She was the daughter of Murasaki Shikibu and Fujiwara no Nobutaka [ja].^[1][2] Her given name was Katako (賢子),^[1][2][3] although the kanji can also be read as Kenshi.^[4]

In 1017, she joined to the court and served as a lady-in-waiting for Grand Empress Dowager Shoshi, the mother of Emperor Go-Icjijo. She was married to Takashina no Nariakira [ja] and produced a son in 1038, and she had a daughter with Fujiwara no Kanetaka [ja] in 1026.^[1] She also served as the nurse of Imperial Princess Teishi and Emperor Go-Reizei. When Emperor Go-Reizei ascended the throne, she was promoted.

Thirty-seven^[2] or thirty-eight^{[non-primary source needed]} of her poems were included in imperial anthologies from the Goshūi Wakashū onward.

One of her poems was included as the fifty-eighth in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu:

有馬山猪名の笹原風吹けば
     いでそよ人を忘れやはする
Arima-yama ina no sasahara kaze fukeba
ide soyo hito o wasure ya wa suru^[5]
At the foot of Mt. Arima the wind rustles through bamboo grasses wavering yet constant—there will never be a moment that I forget about you.^[6]
(Goshūi Wakashū 12:709)

She also produced a private collection called the Daini no Sanmi-shū (大弐三位集).^[1][2]

Some scholars have attributed the final ten chapters of her mother's magnum opus, The Tale of Genji, to her.^[2]

• Keene, Donald (1999) [paperback edition originally published in 1993]. A History of Japanese Literature, Vol. 1: Seeds in the Heart — Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 301, 478, 480. ISBN 978-0-231-11441-7.
• McMillan, Peter (2010) [first edition published in 2008]. One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Suzuki, Hideo; Yamaguchi, Shin'ichi; Yoda, Yasushi (2009) [first edition published in 1997]. Genshoku: Ogura Hyakunin Isshu (in Japanese). Tokyo: Bun'eidō.

• List of her poems in the International Research Center for Japanese Studies's online waka database.
• Daini no Sanmi on Kotobank (in Japanese).