Prince Shōtoku (574-622 CE) was a semi-legendary regent of Japan, revered for his patronage of Buddhism and credited with authorship of commentaries on Buddhist sutras, though the specific attribution of the "Tang Mingkong Private Annotation" to him is a scholarly debate. This annotation is associated with the *Lotus Sutra* (Saddharma-pundarika Sutra), a central text in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism.