Sangi (Japan)

Pre-modern Japan
Part of a series on the politics and government of Japan during the Nara and Heian periods
Daijō-kan (Council of State)
Chancellor / Chief Minister	Daijō-daijin
Minister of the Left	Sadaijin
Minister of the Right	Udaijin
Minister of the Center	Naidaijin
Major Counselor	Dainagon
Middle Counselor	Chūnagon
Minor Counselor	Shōnagon
Eight Ministries
Center	Nakatsukasa-shō
Ceremonial	Shikibu-shō
Civil Administration	Jibu-shō
Popular Affairs	Minbu-shō
Military	Hyōbu-shō
Justice	Gyōbu-shō
Treasury	Ōkura-shō
Imperial Household	Kunai-shō

Sangi (参議^?) was an associate counselor in the Imperial court of Japan from the 8th century until the Meiji period in the 19th century.

This was a position in the daijō-kan, or early feudal Japanese government. It was established in 702 by the Code of Taihō.

In the ranks of the Imperial bureaucracy, the Sangi came between the Shōnagon (minor councillors) and those with more narrowly defined roles, such as the Sadaiben and Udaiben who were the administrators charged with oversight of the eight ministries of the government.

In an early review of the Imperial hierarchy, Julius Klaproth's 1834 supplement to Nihon Odai Ichiran conflated the hierarchical position with a functional role as the director of palace affairs.

Prominent among those holding this office were three brothers:

The position was eliminated in 1885. The House of Councillors (参議院 Sangi'in) and its members were named after it.

Any exercise of meaningful powers of court officials in the pre-Meiji period reached its nadir during the years of the Tokugawa shogunate, and yet the core structures of ritsuryō government did manage to endure for centuries.

In order to appreciate the office of Sangi, it is necessary to evaluate its role in the traditional Japanese context of a durable yet flexible framework. This was a bureaucratic network and a hierarchy of functionaries. The role of Sangi was an important element in the Daijō-kan (Council of State). The Daijō-kan schema proved to be adaptable in the creation of constitutional government in the modern period.