Sugawara no Michizane
Sugawara no Michizane (菅原 道真/菅原 道眞, August 1, 845 – March 26, 903) was a scholar, poet, and politician of the Heian period of Japan.
He is regarded as an excellent poet, particularly in waka and kanshi poetry, and is today revered in Shinto as the god of learning, Tenman-Tenjin (天満天神, often shortened to Tenjin).
[2] He was born into a family of scholars, who bore the hereditary title of Ason (朝臣) which predated the Ritsuryō system and its ranking of members of the court.
His grandfather, Sugawara no Kiyotomo, served the court, teaching history in the national school for future civil bureaucrats and even attained the third rank.
[3] His training and skill with Classical Chinese language and literature afforded him many opportunities to draft edicts and correspondences for officials in the court in addition to his menial duties.
Modern research shows that many bureaucrats in the court, if they lacked sufficient reputation, were assigned at least one term in a remote province, and Michizane was no exception.
The theory is that if Michizane had been sent to Tang as an ambassador, he would have been removed from the center of power at the court, and he advised the emperor to abolish the envoys to avoid this.
In 901, through the political maneuverings of his rival, Fujiwara no Tokihira, who accused him of favouring Prince Tokiyo over the crown prince as the main successor to the emperor's throne, Michizane was demoted from his aristocratic rank of junior second to a minor official post at Dazaifu, in Kyūshū's Chikuzen Province where he and his entire family was banished.
The Imperial Palace's Great Audience Hall (shishinden) was struck repeatedly by lightning, and the city experienced weeks of rainstorms and floods.
Attributing this to the angry spirit of the exiled Sugawara, the imperial court built a Shinto shrine called Kitano Tenman-gū in Kyoto, and dedicated it to him.
He became the most notable example of an interesting spiritual transformation: a vengeful Japanese spirit, onryō or goryō, often a former aristocrat who was wrongfully killed, and consequently seeking revenge, becomes a benign deity through ritual pacification and posthumous honors.
[12] One of his waka was included in Fujiwara no Teika's Ogura Hyakunin Isshu: このたびは ぬさもとりあへず 手向山 紅葉の錦 神のまにまに Kono tabi wa Nusa mo toriaezu Tamuke-yama Momiji no nishiki Kami no mani-mani On this journey I have no streamers made of silk to offer up.
He felt deep sorrow that he would never see his precious plum tree in his residence in Kyoto again, so he talked endearingly to it: 東風吹かば にほひをこせよ 梅の花 主なしとて 春を忘るな Kochi fukaba Nioi okose yo Ume no hana Aruji nashi tote Haru o wasuru na When the east wind blows, flourish in full bloom, you plum blossoms!
