was a Japanese princess, born a daughter of

Emperor Kōnin was the 49th emperor of Japan, Emperor Kōnin, Tahara no Higashi Imperial Mausoleum, Imperial Household Agency according to the traditional order of succession. Kōnin's reign lasted from 770 to 781. Traditional narrative The personal name of ...

. Her mother was reported to be Princess Inoue—a daughter of

Emperor Shōmu was the 45th Emperor of Japan, emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 聖武天皇 (45)/ref> according to the traditional List of Emperors of Japan, order of succession. Shōmu's reign spanned the years 724 through 749, duri ...

, but there is another theory that her mother was Takano no Niigasa. After her father was enthroned as the

emperor of Japan The emperor of Japan is the hereditary monarch and head of state of Japan. The emperor is defined by the Constitution of Japan as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, his position deriving from "the will of ...

, Princess Sakahito became the 21st Saiō of the

Ise Grand Shrine The , located in Ise, Mie Prefecture of Japan, is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the solar goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami and the grain goddess Toyouke-hime (Toyouke Omikami). Also known simply as , Ise Shrine is a shrine complex composed of many Shi ...

in 772, while Princess Inoue and Prince Osabe—a son of Princess Inoue and a younger brother of Princess Sakahito—were confined in 773. After the deaths of Princess Inoue and Prince Osabe in 775, Princess Sakahito married her elder half-brother Prince Yamabe, whose mother was Takano no Niigasa. Prince Yamabe later became Emperor Kammu. A record claims that Emperor Kōnin attempted to make her the

empress regnant A queen regnant (: queens regnant) is a female monarch, equivalent in rank, title and position to a king. She reigns '' suo jure'' (in her own right) over a realm known as a kingdom; as opposed to a queen consort, who is married to a reigni ...

but failed. Ko, Dorothy; Haboush, JaHyun Kim; Piggott, Joan R. (2003)
''Women and Confucian cultures in premodern China, Korea, and Japan''

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

via

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

. p. 66. Emperor Kammu and Princess Sakahito had a daughter, Princess Asahara, but Princess Asahara died in 817 before Princess Sakahito's death in 829.

References

People of the Heian period People of the Nara period Emperor Kanmu Saiō Daughters of Japanese emperors {{Japan-royal-stub