Emperor Saga (嵯峨天皇) (786-842) was the 52nd imperial ruler of Japan. He was the second son of Kammu, and younger brother of Heizei, his predecessor. He ruled from 809 to 823.
Saga was a scholar of the Chinese classics and, according to legend, the first Japanese emperor to drink tea. He was renowned as a skillful calligrapher. Saga succeeded to the throne after the retirement of Heizei due to illness, and soon after his enthronement was himself ill. This gave Heizei an opportunity to forment a rebellion, which Saga put down in a bloody civil war.
Saga was a supporter of the Buddhist monk Kukai and helped him to establish the Shingon School of Buddhism by granting him the Toji temple in the capital Heian (present day Kyoto).
Saga was a scholar of the Chinese classics and, according to legend, the first Japanese emperor to drink tea.
Saga succeeded to the throne after the retirement of Heizei due to illness, and soon after his enthronement was himself ill. This gave Heizei an opportunity to foment a rebellion, which Saga put down in a bloody civil war.
Saga was a supporter of the Buddhist monk Kukai and helped him to establish the Shingon School of Buddhism by granting him the Toji temple in the capital Heian-kyō (present day Kyoto).
The role of the Emperor of Japan has alternated between that of a supreme-rank cleric with largely symbolic powers and that of an actual imperial ruler from the dawn of history until the mid-twentieth century.
Although the emperor performs many of the roles of a head of state, there has been a persistent controversy within Japan as to whether the emperor is in fact a true monarch in a political sense or merely a hereditary pretender, as a political servant of a constitutional parliamentary republic.
The acceptable imperial wives, brides for an emperor and for a crown prince, were even legislated into the Meiji-era imperial house laws, which stipulated that daughters of Sekke (the five main branches of the higher Fujiwara) and daughters of the imperial clan itself were primarily acceptable brides.
Feeds |
Contact