Prince Arisugawa Takahito

Prince Arisugawa Takahito (有栖川宮幟仁親王, Arisugawa-no-miya Takahito-Shinnō, 17 February 1813 – 4 July 1886) was the eighth head of the Arisugawa-no-miya (有栖川宮家) house, one of the shinnōke branches of the Imperial Family of Japan, which were eligible to succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne in the event that the main line should die out.

He succeeded his father as the 9th head of the Arisugawa-no-miya house on 2 April 1845.

During the unsettled period just prior to the Meiji Restoration, when Sonnō jōi militants battled troops local to the Tokugawa Bakufu in the vicinity of the Kyoto Imperial Palace in July 1864, (an incident known as the Kinmon no Hen), Prince Arisugawa was punished for suspected collusion with Chōshū Domain and sentenced to house arrest.

In 1881, he resigned from his political posts and became head of the newly established Research Institute for Japanese Classical Literature (Kōten Kōkyūsho), the forerunner of Kokugakuin University).

The official copy of the Meiji Charter Oath was in his handwriting, and he supplied many inscriptions for various Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.