Sutoku ascended to the throne in 1124 at the age of four when his father Emperor Toba retired. He ruled until 1141, and then was forced to abdicate by his father. This created feelings of bitterness between the two of them that never faded. Toba’s favorite son, the three-year-old Konoe, then ruled until his death at the age of seventeen. Sutoku expected that if not he, at least his son Shigehito would be given the throne, but Toba instead passed the power to Sutoku’s younger brother Go-Shirakawa. Bifukumon-In, the concubine who had borne Toba his son Konoe, urged this course of action because she believed that Sutoku had cursed Konoe out of his bitterness over being forced to abdicate and that this curse had caused his death.

Sutoku attempted an uprising against Go-Shirakawa with the aid of Fujiwara no Yorinaga, his father Tadazane, and various members of the Minamoto/Genji and Taira/Heike clans. These two mid-ranking clans were split in their loyalties at this time. Minamoto Tameyoshi led Sutoku’s forces along with his son Tametomo, and Taira no Tadamasa was also a part of his forces. Supporting Go-Shirakawa were Tameyoshi’s son Yoshitomo, Tadamasa’s nephew Kiyomori, and Yorinaga’s brother Tadamichi. The actual battle only lasted one day. Sutoku’s forces were quickly overwhelmed in an attack on his Shirakawa mansion in the night and attempted retreat. Yorinaga was killed by an arrow during the initial escape, and Sutoku was captured as he sought asylum as a monk. The generals on Sutoku’s side were the first people to be executed in about 347 years, and Sutoku himself was exiled to Sanuki in Shikoku. This conflict became known as the Hōgen no Ran, Hōgen referring to the name of the era in which it took place, an era which spanned only from April 1156 to April 1159. It signaled the beginning of Japan’s transition into shogunate rule, and the details of the battle and its consequences were famously recounted in the Hōgen Monogatari (保元物語), or the Tale of the Hōgen Period.

During Sutoku’s exile in Sanuki, he received few visitors and lived a modest life for someone who once held such high rank. Over three years, he copied the Five Sutras of the Greater Vehicle by hand. Hoping to attain some sort of sort of salvation through this, he sent a letter to his younger brother Kakushō asking him to have the sutras placed in a temple in Kyoto. Go-Shirakawa refused to do so, saying that Sutoku’s crimes were too great for even his handwriting to be allowed out of exile, thus sending him into a state of despair. According to the Hōgen Monogatari, he vowed to turn the power of the sutras into an evil one as vengeance on the Imperial throne. Sutoku bit off the tip of his own tongue and used the blood to write a curse on the sutras before casting them into the sea. Afterwards, he stopped cutting his hair and nails and wore dirty soot-stained clothes, taking on the appearance of a “mountain-goblin.” After eight years in exile, he died in 1164 and was cremated at Shiramine. The Hōgen Monogatari goes on to attribute various occurrences to Sutoku’s angry spirit (onryō), including Yoshitomo’s early death, the body of a minister who had advocated the executions of Sutoku’s men being dug up and displayed along the highway, and the deaths of several of Go-Shirakawa’s family members as well as his house arrest.

Partially because of the various misfortunes that befell those who opposed him, a goryō (vengeful aristocratic spirit) cult began to form around Sutoku in much the same way as one did around Sugawara no Michizane. This was fueled both by his supporters reentering the capital and by Go-Shirakawa’s fear of retribution. In 1177 after Go-Shirakawa was placed under house arrest for plotting to depose Taira no Kiyomori, he began to take measures to pacify Sutoku’s spirit. He began with issuing an order for people to stop referring to Sutoku as “Sanuki-In”, meaning roughly “the retired emperor in exile,” and resume usage of the name “Sutoku.” He also ordered a series of lectures on the Lotus Sutra to be conducted at Jōshōji, a temple Sutoku had constructed during his reign, and restored Yorinaga to his original rank. About 20 years after Sutoku’s death, rumors of his blood curse began to circulate, further spurring Go-Shirakawa’s pacification efforts. He had two shrines constructed in 1183-84 for Sutoku: one at the site of his palace during the Hōgen Rebellion and one at Jōshōji. The shrine at Shirakawa Palace was finished in 1184, and upon its completion, Fujiwara Norinaga- one of Sutoku’s exiled allies- proclaimed that people should revere Sutoku’s evil spirit as a divine spirit from now on. Shortly before his death in 1192, Go-Shirakawa ordered an image hall to be constructed as well in Sanuki. Even after all these projects, rumors about Sutoku’s spirit quickly died down after Go-Shirakawa’s death. Despite this, the idea of Sutoku as a spirit would still be represented in art and literature throughout the following centuries.

Before Go-Shirakawa’s efforts at pacifying Sutoku’s spirit even began, the poet Saigyō composed poetry along his pilgrimage to sites associated with the retired emperor in 1168. One of the poems was included in the Hōgen Monogatari and was also used in the noh play Matsuyama Tengu. He composed this poem at Sutoku’s gravesite in the mountain temple Shiramine and performed memorial services. It is unclear whether part of the reason he did this was rumors circulating about Sutoku’s angry spirit.

