Shiramine Jingu, The Demon Emperor and Soccer?

Emperor Sutoku is supposedly the son of Emperor Toba. I say “supposedly” because it is highly possible he is in fact the child of Toba’s uncle, Emperor Shirakawa and Toba’s wife. Shirakawa was also suspicious of the young Sutoku’s true parentage, which is why he made Sutoku emperor at the age of only 5.

Fueled by doubt and suspicion, Toba grew to hate Sutoku. After Shirakawa died, Toba ignored Sutoku’s bloodline and appointed his own son, Konoe, to be the next emperor. Unfortunately, Konoe died young, meaning Toba needed to appoint another emperor. Sutoku insisted that Toba make his son the new emperor but instead Toba gave Sutoku’s other brother Goshirakawa the throne. In doing so, Toba made it very unlikely that any of Sutoku’s sons would ever become emperor.  At this time, Japan was run by a cloister system in which it is the former emperor who controls government, instead of the young emperor. In this system that means that by preventing any of Sutoku’s family from becoming emperor, Sutoku could never control the government.

Alienated by the man he identified as his father and angry that his bloodline was ignored, Sutoku decided to go to war. In 1156 Sutoku began the Hogen War against Goshirakawa in order to restore his bloodline to power. Unfortunately, Sutoku miserably lost this war. He was captured and banished to the Sanuki region.

After going to Sanuki, Sutoku became deeply interested in Buddhism. Moved by the Buddhist ideologies, he began to regret his action during the war. In order to appease the souls of those who lost their lives in the Hogen War, he created a calligraphic copy of a sutra and sent it to Kyoto. However, Goshirakawa didn’t accept this sutra, in part because he thought it might curse him. He sent it back to Sanuki. When his sutra came back to him Sutoku burst into rage and said

[ 日本国の大魔縁となり、皇を取って民とし民を皇となさん。]

“I will be the demon of Japan and make the emperor a pauper and a pauper, the emperor.”

From this time on, he never cut his nails or hair, eventually resembling an “ogre”. Finally in 1164, he died in Sanuki, and his grave is still in Sanuki region today.

After his death a number of disasters plagued Japan at the same time for almost 100 years. His vengeful spirit had cursed Japan. To name a few of the events that people later attributed to Sutoku’s curse include: the Mogolian Invasion (110 years after death), the Onin War (203 years after death) and the Kinmon Incident that burnt down Kyoto Palace (700 years after death).

Finally, at the end of the Edo Period, Emperor Komei thought that the only way to appease Sutoku, was to return him to Kyoto. However, Emperor Komei died before he could do this.

After Komei’s death, Meiji became next in line for the throne, but he refused to become emperor right away. Instead, he insisted on forgiving the spirit of Sutoku and brining him home to Kyoto. He sent ambassadors to Sutoku’s grave and carried him to Kyoto, enshrining him in Shiramine Jingu. At last, for the first time in 700 years, Sutoku was home and Japan flourished during the Meiji Period.