Emperor Shōmu
E270955
Emperor Shōmu was an 8th-century Japanese ruler renowned for promoting Buddhism as a state religion and commissioning the Great Buddha and Tōdai-ji temple in Nara.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Emperor Shōmu canonical | 27 |
| Shōmu | 1 |
| Shōmu-tennō | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2441051 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Emperor Shōmu Context triple: [Nara period, notableEmperor, Emperor Shōmu]
-
A.
Emperor Monmu
Emperor Monmu was an early 8th-century Japanese sovereign whose reign helped consolidate the political and religious foundations of the emerging Nara state.
-
B.
Emperor Kanmu
Emperor Kanmu was a Japanese emperor best known for relocating the capital to Heian-kyō (Kyoto), thereby inaugurating the Heian period and shaping classical Japanese court culture.
-
C.
Emperor Nintoku
Emperor Nintoku was a semi-legendary early Japanese emperor traditionally credited with benevolent rule and associated with one of the largest keyhole-shaped burial mounds in the world.
-
D.
Emperor Daigo
Emperor Daigo was a 10th-century Japanese sovereign whose relatively stable and culturally vibrant reign is often regarded as a high point of the Heian-period imperial court.
-
E.
Emperor Shirakawa
Emperor Shirakawa was a Japanese sovereign of the late 11th and early 12th centuries who is renowned for pioneering the system of cloistered rule that shaped Heian-period politics.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Emperor Shōmu Target entity description: Emperor Shōmu was an 8th-century Japanese ruler renowned for promoting Buddhism as a state religion and commissioning the Great Buddha and Tōdai-ji temple in Nara.
-
A.
Emperor Monmu
Emperor Monmu was an early 8th-century Japanese sovereign whose reign helped consolidate the political and religious foundations of the emerging Nara state.
-
B.
Emperor Kanmu
Emperor Kanmu was a Japanese emperor best known for relocating the capital to Heian-kyō (Kyoto), thereby inaugurating the Heian period and shaping classical Japanese court culture.
-
C.
Emperor Nintoku
Emperor Nintoku was a semi-legendary early Japanese emperor traditionally credited with benevolent rule and associated with one of the largest keyhole-shaped burial mounds in the world.
-
D.
Emperor Daigo
Emperor Daigo was a 10th-century Japanese sovereign whose relatively stable and culturally vibrant reign is often regarded as a high point of the Heian-period imperial court.
-
E.
Emperor Shirakawa
Emperor Shirakawa was a Japanese sovereign of the late 11th and early 12th centuries who is renowned for pioneering the system of cloistered rule that shaped Heian-period politics.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Emperor of Japan
ⓘ
human ⓘ |
| abdicated | 749 ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
Daibutsu
ⓘ
Great Buddha of Nara ⓘ |
| birthDate | 701 ⓘ |
| burialPlace | Nara ⓘ |
| capitalDuringReign |
Heijō-kyō
ⓘ
linked to:
Nara
|
| child | Empress Kōken ⓘ |
| convertedTo | Buddhist monastic life ⓘ |
| country | Japan ⓘ |
| deathDate | 756 ⓘ |
| dynasty | Yamato dynasty ⓘ |
| era | Nara period ⓘ |
| eraNameUsed |
Jinki
ⓘ
Tenpyō ⓘ
linked to:
Nara period
Tenpyō-kanpō ⓘ Tenpyō-shōhō ⓘ |
| father | Emperor Monmu ⓘ |
| gender | male ⓘ |
| givenName |
Shōmu
ⓘ
linked to:
Emperor Shōmu
|
| implemented | kokubunji system of provincial temples ⓘ |
| issued | edict promoting Buddhism for protection of the state ⓘ |
| knownFor |
centralization of imperial authority
ⓘ
large-scale public works ⓘ strengthening ties between court and Buddhist clergy ⓘ |
| laterLifeRole | Buddhist monk ⓘ |
| mother | Empress Genshō ⓘ |
| nativeLanguage | Old Japanese ⓘ |
| nativeNameLanguage | ja ⓘ |
| notableFor | state sponsorship of Buddhism in Japan ⓘ |
| notableWork |
commissioning of the Great Buddha of Tōdai-ji
ⓘ
construction of Tōdai-ji temple ⓘ |
| occupation | monarch ⓘ |
| patronage |
Kōfuku-ji
ⓘ
Tōdai-ji ⓘ provincial monasteries ⓘ provincial nunneries ⓘ |
| policy | promotion of Buddhism as a state religion ⓘ |
| positionHeld | Emperor of Japan ⓘ |
| posthumousName |
Shōmu-tennō
ⓘ
linked to:
Emperor Shōmu
|
| predecessor | Empress Genshō ⓘ |
| reignEnd | 749 ⓘ |
| reignStart | 724 ⓘ |
| religion | Buddhism ⓘ |
| residence | Nara ⓘ |
| spouse |
Empress Kōmyō
ⓘ
linked to:
Empress Genshō
|
| successor | Empress Kōken ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Emperor Shōmu Description of subject: Emperor Shōmu was an 8th-century Japanese ruler renowned for promoting Buddhism as a state religion and commissioning the Great Buddha and Tōdai-ji temple in Nara.
Referenced by (29)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Emperor Shōmu
linked to: Emperor Shōmu
subject linked to:
bronze statue of Vairocana Buddha