高山彦九郎On the southeast corner of Sanjo - Kawabata, in central Kyoto, is a statue of a kneeling man.
Takayama Hikokuro (1747-1793) was born in Gunma, north of Tokyo, into a lower-class samurai family.
He is facing in the direction of the Imperial Palace, a nod to his political sensibilities.
Like many, Takayama Hikokuro came to Kyoto as a student. While in Kyoto, he was dismayed by the lessening of stature and fortunes of the Imperial Family under the then dominant military government.
Little is known of Takayama, but he spent much of the rest of his life traveling the country and calling for power to be returned to the Emperor - and in this he was a man ahead of his times. More than a half century later, Ryoma Sakamoto and his band of warriors were active in the 1860s in Kyoto - and were also attempting to restore the power of the Emperor.
The statue was first placed at Sanjo Kawabata in 1868. During World War II, in November 1944, it was melted down to be used as a bullet or jeep or factory part.
A replacement, the current statue, was erected in 1961.
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