, he was
appointed ambassador to China ...
but get this... he ended up supporting the abolishment (removal) of such offices altogether (especially to China). Historians believe this move against his own office was motivated by the
decline of the Tang Dynasty.
Truth however might actually point to a
bigger irony in matters. As it turns out most japanese of that era were very l
iterate in written chinese but had
little to no knowledge of spoken chinese!!!! Michizane, as the nominated ambassador to China, couldn't very well ask for an interpretor when holding such an office
.
Having regained grace however, Sugawara rose to high positions of the imperial court under the grace of the Emperor. History however, has a strange way of repeating itself so in 901 he
fell into a trap of his rival Tokihira and was "
demoted yet again" to a minor official of Dazaifu.
That was sugwara's last fall and after his death, plague and drought spread and sons of Emperor Daigo died in quick succession. The Imperial Palace's Great Audience Hall (shishinden) was struck repeatedly by lightning, and the city experienced weeks of rainstorms and floods. If not for the absence of 70mm film, this could well have been the making of the film "mummy"
. Brendon Fraiser however seemed to have this written into his fate so these calamities were blamed on the dead Sugawara and his "torrential" rage (if you'll pardon the pun
).
In an attempt to pacify his raging soul, a shrine was built to honour him called Kitano Tenmangu in Kyoto. As with all skunky officials, they
posthumously restored his title and office, and gave him a clean slate just when he couldn't use it anymore ^^. What followed was nothing short of
apotheficiation and Sugawara was worshipped as Tenjin-sama, or kami of scholarship. Today many Shinto shrines in Japan are dedicated to him.
Incidentally the office of the ambassador to china was abolished as well and was attributed to "persuasive reasoning" from Sugawara (a.k.a all-hell-broke-lose-after-he-died
).... and that concludes the story of our first historical figure of Japan.
Stay tuned for more historical figures and feel free to post any more that you might know about