As is the case with many leaders who seem larger than life in retrospect, Shotoku's biography is filled with stories that can only be described as legends. For instance, the Nihon shoki, Japan's first important work of history, reports that his mother gave birth to him without labor pains. This story was probably adapted from tales concerning the Buddha's birth; and as with the Buddha, it was said that the young prince—whose name was originally Umayado—could speak from birth.
It is known that Shotoku was the son of the emperor Tachibana and the princess Anahobe (ah-nah-HOH-bee), but other than that, few facts about his early life are clear. The first relatively certain date in Shotoku's personal history was 593. The year before, the emperor Sushun had been murdered by a member of the powerful Soga clan, and in 593 he was replaced by the empress Suiko (soo-EE-koh; ruled 593-628), Shotoku's aunt.
The Japanese emperors and empresses possessed plenty of outward symbols of power, as the splendor of their courts illustrated; but there have been very few imperial leaders in Japanese history who possessed actual power. The real influence lay in the position of regent, a person who rules in place of the emperor, and Shotoku's career began when his aunt bestowed on him this distinguished office.
Toghril Beg
Toghril Beg (tawg-REEL; c. 9901063) founded the Seljuk dynasty, the first Turkish ruling house to conquer the land today known as Turkey. Until Toghril's time, the region was known as Anatolia, and was part of the Byzantine Empire.
The term "Turk" describes a number of related peoples who came from a region in Central Asia to the north and west of China. They began moving westward in the 500s, and by the 900s the Seljuks—named after Toghril's grandfather—had emerged as a particularly powerful Turkish nation.
In 1040, Toghril helped his brother conquer what is now Afghanistan, but he kept moving westward into Anatolia. By 1040, he had conquered large areas of what is now Turkey—much to the chagrin of the Byzantines, who hoped to drive them out.
World History
