Taira
no Masakado
Taira
no Masakado
(平将門)
(?–March 25, 940)
was a member of the Kammu Taira clan of Japan.
He was the son of Taira no Yoshimasa, Chinjufu Shogun. His childhood name
was Sōma
Kojirō.
Taira no Masakado was a powerful landowner in the Kantō
region. He is regarded as the first bushi because he was the first to
lead a self-governing party.
His
life is detailed in the Shōmonki,
a detailed book compiled in the year 1099(?) about his life by an anonymous
author. Due to the religious and political nature of the account, it was most
probably written by a monk or aristocrat closely connected to Masakado
himself.
The
head found its way to Shibasaki, a small fishing village on the edge of the
ocean and the future site of Edo, which later became Tokyo. It was buried. The
kubizuka, or grave, which is located in the present day Ōtemachi
section of Tokyo, was on a hill rising out of Tokyo Bay at the time. Through
land reclamation over the centuries, the bay has receded some three kilometers
to the south.
Over
the centuries, Masakado became something of a demigod to the locals who were
impressed by his stand against the central government, while at the same time
felt the need to appease his malevolent spirit. The fortunes of the Edo and
Tokyo seemed to wax and wane correspondingly with the respect paid to the shrine
built to him at the kubizuka—neglect would be followed by natural
disasters and other misfortunes. Hence, to this day, the shrine is well
maintained occupying some of the most expensive land in the world in Tokyo’s
financial district facing the Imperial Palace.
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