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Brief Lives

Prince Shōtoku (574-622)

B.V.E. Hyde looks at the statesman who fathered Japanese philosophy.

According to legend, the great sage Prince Shōtoku was able to speak as soon as he was born and was so wise when he grew up that he could attend to the suits of ten men at once and decide them all without error. He knew beforehand what was going to happen. He was the reincarnation of Queen Srimala and of the Indian monk Bodhidharma, and the manifestation of the Bodhisattva Guze Kannon. When the prince met a starving man on the side of the road, he provided him with food and water and also gave him his coat. The following day, he sent a messenger to check on the man, but he was already dead, so Shōtoku ordered that he be properly buried.

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