In 1177, at the mountain villa of the Bishop Shunkan at Shishigatani in Higashiyama, Kyoto, a secret plot to overthrow the Taira was hatched. It was betrayed by an informer; Fujiwara no Narichika, one of the ringleaders, was exiled and killed, and three men, Shunkan, Fujiwara no Naritsune and Taira no Yasuyori, were exiled to Kikaigashima, far off the coast of Satsuma.
Ships seldom came to the island, and people were few. The inhabitants were dark-skinned, like oxen, and their speech could not be understood. There were no fields, and the island produced only sulfur. Naritsune and Yasuyori, devoted to the gods of Kumano, made places on the island to stand for the three shrines of Kumano and prayed to return to the capital. Yasuyori wrote poems on a thousand wooden stupas and set them adrift on the sea. One of them, it is said, washed ashore at Itsukushima.
The next year, when the Empress Tokuko was with child, a general amnesty was declared to pray for a safe birth. The envoy of pardon reached the island and read out the letter. The names of Naritsune and Yasuyori were there, but not Shunkan's. However many times it was read, it was not there. "This must be a mistake," Shunkan cried. "We three were punished together; why am I alone not pardoned?" He took the letter in his hands and wailed.
When the ship was about to leave, Shunkan clung to its mooring rope and was dragged out up to his waist, up to his armpits, as far as his feet could touch. When he could no longer stand, he clung to the ship and begged, "Take me with you. At least as far as Kyushu," but the envoy from the capital would not allow it. Naritsune comforted him: "We will send someone from the capital for you soon." But the ship rowed away.
Shunkan came up onto the beach and fell face down, and like a small child crying for its nurse or mother, he stamped his feet and screamed, "Take me aboard, take me with you!" But as always with a ship rowing away, only white waves were left behind.
Later, when Ario, who had been Shunkan's page, visited the island, Shunkan was alive but wasted away. Hearing from Ario that his wife and children had died, Shunkan stopped eating and ended his own life.