Princess Tōchi
In 665, Tōchi was arranged to marry her father's nephew, Prince Ōtomo, a young man who was several years older than she.
His father, Prince Naka-no-Ōe, removed the capital of Japan from Asuka to Ōtsukyo in the Ōmi Province (today in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture) on 17 April (the 19th day, the 3rd month) 667 and acceded to the Imperial throne (Emperor Tenji) in 668, wishing him to be the next Emperor.
As Prince Ōama feared to risk his life threatened by Ōtomo's supporters if he accepts it, he refused his brother's proposal.
He got his head shaved, became a Buddhist monk and moved to a temple in Yoshino to show that he did no longer have an intention to stick to any political position.
As Tōchi was worried that her father might be killed, she secretly informed it of him by writing a letter in small piece of paper and pushing it into the belly of a grilled crucian sent to him as gift.
In the sixth month of 672, Prince Ōama left Yoshino with his supporters and proceeded eastwards to collect soldiers.
Prince Takechi, Tōchi's ex-boyfriend, played a leading role in attacking the government's troops.
Tōchi and her family were captured and sent to Asuka, where her father acceded to the throne and built a new palace.
Her father, being a new leader, was afraid that his family member's misconduct might have given a negative impact to his new administration and his country.
She composed a tanka to console her:[1] On seeing the crags on the long mountain flanks of Hata when Princess Tōchi made a pilgrimage to Ise Shrine: The thrusting, clustered Boulders on the riverbank Bear no trace of grace: Forever young, I too would be A maiden till the end of time.
The tanka means Fufuki's wish to stand by Tōchi with sorrow as a faithful servant till the end of time.
In 678, he issued an edict to tell her to be in a Shinto convent as a Saiō, who is considered as a servant for the god so marrying a man and meeting male people were strictly forbidden.
One of expected burial places is Himezuka (Princess' Tomb) in Nara, where Himegamisha Shrine was built in 1981.
One is that she was pregnant in the time of the Jinshin War, escaped to the east with Prince Ōtomo who was not killed at Otsu, and arrived together in the Kazusa province, where her husband was killed by a party of pursuers and she went deep into the mountains to the Tsutsumori neighbourhood where she died after miscarriage.
Local people of the neighbourhood felt pity for her, built a shrine and enshrined her spirit.
