A statesman of the early Kamakura period, founder of the Saionji family. Married to a niece of Minamoto no Yoritomo, he was imprisoned by the retired Emperor Go-Toba during the Jōkyū Rebellion of 1221 for his closeness to the shogunate, but after the court's defeat he rose with its backing to Chancellor of the Realm and dominated the court. He built the Saionji temple in Kyoto's northern hills, later the site of the Golden Pavilion, and took Buddhist vows in 1231. Brother-in-law and patron of Fujiwara no Teika, he sponsored the Shin Chokusenshū. His Hyakunin Isshu poem sees his own aging in a storm of falling blossoms.
花さそふ 嵐の庭の 雪ならで
ふりゆくものは わが身なりけり
The garden, where the storm lures the blossoms down, is white as snow — but what is truly growing old and falling is not the flowers; it is I myself.
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