One of the gravest assaults ever made on the Japanese imperial institution was launched by the Buddhist priest Dokyo in the 760s. Dokyo, who came from a clan of the low-ranking provincial aristocracy, gained the affection of the retired Empress Koken in 761 and proceeded to gather political power to himself; by the end of the decade he stood as the paramount figure in the court bureaucracy and had already begun to usurp imperial prerogatives. It was in 769 that an oracle from the shrine of Hachiman in Kyushu was reported to Nara: the god prophesied peace in the realm if Dokyo were proclaimed emperor. Koken (who had reascended the throne as Empress Shotoku), upon the advice of the god given her in a dream, dispatched Wake no Kiyomaro to Kyushu to ascertain Hachiman's true will. Kiyomaro returned to the capital with the famous oracle:
Since the establishment of our state, the distinction between lord and subject has been fixed.
Never has there been an occasion when a subject was made lord.
The throne of Heavenly Sun Succession shall be given to one of the imperial lineage;
wicked persons should immediately be swept away.
Although the priest took his vengeance upon Kiyomaro by exiling him to Osumi, Dokyo's own power soon dissolved, for the empress died in the following year and Dokyo was banished from the capital. He died three years later while serving in a lowly post at a temple in Shimotsuke.
