A Buddhist priest was on a pilgrimage and came across the grave of an emperor.
A cold fog gathered and darkness embraced the sky.
An old man appeared before the priest, and he knew immediately that it was the spirit
of the dead emperor Sutoku.
The spirit announced that he had cursed Japan.
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In the year 1119, in the Heian Period, Emperor Toba had a son.
Yes, this was the same pervy Toba who was seduced by the nine-tailed fox Tamamo no Mae.
A scandalous rumor spread around the palace that his son was not his, but his grandfather’s.
I guess creep runs in the family.
Grandpa was Retired Emperor Shirakawa.
He was the real power behind the throne at this time.
Giving zero f-ducks about how suspicious it looked, grandpa forced Emperor Toba to abdicate
the throne in favor of his son, who became Emperor Sutoku at 5 years old.
Unlike the two other most evil yokai that we discussed, Emperor Sutoku was a real person,
and his story mostly happened in the real world.
Grandpa Shirakawa ruled behind the throne until he died in 1129, leaving the court in
the pervy hands of Retired Emperor Toba.
Toba hated his son, Emperor Sutoku, now an adult.
He didn’t believe it was his real son.
So Toba took a page out of his grandpa’s playbook,
play...scroll,
and convinced Sutoku
to abdicate in favor of another son of Toba’s, who was just 3 years old.
Sutoku himself had a son, but he also had a freakin duty to his father, and so he stepped
down in 1142.
Retired Emperor Toba’s 3-year-old became Emperor Konoe.
Toba distrusted his not-son Sutoku and sent Sutoku’s allies away from the capital, replacing
them with his own allies.
Sutoku was miserable, but a happy occasion took place in 1155 when Emperor Konoe got
sick and died.
Sutoku thought,
“Perfect time for me to enthrone my own son and take back the power
for myself.”
Retired Emperor Toba thought,
“Uhuh, you crazy, dog”
and propped up another son of his, who became Emperor Go-Shirakawa.
It was a huge blow for Sutoku.
His bloodline was clotted, it was forever blocked from the throne.
He was very mad.
That’s why when Retired Emperor Toba died soon after, it was then or never.
If he couldn’t do it politically, then he’d do it bash-headedly.
Sutoku and his allies rallied troops to seize the throne.
It was called the Hogen Rebellion, and it lasted shorter than this sentence.
There was just one battle, one disastrous battle.
Sutoku got his ass demolished so hard he won an AVN award.
After the court executed his allies and their families, they exiled Sutoku to Sanuki Province.
There, he yearned for the capital life he once had, but decided his ambitions were over
and devoted himself to Buddha and a quiet life of sitting cross-legged for hours at
a time.
Either to atone for the deaths his rebellion caused, or because there was nothing to do
in a monastery, he spent time sitting cross-legged copying holy documents to send to the capital.
Unfortunately, Emperor Go-Shirakawa thought Sutoku was using the documents to curse him,
and sent them back.
Okay now put yourself in Sutoku’s sandals.
Imagine your dad hated you, took away your power, and prevented your bloodline from advancing
to the throne.
Then you were forced to live the rest of your life in the middle of nowhere, shamed and
forgotten.
And now, you just wanted to do something good, give the court some holy documents, and they
wouldn’t even accept that.
It was said that he cut his finger and wrote a curse against the court in blood on the
documents.
“I will be a great demon of Japan.
I will make the emperor a commoner, and a commoner the emperor.”
He threw the papers into the sea and prayed day and night to be turned into a demon.
And then, intent on not helping his case at all, apparently he stopped cutting his nails
and hair, letting them grow until he looked like a monster.
In 1164, Sutoku died in obscurity, angry and humiliated.
Ah but this wasn’t the end of the story.
People often wrote about Emperor Sutoku and his curse, like the famous tale called Shiramine
that we started with.
In it, Sutoku’s spirit lamented about his life to a Buddhist priest and defended his
actions.
He also took credit for cursing Japan.
And then they recited poems got into a debate about ethics, it’s a weird story.
So did Sutoku’s curse do anything?
Well, they say there were some bad omens after his death.
His body stayed fresh even after being dead for 20 days.
One day, blood leaked into the ground beneath his casket.
And when he was cremated, the dark smoke from the cremation reached for the capital.
Some say his spirit turned into a tengu, which is a monster often depicted with a long erect
nose.
Others say he turned into an onryo, or a vengeful spirit.
In the subsequent years, misfortune repeatedly befell the country, and if you were any kind
of self-respecting Japanese, you’d blame them on Emperor Sutoku’s curse.
Some examples are…
Go-Shirakawa’s heir suddenly died.
The strength of the Imperial House diminished and military leaders accumulated power.
Natural disasters like droughts and earthquakes got annoying.
And then a civil war called the Genpei War ignited.
This is the reason Sutoku is called one of the three most evil yokai in Japan.
The war drenched the country in blood and shattered the authority of the Imperial House
for 700 years.
So actually the curse kind of came true, the emperor lost his power and a military clan
took over.
People also blamed Sutoku for a bunch of things like the Mongol invasion, the Onin War, and
when Kyoto Palace burned down in the Kinmon Incident, that’s 700 years after his death
by the way.
Emperor Meiji, before he became emperor, wanted to appease Sutoku and bring peace to the realm.
He brought Sutoku’s body from his grave in Sanuki to Kyoto and had him sealed in Shiramine
Shrine, letting him stay in the capital that he longed for in exile.
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