Shishigatani Incident

What Happened

In the sixth month of Jishō 治承 (じしょう) 1 — the era name used in 1177 — a group of courtiers and monks met at a mountain villa in the Shishi valley (鹿ケ谷, Shishigatani) in the Higashiyama hills east of Kyoto. Their aim was to remove Taira no Kiyomori (平清盛, たいらのきよもり), the warrior who had come to dominate the imperial court, and to restore real power to the throne and the aristocracy. The plan never reached the point of action. It was discovered, and the conspirators were arrested and punished.

The meeting place belonged to Jōken Hōin (静賢法印, じょうけんほういん), a monk of high rank whose villa on Mount Nyoigatake (如意ヶ嶽, にょいがたけ) gave the conspirators a secluded site within easy reach of the capital. Secrecy did not hold. Word of the plot reached the Taira, and the arrests followed before any part of the scheme could be carried out.

Background

By 1177 the Taira family stood at the summit of Heian-period politics. Kiyomori had risen through the warrior ranks to the highest offices of state, married his daughter into the imperial family, and placed relatives in posts across the government. The court aristocracy, which had run the country's civil administration for centuries, found its offices, incomes and influence steadily reduced. Resentment was strongest among courtiers whose careers had stalled under Taira dominance, and among the great temples of Kyoto and Nara, whose estates and privileges the Taira had begun to touch.

The conspirators came from exactly those circles. Fujiwara no Narichika (藤原成親, ふじわらのなりちか) was a court noble of the Fujiwara line; Saikō (西光, さいこう) was a monk and a close associate of the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa (後白河, ごしらかわ); Shunkan (俊寛, しゅんかん) was a monk of the Tendai temple on Mount Hiei. Their plan centred on the retired emperor, the figure around whom opposition to Kiyomori could most plausibly be organised.

The Heian period (794–1185) had by this date run nearly four centuries, and the court-centred order it describes was under strain from exactly this kind of competition between the throne, the nobility and the warrior houses. The Shishigatani meeting belongs to the final decade of that order.

Why It Mattered

The plot failed, but its consequences ran far beyond the conspirators. The discovery gave Kiyomori grounds to strike at the network around the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa, and the punishments that followed hardened the division between the Taira and their rivals at court. The episode is counted among the events that pushed the Taira from dominance into open confrontation, culminating four years later in the Genpei War (源平合戦, げんぺいかっせん) of 1180–1185 and the establishment of warrior government under Minamoto no Yoritomo (源頼朝, みなもとのよりとも).

The incident also entered literature. Shunkan, exiled for his part in the plot, became the subject of the Noh play Shunkan (俊寛) and of episodes in the Heike Monogatari (平家物語, へいけものがたり), the great narrative of the Taira's rise and fall. For later centuries the Shishigatani conspiracy was remembered less as a political failure than as a story of loyalty, exile and revenge.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is 鹿ケ谷の陰謀, read ししがたにのいんぼう (shishigatani no inbō). It is also written 鹿ヶ谷の陰謀, with ヶ where ケ appears; the two forms are the same word. The name means "the Shishigatani plot" and takes its first element from the valley where the conspirators met.

Character by character:

• 鹿 — read しか (shika) on its own, meaning "deer". In this place name it is read しし (shishi), an older Japanese word for deer.
• ケ — read が (ga) here. This is a small katakana ケ used as a possessive or linking particle in place names, equivalent to の (no). It is not pronounced "ke" in this word.
• 谷 — read たに (tani), meaning "valley".
• の — the hiragana particle の (no), linking "Shishigatani" to the noun that follows, roughly "of".
• 陰 — read いん (in), meaning "shadow" or "hidden". In compounds it carries the sense of something concealed.
• 謀 — read ぼう (bō), meaning "plan", "scheme" or "plot".

Together 陰謀 (いんぼう, inbō) means "conspiracy" or "plot" — literally a scheme hatched in shadow. The full name therefore reads as "the Shishi valley conspiracy". The place name 鹿ケ谷 (Shishigatani) survives in Kyoto as the name of a district in the Higashiyama area, near the foot of Mount Nyoigatake.

Key Figures

Taira no Kiyomori (平清盛, たいらのきよもり) — the warrior leader whose dominance of the court the plot was directed against. The discovery of the conspiracy allowed him to move against his opponents at court.

Fujiwara no Narichika (藤原成親, ふじわらのなりちか) — a court noble and one of the named participants in the conspiracy.

Saikō (西光, さいこう) — a monk and participant in the plot, associated with the circle around the retired emperor Go-Shirakawa.

Shunkan (俊寛, しゅんかん) — a Tendai monk of Mount Hiei and a participant. His exile after the plot failed made him a figure of legend and the subject of a Noh play.

Jōken Hōin (静賢法印, じょうけんほういん) — the monk whose villa in the Shishi valley on Mount Nyoigatake served as the meeting place of the conspirators.

Taira no Norimori (平教盛, たいらののりもり) — a member of the Taira family connected with the record of the incident.