Sasaki Takatsuna

Who They Were

Sasaki Takatsuna (佐々木高綱) was a samurai commander who fought in the Genpei War, the conflict between the Minamoto and Taira clans that ended the Heian period and began the age of the shoguns. He was born in 1160, the first year of the Eiryaku era, into the Sasaki clan. His father was Sasaki Hideyoshi, and his mother was a daughter of Minamoto no Tameyoshi.

Takatsuna is remembered above all for two things: saving the life of Minamoto no Yoritomo at the battle of Ishibashiyama, and racing a rival warrior across the River Uji to be first into battle. He lived through the most violent decades of the twelfth century, then retired to a monastery and died in 1214.

Life and Career

Takatsuna was an infant during the Heiji Rebellion of 1159–1160, a failed coup in Kyoto that destroyed several branches of his family. He was spared that destruction and grew up in Kyoto in the household of an aunt. The Sasaki clan had lost its standing, and Takatsuna's early years were spent far from the centre of power.

In 1180, Minamoto no Yoritomo raised forces against the Taira and called for support. Takatsuna joined him. At the battle of Ishibashiyama, Yoritomo's first major engagement, Takatsuna saved Yoritomo's life. That act bound the two men together for the rest of the war.

The Genpei War ended with the destruction of Taira power, and Takatsuna took part in that final campaign. For his service he was rewarded with the post of shugo (守護), a provincial governor with military authority, over Nagato province at the western end of Honshu.

The most famous episode attached to his name is the race at the battle of Uji in 1184. Takatsuna and Kajiwara Kagesue are said to have ridden Yoritomo's white horse, Ikezuki, into the River Uji, each trying to be the first to engage the enemy. The story is told and retold in art and in war tales, and it is the image most often used when Takatsuna is depicted.

In 1195, Takatsuna retired to Mount Koya to become a Shingon priest. He handed his title, his land, and his material possessions to his son. He died on 8 December 1214 in the Chikuma district, in what was then Shinano Province and is now Matsumoto, Nagano.

Why They Matter

Takatsuna belongs to the generation that fought the Genpei War and, in winning it, created the political order that would define Japan for the next seven centuries. The shugo post he received was one of the instruments by which Minamoto no Yoritomo extended control over the provinces. Men like Takatsuna were the first holders of that office, and the office itself became a foundation of samurai government.

His career also shows how a defeated clan could recover. The Sasaki had been broken in the Heiji Rebellion before Takatsuna could even walk. He rebuilt the family's position by attaching himself to Yoritomo at the right moment and by performing a decisive act on the battlefield. That pattern — a ruined house, a gamble on a rising lord, a reward in land and office — recurs throughout the history of the period.

The Uji race gave Japanese literature and painting one of its most durable scenes. Takatsuna and Kajiwara Kagesue, two riders in the same river, competing for the honour of striking the first blow, is a story about rivalry inside an alliance, which is a theme the war tales return to constantly.

The Name in Japanese

The full name is written 佐々木高綱. It is read in kana as ささき たかつな, and in romaji as Sasaki Takatsuna. The family name comes first, as is standard in Japanese.

佐々木 (ささき, Sasaki) — the family name, in three characters.

• 佐 (さ, sa): "assist", "help". It appears in titles and in the names of offices, and here it opens the surname.
• 々 (repeats the preceding character): this is not a kanji with its own sound. It is a repetition mark, and it means "say the character before me again". So 佐々 is read ささ, "sa-sa".
• 木 (き, ki): "tree", "wood". Combined, 佐々木 is Sasaki, the name of the clan.

高綱 (たかつな, Takatsuna) — the given name, in two characters.

• 高 (たか, taka): "high", "tall", "elevated". It is a common element in male given names of this period, and it carries the sense of eminence.
• 綱 (つな, tsuna): "rope", "cable", and by extension "a line of descent", "a bond". In names it is read tsuna, and it appears in the names of many warriors of the era.

The name as a whole therefore reads, character by character, as "assist-assist-tree, high-rope". Meaning in Japanese names is not a sentence; the characters are chosen for sound, for tradition, and for the associations they carry. What matters for a reader is the reading: 佐々木高綱 is Sasaki Takatsuna, and the repetition mark in the middle of the surname is the reason the first element is written twice.

Legacy

Takatsuna's descendants carried the Sasaki name and its branches forward. One of them was Nogi Maresuke, the general of the modern Imperial Japanese Army, who traced his line back to Takatsuna.

His death in 1214 in the Chikuma district closed a life that had begun in the year of the Heiji Rebellion and had run through the whole of the Genpei War. He had outlived the conflict, taken a provincial governorship from its victor, and then given everything to his son and withdrawn to Mount Koya as a Shingon priest. The white horse Ikezuki, the River Uji, and the race with Kajiwara Kagesue kept his name in front of audiences long after the offices and the land had passed to other hands.