Shōtoku Taishi 聖德太子 (574–622), commonly known as Prince Shōtoku, the legendary regent of early-Asuka-period Japan and the foundational figure of Japanese Buddhism. Son of Emperor Yōmei 用明 and regent under Empress Suiko 推古, he is conventionally credited with the Seventeen-Article Constitution of 604, the establishment of the Hōryū-ji 法隆寺 (607), and the first systematic introduction of Buddhism into the Japanese imperial state. He is traditionally credited with three Buddhist commentaries — known as the Sangyō gisho 三經義疏 (“Commentaries on the Three Sutras”): the Hokke gisho 法華義疏 (on the Lotus), the Yuima gisho 維摩義疏 (on the Vimalakīrti), and the [[KR6f0059|Shōman gisho 勝鬘義疏]] (on the Śrīmālā). Modern scholarship is divided on whether Shōtoku himself authored these commentaries; some scholars (Imamura 1962) argue for early-Tang Chinese authorship with the Shōtoku attribution being a later devotional ascription, but the traditional ascription remains the working assumption in most contexts.
He died in 622 and was the subject of an extensive Japanese hagiographic-iconographic tradition continuing into the modern period.