In the Edo period, Ueda Akinari and other kokugaku scholars revived the idea of Sutoku’s curse. Akinari contributed to this by writing the first chapter of his collection of stories, Ugetsu Monogatari, about the meeting between Saigyō and Sutoku’s spirit at his gravesite in Shiramine. Some disciples of one of the most influencial kokugaku scholars, Hirata Atsutane, theorized that Sutoku’s rumored curse was not meant to affect only those who wronged him, but all of Japan. They attributed the drowning of infant emperor Antoku, the loss of the sword Kusanagi (one of the three imperial regalia), and the establishment of shogunate rule in Japan to Sutoku’s curse. The idea that his curse had caused the fall of the imperial house from power became so popular that one scholar even wrote a memorial to the imperial throne saying that imperial rule could not truly be reestablished until Sutoku’s spirit was pacified. Emperor Kōmei, the last emperor before the Meiji restoration, began the construction of a shrine in Kyoto intended to welcome Sutoku’s spirit back from exile. The project was completed under Emperor Meiji, and in 1868 on the anniversary of Sutoku’s death, a ritual was conducted in Shikoku to move his spirit to the capital. A wooden picture and a reed flute that Sutoku had owned were taken to Kyoto and enshrined in the newly built Shiramine Shrine. Only two days later, the Meiji Period officially began with the naming of the new era. With Sutoku’s spirit returned to its rightful place in the capital, the imperial line was once again “unbroken,” helping to legitimize the restoration of imperial rule after hundreds of years of shogunate rule.

Two shrines dedicated to Sutoku can be visited today in Kyoto: the Shiramine Shrine and the Yasui Shrine. People commonly visit the Shiramine Shrine to pray before sporting events, as the god Seidaimyojin is enshrined there alongside Sutoku and another deceased emperor. September 21^st every year, Sutoku is celebrated there and noh plays are performed on a special stage in his honor. Yasui Shrine, originally the location of Fuji Temple was built in the 7^th century and restored by Sutoku during his reign. It burned down during the Onin War, but a different shrine was moved to the location in 1695. Prayers were offered to Sutoku and two other important figures, and the shrine was renamed to its current name towards the beginning of the Meiji Restoration. People visit the shrine to pray for the end of bad relationships in their lives.

This play tells a story based on Saigyō’s pilgrimage to Sutoku’s gravesite. When he arrives at Sanuki, he meets an old man who leads him to it. Upon reaching the grave and seeing it in such a state of disrepair, Saigyō composes a poem. This is a poem the actual Saigyō wrote for Sutoku on his pilgrimage in 1168:

Yoshi ya Kimi Even though, my Lord

Mukashi no tama no In days gone by, jewel-bright

Yuka totemo Were your palace floors,

Kakaran nochi wa After all has come to this

Nanika ni kawasen What can be the use of it?

The old man accompanying Saigyō is greatly moved by this. He then recites the poem Sutoku wrote in his letter and disappears. This part creates the implication that Sutoku visited Saigyō disguised as the old man before appearing to him as a tengu in the second act. He and the other tengu throw a feast for Saigyō, and Sutoku performs a dance. As he dances, though, he remembers his sadness over being exiled and becomes angry. The tengu dance and comfort him, and then they fly off into the night.

There are a number of prints that feature Sutoku as part of their subject matter, both as a human and as a tengu.

Imagining Exile in Heian Japan: Banishment in Law, Literature, and Cult

by Jonathan Stockdale

The rise of medieval warrior tales: Hōgen monogatari and Heiji monogatari

by Elizabeth Oyler

Shiramine Shrine article - thekyotoproject.org

by Chiaki Imanaka

Yasui Shrine article - thekyotoproject.org

by Hajime Yozaki and Naoko Iseki

Supernatural beings from Japanese noh plays of the fifth group : parallel translations with running commentary

by Chifumi Shimazaki and Stephen Comee

Pictures of the heart : the Hyakunin isshu in word and image

by Joshua S. Mostow

Hōgen monogatari : tale of the disorder in Hōgen

translated by William R. Wilson

Ugetsu monogatari : tales of moonlight and rain : a complete English version of the eighteenth-century Japanese collection of tales of the supernatural

translated by Leon M. Zolbrod

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogura_Hyakunin_Isshu

https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/online/highlights/view/entries/150

Images:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Emperor_Sutoku2.jpg

http://mesosyn.com/myth2j-Demons.html

https://aminoapps.com/c/fate-stay-night-1/page/item/emperor-sutoku/Ywmk_DkFXI00rVZkEQ6aVgXBRXRb168JKJ

http://otogi.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor_Sutoku

http://ayakashi-ghost-guild.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor_Sutoku#Story%20Form