Shōtoku

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Shōtoku (disambiguation) .

Painting of the Crown Prince from the 8th century, with his younger brother and son by his side

10,000 yen banknote with portrait of the prince (1958)

Shōtoku Taishi, painted by Kogan Zenji (1800)

Shōtoku Taishi ( Japanese 聖 徳 太子 , German Crown Prince Shōtoku ; * 574 , † April 8, 622 ) was a Japanese prince. As regent, according to tradition, he initiated numerous cultural reforms in the Asuka period of Japanese history . The prevailing opinion among Japanese historians today is that although he lived as a person, apart from the establishment of the Hōryū-ji temple in Ikaruga , no deeds can be proven.

Life

Shōtoku Taishi was the first son of Tennō Yōmei and his wife Hashihito. His proper name was Umayado no miko ( 厩 戸 皇子 , dt. Prince Umayado ). He is also known as Toyosatomimi or Kamitsumiyao. In the Kojiki Chronicle he is referred to as Kamitsumiya no Umayado no Toyosatomimi no Mikoto . In the Nihonshoki , besides being Umayado no oji , it is listed under several other honorary titles. The name Shōtoku Taishi is first mentioned in writing in the anthology of poetry Kaifūsō from the year 751, almost 130 years after his death.

Shōtoku married Ohime, the daughter of Empress Suiko . In 593 he was crown prince and regent for the Suiko-tennō and in 594 he raised Buddhism to the state religion in Japan . He founded several Buddhist temples and monasteries and wrote the 17 dispositions (Japanese 十七 十七 憲法 , Jūshichijō kenpō ) in 604 , which are considered the first legal document of Japan. In it, he promoted the adoption of mainland China culture, Buddhism, science and the arts. In 607 he initiated the sending of ambassadors to China during the Sui period ( 遣 隋 使 , kenzuishi ; from 618 to the Tang court , from then on as 遣 唐 使 , kentōshi , known). Around 620 he wrote the history books Tennōki and Kokki with Soga no Umako .

He is credited with the Sangyō gisho, a collection of three sutras commentaries [Taishō LXI, No. 2185-7] with the Hoke-kyō (skr .: Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra; jp. Copy 731), Yuima-kyō (skr .: Vimalakīirtinideśsūtra) and Shōman-gyō (Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra). The historian Fujieda Akira (1975), based on finds in Tun-Huang , takes the view that these commentaries are of Chinese origin.

Shōtoku died while Empress Suiko was on the throne. He laid the foundation for the Taika reforms .

Reception and aftermath

The figure of the prince appears idealized from the start. In the history of Japan, numerous sacred objects and statues have been attributed to his work over the course of time and are therefore regarded as particularly powerful. The prince himself also became more and more a supernatural figure, from whom people asked for benefits and protection. Shōtoku is still worshiped in Japan today. The monks of Hōryū-ji, for example, left the tradition of Hossō-shū and founded their own school, the Shōtoku-shū.

Ryōko Yamagishi drew under the title Hi izuru Tokoro no Tenshi a manga series of over 2,000 pages about the life of Shōtoku. In the comic strip drawn for a female readership, he is bisexual and has supernatural abilities.

literature

• Hermann Bohner : Shōtoku Taishi. 聖 徳 太子 (= German Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia. Messages. Supplement. 15, ZDB -ID 574252-3 ). Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, Tokyo 1940, (Review: Wilhelm Gundert in: Asia Major. NF Vol. 1, No. 1, 1944, ISSN  0004-4482 , pp. 159-178).
• Alexander C. Soper: Pictorial Biography of Prince Shotoku. In: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. New Series Vol. 25, 1967, No. 5, pp. 197-215, JSTOR 3258397 .

Web links

Commons : Shōtoku Taishi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Shōtoku in the catalog of the German National Library
• Bohner's source work (table of contents)