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Origin[]
Emperor Sutoku becoming demon, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
After Sotoku's abdication and exile, he devoted himself to monastic life. He copied numerous scriptures and offered them to the court. Fearing that the scriptures were cursed, the court refused to accept them. Snubbed, Sotoku was said to have resented the court and, upon his death, became an onryō. Everything from the subsequent fall in fortune of the Imperial court, the rise of the samurai powers, draughts and internal unrests were blamed on his haunting. Alternatively, he was said to have transformed into an Ootengu (greater tengu), whom, along with the nine-tailed kitsune Tamamo-no-Mae and the oni Shuten-dōji, are often called the three evil yōkai of Japan.