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 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.