Theories abound about when this image--currently the subject of considerable debate in Japan's academic world--was made; most such theories judge from the clothes worn by the Prince and his attendants to assert either that it is a work dating from the late Hakuho period (645-710 C.E.) or that it is a Kamakura period copy.
現在日本学界でも論議が多いこの像は、製作時期においても太子及び脇侍王子の服飾から見て、後の白鳳時代の作品だと見る説と、鎌倉時代の模本と見る説が概して多い。