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Updated: June 14, 2025
But I suppose we may call Shotoku Daishi the Father of historical Japan; he who, about the end of the sixth century A. D., brought in the culture impetus from the continent. About that time, too, Siam rose to power; and soon afterwards T'ang Taitsong imposed civilization on Tibet. So there you have the 'Altaic' Race; Altaic, as Mr. Dooley is Anglo-Saxon.
The mighty Bodhisattva of Compassion, he who is the Saviour, was made manifest in this world as Shotoku the Prince, who, like a father, hath not forsaken us, and like a mother is ever amongst us. From that past where was no beginning until the day that now is, hath Shotoku the great prince, the Compassionate, dwelt among us like unto a father and a mother.
In short, he was building the edifice of a great reform, and to have pitted himself, at the age of nineteen, against the mature strength of the o-omi would have been to perish on the threshold of his purpose. By the contrivance of Umako, the consort of the Emperor Bidatsu was now placed on the throne, Prince Shotoku being nominated Prince Imperial and regent.
Imperial decrees eulogized its mountains and rivers, and people recalled a prediction uttered 170 years previously by Prince Shotoku that the place would ultimately be selected for the perpetual capital of the empire. The Tang metropolis, Changan, was taken for model. Commenced in April, 794, the new metropolis was finished in December, 805.
The Soga-uji held absolute power in every department of State affairs. One of the most remarkable documents in Japanese annals is the Jushichi Kempo, or Seventeen-Article Constitution, compiled by Shotoku Taishi in A.D. 604. It is commonly spoken of as the first written law of Japan. But it is not a body of laws in the proper sense of the term.
The high Prince Shotoku, he who hath guarded us and with great carefulness led us upwards from remotest times, hath lovingly entreated us to seek our refuge in the two-fold gift of the Enlightened One. Though I seek my refuge in the true faith of the Pure Land, Yet hath not mine heart been truly sincere. Deceit and untruth are in my flesh, And in my soul is no clear shining.
The Emperor Jomei spent several months at each of these, and Prince Shotoku caused to be erected at Dogo a stone monument bearing an inscription to attest the curative virtues of the water.
At this desperate stage Prince Shotoku then a lad of sixteen fastened to his helmet images of the "Four Guardian Kings of Heaven"* and vowed to build a temple in their honour if victory was vouchsafed to his arms. At the same time, the o-omi, Umako, took oath to dedicate temples and propagate Buddhism. The combat had now assumed a distinctly religious character.
It is certainly eloquent of the Yamato Court's magnanimity that it should have welcomed immigrants from a country with which it was virtually at war. Two years later , Shiragi and Mimana, acting in concert, sent envoys who were received with all the pomp and ceremony prescribed by Shotoku Taishi's code of decorum.
The memorial was approved. Since the days of the Empress Suiko, when the first kento-shi was despatched by Prince Shotoku, 294 years had elapsed, and by some critics the abandonment of the custom has been condemned. But it is certain that China in the ninth century had little to teach Japan in the matter of either material or moral civilization.
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