Disasters and Michizane’s Posthumous Rehabilitation

After Sugawara no Michizane died at Dazaifu in 903, deaths and disasters at the court came to be associated with his resentful spirit. Fujiwara no Tokihira, a leading figure in the government that had removed him, died in 909. Deaths among imperial heirs followed. These events made the punishment of Michizane a continuing subject of religious concern.

In 923, the court restored his rank and former office posthumously and annulled the order of demotion. Lightning struck the palace in 930, killing and injuring people, and renewed fears about his spirit. Rehabilitation had therefore preceded that famous lightning strike; it was not a single act undertaken only afterward.

The association shaped rites of appeasement and later worship of Michizane as Tenjin. The foundation at Kitano followed in 947, outside this event's 909–930 span. The beliefs had political and ritual effects because living people acted on them. Recording those effects does not establish that a dead person's spirit caused the deaths or lightning.