- Prince Sawara
Prince Sawara (757-785) was the 5th son of Prince Shirakabe (later
Emperor Kōnin ), by Takano no Niigasa. In 781 he was named heir-presumptive after his elder brother succeeded the abdicatedEmperor Kōnin as theEmperor Kanmu . In 785, the administrator in charge of the new capital ofNagaoka-kyō ,Fujiwara no Tanetsugu , was assassinated. Prince Sawara was implicated because of his opposition to the move of the capital.(along withOtomo no Yakamochi who was executed), exiled toAwaji Province , but starved himself (although a mystery remains) and died on the way there.He was made a Crown Prince by the
Emperor Kanmu after his wife died and his son fell ill (the son allegedly possessed by the spirit of Sawara) and was later that year made the posthumous Emperor Sudo (the only known case of this being done)and reburied in Yamato. The concerns caused led to the decision to move the capital again, toHeiankyō (Kyōto ). He was also made part of pantheon of ‘disgraced’ figures enshrined at the Shinsenen inKyōto , in 863, to appease (rather than banish) troubled, even vengeful, souls. The others wereMononobe no Moriya (killed 587), Prince Iyo (executed 807), Fujiwara no Nakanari (executed 810), Tachibana no Hayanari (executed 842) and Bunya no Miyatamaro (executed 843).Bibliography
-Herbert Plutschow, Tragic Victims in Japanese Religion, Politics, and the Arts (in Anthropoetics 6, no. 2 (Fall 2000 / Winter 2001) http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0602/japan.htm- http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/archive/anth0602.pdf
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