5 - Abe-no-Yasuchika

【阿部泰親、abe no yasuchika】

['No' is the Japanese possessive particle, indicating that the previous noun or clause possesses the following noun or clause, so Abe-no-Yasuchika can be translated as Yasuchika of the Abe (Clan).]

He was the fifth-generation descendant of the famous onmyouji Abe no Seimei, and as a talented onmyouji himself, he was highly valued by Fujiwara no Yorinaga and Kujo no Kanezane, both powerful men of the time, and later rose to the highest rank in the Bureau of Onmyou, Onmyou-no-kami.

In particular, he is said to have been unrivaled in the art of divination and even predicted the downfall of the Heike clan.

According to the "Genpei Seisui-ki (Record of the Rise and Fall of the Genji and Heike)", he was called "Sasu-no-miko (Medium of Pointing)" because he divined things as if pointing at his palm (a Japanese idiom that means 'obvious') and never missed his predictions, and it is also said that he never suffered a single injury, even when struck by lightning.

In the legend of Tamamo no Mae, he recognized the Nine-tailed Fox and performed the "Festival of Taizanfukun (a Taoist deity of the dead, the deification of a mountain (Mount Tai) where the dead gather, but it had also become the main deity of Onmyoudou)", which is reported to be a powerful incantation, to drive out the fox spirit.

The astronomical record he left behind, "Yasuchika Ason's Records", describes the approach of the moon and a comet on May 3, 1166, and is currently the oldest written record of a comet's approach in Japan.

[Ason, or Asomi, is one of eight hereditary titles given by the Emperor, it is the second most venerable, given to clans believed to have originated from Imperial princes.]

4 - Abe-no-Seimei

【安倍晴明、abe no seimei】

['No' is the Japanese possessive particle, indicating that the previous noun or clause possesses the following noun or clause, so Abe-no-Seimei can be translated as Seimei of the Abe (Clan).]

The most famous onmyouji of the mid-Heian period.

According to legends passed down in books such as the "Tales of Times Now Past", Seimei was the child born of his father, Abe-no-Yasuna, and the incarnation of a white fox named Kuzunoha. Seimei's abilities were so great that when he was a child, he witnessed the form of an oni that no ordinary person could see, and the onmyouji Kamo-no-Tadayuki, amazed by his abilities, trained him in all aspects of Onmyoudou.

It is also said that Seimei had shikigami known as the twelve divine generals, which he was able to use at will, that reside under the Ichijou-modoribashi Bridge in Kyoto.

One day, a passing monk asked Seimei if it was possible to kill a man with a shikigami. Seimei was reluctant to use such a power, but he picked some grass nearby and put a shikigami in it, killing a frog that was standing there.

On another occasion, the distinguished onmyouji Ashiya Douman heard a rumor about Seimei and asked him for a contest of strength.

Douman turned a stone into a bird and Seimei turned it back into a stone, then Seimei made water spring up from the yard, which Douman made disappear. It seemed like their strength was an equal match, but during a trial to divine the contents of a box, Douman should have successfully divined the contents, but Seimei instantly transformed them into rats. Douman, amazed by such power, was said to have become Seimei's pupil.

Other legends that demonstrate Seimei's great ability include the story of how he discerned that two children brought by a monk who came to compare strength were shikigami, inferred the monk's intentions, and hid them through magic, and how he detected a curse by a shikigami sent to the Kuroudo-no-shoushou (Rough TL: Chamberlain's major general)[check ending TL note] and exorcised the shikigami back to its owner, causing the onmyouji's death. Countless legends show the greatness of Seimei's abilities.

However, the actual historical record of Abe-no-Seimei does not contain any such mystical legends. He succeeded to the posts of Daizen-no-daibu (Master of the Palace Table), Sakyou-no-daibu (Master of the Left Capital), and Harima-no-kami (Director of Harima), and in the prime of his life, as an Onmyou expert, he performed blessings and prayers, fortune-telling, and astronomical observations, and later received the court rank of junior fourth lesser as the Onmyou-no-kami (Director of Onmyou) of the Bureau of Onmyou. His actual character is a complete mystery.

However, his talent as an onmyouji was still outstanding, and it is said that Kamo-no-Tadayuki's son, Yasunori, recognized Seimei's power and transmitted the study of the calendar to his son, Kamo-no-Mitsuyoshi, and the study of astrology to Seimei, creating the monopoly of the Onmyouji profession by the Kamo and Abe clans from then on.

Even today, Abe no Seimei is revered as an exceptional onmyouji, and there are many shrines associated with him in various places, including the Seimei Shrine in Kyoto, the Abe no Seimei Shrine in Abeno, Osaka, where he is said to have been born, and the Seimei Shrine in Ibaraki Prefecture.

[All five untranslated titles come from the obsolete Ritsuryou system. It's immensely complex, so I'll just explain the parts I can to the best of my ability. 

Kuroudo-no-shoushou refers specifically to a major general that serves as a secretary of the Chamberlain, who manages imperial edicts. 

Daizen-no-daibu refers to the person in charge of the agency that prepared the court nobles' meals. 

Sakyou-no-daibu refers to the person in charge of the agency that dealt with justice, governance, and police within the capital, they specifically were in charge of the left of the capital. 

Harima-no-kami simply refers to the person in charge of the administration of the province of Harima, the same fundamental applies to other titles with "-no-kami".]

3 - King Ajase

【阿闍世王、ajase-ou】

[The Kanji, outside of 王 (meaning 'king'), are all phonetic, representing a sound instead of meaning.]

The king that ruled the ancient Indian Kingdom of Magadha during the 5th century B.C.

That is the name recorded in the Buddhist scriptures, his Indian name is Ajātaśatru.

According to legend, before his birth, it was foretold that King Ajase would bring about disaster to his father, King Bimbisara, in the future. Afraid of their own son, the king and queen attempted to have the child born atop a high place to kill him, but he came into this world safe and sound.

After Ajase reached adulthood, one day, he came across a pupil of the Buddha, Devadatta, an ambitious young man who planned to use Ajase's power to take over the Buddha's following by telling Ajase of his cursed destiny and tempting him to take control of the kingdom. Ajase, resentful of his fate, imprisoned his father, the king.

Having imprisoned his mother as well, he became king, but after a life of confinement, his father lost his life. Tormented by guilt over his father's death, Ajase was afflicted with illness.

At that time, it was his mother who devotedly nursed the suffering King Ajase. Realizing his mistake, King Ajase later converted to Buddhism and, as a good king, devoted himself to the subsequent development of Magadha.

Today, in psychology, there is a term called the Ajātase complex, which is derived from this anecdote, that manifests as anxiety, hostility, and fear that children feel when they catch a glimpse of their mother's repulsiveness as a human being.

[This complex comes from a different version of this anecdote which had Ajase's mother kill a hermit, as she was told that her child was to be the hermit's reincarnation and she was unable to wait, but the hermit told her that his reincarnation was going to curse his father and bring about calamity, so she also tried to abort him, but failed. Once the adult Ajase learned of that, he wished to kill his mother only to be stopped by a minister, after that, he suffered from guilt and fell violently ill. His mother nursed him, but it didn't seem to do anything, so she went to the Buddha for help, and after he healed her inner conflict, she was able to nurse him to health and he went on to become a great ruler.]