Crown Prince Motoi

Prince Motoi was born in 727 to Emperor Shōmu and Fujiwara no Kōmyō, the future Empress Kōmyō. Their daughter Princess Abe had been born in 718. Motoi was designated crown prince in the eleventh lunar month of his birth year. His appointment gave the court an infant male successor born to Shōmu and a daughter of Fujiwara no Fuhito. It did not mean that the child had begun to govern. [S01]

Motoi died in the ninth lunar month of 728. Shōmu had another son, Prince Asaka, whose mother was Agata Inukai no Hirotoji. Asaka survived Motoi but was never appointed crown prince. In 738, Princess Abe received that designation instead; she later ruled as Empress Kōken. The succession thus continued through Motoi's elder sister. No surviving personal actions can be securely reconstructed for the infant prince from these appointments. [S01]

His commemoration had a longer history. Tōdai-ji traces its beginnings to a mountain religious residence established in 728 to pray for Motoi after his death. The later Kinshōsan-ji became Yamato's provincial temple following the temple-building order of 741. The Great Buddha project followed in the 740s, with its dedication in 752. Motoi's memorial belongs to this earlier foundation; those subsequent undertakings were the work of a later court and religious community. [S02]