Sakanoue no Tamuramaro

Born in 758 (Tenpyō-hōji 2) into the Sakanoue, a family of warriors of immigrant descent. His father Sakanoue no Karitamaro also made his name as a military officer.

Excelling from a young age in the martial arts and in command, he was employed as a general in Emperor Kanmu's management of the northeast.

In 797 (Enryaku 16), he was appointed Sei-i Taishōgun and led the expeditionary army to pacify the Emishi. From 801 to 802 he pacified Isawa (the area of present-day Ōshū City, Iwate Prefecture) and brought the Emishi leader Aterui into surrender.

Tamuramaro pleaded with the court to spare Aterui's life, but was not heeded, and Aterui was executed. Tamuramaro built Isawa Castle and Shiwa Castle as bases for the management of the northeast.

Kiyomizu-dera on Higashiyama in Kyoto is said to have been founded with his involvement out of devotion to Kannon. In the Kusuko Incident of 810 (Kōnin 1), as a general on the side of Emperor Saga, he blocked the Retired Emperor Heizei's move to the eastern provinces and quelled the coup.

He died of illness in 811 (Kōnin 2). He was fifty-four. He is said to have been buried standing and in armor, and to have been made a guardian deity protecting the capital.

In later ages he was passed down as a martial deity and hero in the 'Tamura tales,' and his title of 'Sei-i Taishōgun' was taken as the highest rank of the warrior order by the warrior governments from Minamoto no Yoritomo onward.

“To subdue the barbarians is not for the sake of killing. It is to bring peace to the people.”

Sakanoue no Tamuramaro was the first hero to lead the early-Heian management of the northeast and to embody the title of 'Sei-i Taishōgun' that later warrior governments took as their model.

Born into a family of warriors of immigrant descent, and combining martial arts, command, and devotion to Kannon, he left to later ages an ideal image of martial power and virtue.

In the pacification of the Emishi, the anecdote of his plea to spare Aterui's life conveys the conscience of a commander who was more than a mere conqueror.

In the Kusuko Incident of his later years, he quelled the coup almost without armed clash and supported the order of the early Heian period.

After his death he was revered even as an incarnation of the martial deity Bishamonten, and was passed down as a hero through the founding legend of Kiyomizu-dera and the 'Tamura tales.

' Four centuries later, when Minamoto no Yoritomo (this site's id 23) was appointed Sei-i Taishōgun as the head of a warrior government, the source of that title lay in the memory of Tamuramaro.

Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto is said to have been founded by Tamuramaro, and the Isawa Castle ruins in Ōshū City, Iwate Prefecture, as a base for the management of the northeast — each conveys the achievements of Tamuramaro to the present day.