I'm sorry, my dear brother. It was all my fault. I shouldn't have done this on you... I swear I will never let this happen again.. My dear brother, please forgive me and don't destroy my people in this city again.."
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| The Emperor Kanmu Retrieved on June 19, 2012 from wikipedia |
The emperor Kanmu (桓武天皇:737-806 AD, the 50th emperor of Japan) are being enshrined in the Heian-Jingu Shrine. The shrine building was built for the exhibition in 1895 AD as a miniature of the ancient imperial palace (five-eighth in size) . Kanmu was the emperor who decided to move and settle in Kyoto for the first time in history and it had been the imperial capital city since then until Tokyo was appointed as the official capital city of Japan. After the exhibition, the government discussed how to re-use the miniature palace and decided to enshrine the emperor Kanmu as the guardian of kyoto, therefore this Heian Jingu Shrine is relatively newer than other shrines.
Before Kyoto, the imperial palace and the capital city had been in Nara. However, Kanmu decided firstly to move the place and capital city and settle in Nagaoka-kyo (currently Nagaoka- kyo city, Kyoto).
He had a young brother; the prince Sawara（早良親王）. Sawara was a buddhist monk in a temple when he was a child because he was not expected to be the Crown Prince but when Kanmu took over the crown from his father; The Emperor Kounin, the prince Sawara was asked to return to the palace and officially became the Crown Brother.
During his term as the emperor, Kaumu declared to move the palace and the capital city from Heijo-Kyo (Nara) to Nagaoka-Kyo to overcome geopraphic weakness that Heijo-Kyo had suffered (Heijo-kyo was surrounded by mountains and it was weak at canal transportation). He appointed one of his subordinates to a team leader of the move-project. However, unfortunately the team leader was assassinated by someone. who had objected to the new capital city.
At the time of Heijyo-Kyo, buddhist monks were influential to the politics which the impedial court had operated and the new capital city seemed to them the the court tried to cut them off from the politics by keeping them away from the palace. In this way, Buddhist monks were doubted for the assisination. Unfortunately, Sawara had had strong connections with buddist monks during his time in the temple, so Kamnu decided to capture him and eventually exiled him, although there were not clear evidences that the prince was involved in the assassination.
Sawara stopped eating to prove his innocence and died when he was on the way of exile. After the prince's death, the new Nagaoka-Kyo was built on schedule and Kanmu moved to the new city safely. Everything looked perfect but the glorious days didn't last for a long time.
Suddenly, heavy storm destroyed buildings, thunders sparked and its blaze roamed around the city. Drought made people starved, illness spread throughout the city. Many died, many suffered. Besides the devestation in the city, the emperor's son, mother and others who were closed to him suddenly died. Soon after those unfortunate events, Tte plagues happened to the emperorand his city was rumored as a curse of the prince; the prince turned into a haunting ghost and caused all of the plagues to torture his brother. As a result, Kanmu was forced to leave and abandon the city only ten years after his first move in Nagaoka-kyo.
The emperor decided to settle in Kyoto at last, but to avoid the curse from coming to him again, it is said that he appointed the four shrines as spiritual guardians in the north, east, west and south from his palace located in the center of Kyoto. By having the guardian shrines to cover the palace, he believed that the imperial palace will be protected by the sacred energy from the divinities.
More than 1,300 years passed since then, the shrines still exist in Kyoto, although the palace itself moved to a different place in Kyoto. Now, I would like to trace those shrines.
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| The Main Alter |
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| A spacious space in front of the main alter |
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| From the main gate |
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