Who Is Tenjin? Sugawara no Michizane as Scholar, Spirit and Kami

On the 25th of every month, stalls line the approach to Kitano Tenmangu in Kyoto from about six in the morning until nine at night. After sunset, roughly 350 stone lanterns and 250 hanging lanterns are lit. The shrine says the date comes from the man it honors: his birthday was June 25 and his death day February 25. He was a ninth-century scholar and official, and his cult began in fear, not in exams. This page starts with the record of his life. It then follows how dread of a dead man's anger became worship, and how that worship became the deity of learning that students know today.

The record of a life

Sugawara no Michizane was born in 845 into a family of scholars. The Dazaifu Tenmangu says he was composing classical Chinese poetry by the age of eleven and was a professor of literature by thirty-three. The Encyclopedia of Shinto adds that he helped edit two court compilations and wrote a collection of Chinese poems, and calls him perhaps the outstanding scholar and poet of his age.

Kitano Tenmangu says he became Minister of the Right in 899. In 901, under Emperor Daigo, he was demoted to a deputy post at Dazaifu, the government headquarters in Kyushu. He died there in 903.

Shrine pages and a Keio University description all tell this as a plot: Fujiwara no Tokihira, they say, accused him without grounds of plotting to replace the emperor with a younger brother. The Encyclopedia of Shinto also speaks of a plot to oust him, and adds that behind it lay complicated power struggles between the Fujiwara and Sugawara families. Every source consulted takes Michizane's side, and none sets out the accusers' case in its own words. The court itself later restored his office and rank.

From a grave to a cult

The sources differ on the grave site in 905. Dazaifu says a disciple raised a small shrine. The Encyclopedia names Umazake no Yasuyuki and a mausoleum that became the temple Anrakuji, later the model for the shrine.

Lightning and a wronged courtier

After Michizane's death, Keio's description says, misfortunes struck Tokihira's clan. The worst omen was a thunder strike on the Seiryoden palace hall, which killed some courtiers. The court came to believe the wronged man's disturbed spirit was at work. This is the belief known as goryo, which also appears under Onryo.

The deity that emerged was a composite. The Encyclopedia of Shinto says Tenman Daijizai Tenjin joins the thunder deity who rules the weather, Michizane's vengeful spirit, a Chinese deity honored with ox offerings, a Buddhist protector of the teaching, and the old heavenly kami. Kitano adds that ancient people revered rain-bringing thunder as Tenjin, and that its autumn Zuiki festival expresses the farming side of the faith. For the thunder strand, see Raijin.

Notice that the word "tenjin" is older than Michizane. The Encyclopedia reports that it was used before the ninth century, and that one shrine still honors a Tenjin of thunder and rain.

Two shrines that each claim headship

Kitano Tenmangu says it was founded in 947 on the oracle's word at Kitano, the northwest corner of the old capital. Its present main hall, built in 1607, is a National Treasure. Dazaifu Tenmangu stands over his burial site. Its present hall of 1591 rebuilds one of 919, which replaced the small shrine of 905.

Each presents itself as head of the Tenjin faith. Kitano calls itself the head shrine of about 12,000 Tenmangu and Tenjin shrines. Dazaifu says it heads more than 12,000. The Encyclopedia of Shinto says more than 10,000 shrines are dedicated to him. No source consulted gives a verified count, so treat all three as the shrines' and scholars' round numbers.

How a courtier became the deity of learning

His scholarship was real, but its popular fame grew late. Kitano says that in the Edo period, village temple schools hung his portrait in classrooms to ask for progress in study, which helped make him known as the "deity of learning." The Encyclopedia describes older layers first. In the Muromachi period he was counted among three poetry deities, and Zen legends sent him to China, where Zen painting represents him with a plum. In Edo puppet plays he appears as the patron of temple schools.

Dazaifu now describes him as the deity of learning, culture and the arts, and says Tenjin shrines are closely tied to plum blossoms. Kitano holds a plum-blossom ceremony on February 25.

How to read the sources

The records differ in kind, and each answers a different question.

• Court chronicles such as the Nihon Kiryaku, which the Encyclopedia quotes for the rumors after 923, record what people were saying.
• Oracle records, such as the account of the medium Tajihi no Ayako, explain how the Kitano site was claimed.
• Origin tales, the engi, give the cult's own story. The Encyclopedia dates the Kitano Tenjin Engi to the late twelfth century and notes that its illustrated Jokyu version of 1219 to 1222 is the fundamental text.

Pictures follow the texts. The Metropolitan Museum holds a set of five handscrolls of the Kitano legends dated to the late thirteenth century. Keio holds a fifteenth-century hanging scroll showing a monk's journey through hell with Tenjin, and notes over twenty kinds of Kitano scrolls.

Common mix-ups

• "Tenjin was always the exam deity." The shrine and the Encyclopedia trace the spread of that role to later centuries of schooling and poetry.
• "Tenjin and Raijin are one." The thunder deity is one strand of a composite, not the whole.
• "One shrine is the true head." Kitano and Dazaifu each make that claim for themselves.
• "The account of his fall is neutral history." Every source consulted sides with him.