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地水火風空 chi sui ka fū kū Five Elements

地水火風空 (chi sui ka fū kū) names the five great elements of Buddhist physics, earth, water, fire, wind and space. The 日本国語大辞典's earliest Japanese example of their name is Kūkai's dedication of 821. This study follows them to Musashi's Book of Five Rings of 1645, where 空 takes a swordsman's sense, and into English.

Japanese Scroll of Five Elements (chi sui ka fū kū) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Five Elements地水火風空chi sui ka fū kū

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

地水火風空, chi sui ka fū kū, names the five great elements of Indian and Buddhist physics, earth, water, fire, wind and space, of which everything is made. The earliest Japanese example of their name, 五大, that the 日本国語大辞典 gives is Kūkai's dedication of 821, and by the seventeenth century the five were a commonplace, in a lecture on the Tales of Ise, a noh play and manuals of horsemanship and flower arranging as well as in the Buddhist handbooks. Miyamoto Musashi named the five books of his 1645 Book of Five Rings for the same five characters, and in the last book gives 空 a swordsman's sense: not space, but the nothing that is known by knowing what is. English has carried both senses, space in a dictionary of 1896 and void in the translation of 1974, and a reader of the five needs to know which is which.

Overview

The sense. The five great elements of Indian and Buddhist physics, of which everything is made; the fifth is space, not sky and not emptiness.

The words. Chi sui ka fū kū. Five characters that name the 五大, the five great elements, Sanskrit mahābhūta: 地 earth, 水 water, 火 fire, 風 wind, 空 space. The first four are the 四大 of Indian thought; the fifth was added to them, and 世界大百科事典 says what it is: 空大は物質の存在する場所を要素として数えたものである, space counted as an element, the place in which matter exists [1]. That is the 空 of this set, Sanskrit ākāśa. It is not the sky, which is what the character means in ordinary Japanese, and it is not the Buddhist emptiness śūnyatā, which is written with the same character and is a different word. The readings of the set are the Sino-Japanese ones, ち・すい・か・ふう・くう; the kun readings, mizu, hi, kaze, sora, are the characters' everyday readings and not the doctrine's. Esoteric Buddhism adds a sixth, 識, consciousness, to make the 六大. The five-ring stupa, the 五輪塔, is the five stacked from the earth up, a square, a sphere, a triangle, a half-moon and a jewel; デジタル大辞泉 says it began in esoteric Buddhism in the middle Heian period as a figure of the cosmic Buddha, 大日如来を意味したが、のちには供養塔・墓標などとされた, and later served as a memorial and a grave marker [2].

The text in English. Brinkley's Japanese-English dictionary of 1896 gives the five as earth, water, fire, wind, and space [3]. Musashi's translators differ on the fifth: Void in Harris's translation of 1974, Emptiness in Cleary's of 1993, Ether in Bennett's of 2018 [4][5][6].

The historical record

821. Kūkai, a dedication for the two great mandalas painted on behalf of the four benefactors, in the 性靈集, in a print of the Keichō to Genna years. The dedication gives its own dates: 謹從弘仁十二年四月三日起首至八月盡奉圖大悲…, reverently, from the third day of the fourth month of Kōnin 12 to the end of the eighth month, we painted the great mandala of compassion …, and, of the finished work, 都二十六鋪取九月七日聊設香花供養, twenty-six hangings in all; on the seventh day of the ninth month we made a modest offering of incense and flowers [7]. Kōnin 12 is 821. 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives this text as its first example of 五大 and dates it about 835, the year Kūkai's disciple 真済 compiled the collection [1][8]. Signed 弟子苾蒭空海, the dedication turns to everyone who helped, of every rank and every attitude, and then states the doctrine, in a run that crosses a leaf of the print: 合掌低頭讚毀見聞親踈恩 ‖ 怨五大所遍心識所在悟阿字於本初覺三寶於三密, those who joined their palms and bowed their heads, those who praised and those who slandered, who saw and who heard, the close and the distant, the grateful and the hostile: wherever the five elements pervade, there consciousness is; may they awaken to the letter A at the origin of all, and to the Three Jewels in the three mysteries [7]. The 1893 typeset reads the same, 讚毀, and carries the sentence on one page [9]. 五大所遍、心識所在: the five elements and consciousness are everywhere together, which is the esoteric six in one line. For the six as a doctrine, 六大, the dictionary cites Kūkai's 即身成仏義 and dates it 823 to 824 [10].

The five as one string. For 地水火風空 itself, the dictionary's first example is from the ninth volume of the same collection, Kūkai's declaration at the first marking of the sacred bounds on Mount Kōya: 敬白十万諸仏〈略〉并此山中地水火風空諸鬼等, I respectfully address the Buddhas of the ten directions … and the spirits of earth, water, fire, wind and space in these mountains [11]. The dictionary dates it 1079 because the last three volumes of the collection were lost and were gathered again that year by 済暹, and 世界大百科事典 notes that those three volumes include pieces not by Kūkai [8]. The dictionary's own reading of the string is ちすいかふうくう, also ぢすいかふうくう [11].

Early Edo, a Tendai handbook of terms, 『天台圓宗四教五時西谷名目』. The five with the sixth, mapped onto the body for a student: 士夫六界者地水火風空識也地者人肉身水人血火人煗氣風人息空鼻穴識心也仍人身云物無此地水火風空識可無正體物, the six realms of a person are earth, water, fire, wind, space and consciousness: earth is a person's flesh, water the blood, fire the warmth, wind the breath, space the nostrils, consciousness the mind; so there is no such thing as a person's body, and these six have no substance of their own [12]. 空 as the nostrils is space in its plainest sense, the hollow through which the breath passes. The catalogue dates the print to the Kan'ei era.

Early Edo, a divination manual, 『簠簋抄』. The five as the everyday frame of yin-yang lore, and glossed with the readings the set still has: 五形ト者地水火風空也又五色也, the five forms are earth, water, fire, wind and space, and also the five colors, with チ・スイ・クワ・フウ・クウ printed beside the five and ソラ, sky, beside 空 on the other side. In the second volume the manual runs the five straight into the Chinese cycle of the 五行: 既ニ地水火風空ノ五大テ云時土コク水水コク火火コク金金コク木等ト皆コクスル也, when one speaks of the five great elements, earth, water, fire, wind and space, then earth overcomes water, water fire, fire metal, metal wood, and all overcome [13].

The seventeenth century, a commonplace. In the National Diet Library's full-text index the five characters are in 62 items dated before 1868, most of them Buddhist commentaries, but not only those [14]. Sōgi's lecture on the Tales of Ise, printed in 1609: 人の一身は地水火風空にむすはれて人身をうくる物也, a person's one body is bound together of earth, water, fire, wind and space, and so receives a human form. A noh chant-book of about 1623, at the stupa: いかに地水火風空「五体五輪ハ人の体. A horsemanship manual of 1629 names the fingers of the right hand for the five, and a flower book of 1679 tells the arranger 地水火風空とこゝろへべし, take them as earth, water, fire, wind and space.

1645. Miyamoto Musashi, 『五輪書』, the Book of the Earth and the Book of Space, in the 1909 typeset of the 宮本武藏遺蹟顯彰會. In the first book he explains the plan: 一此兵法の書五卷に仕立る事 五ツの道を分ち、一まき一まきにして其利を知らしめんが爲に、地水火風空として、五卷に書顯す也、地の卷に於ては兵法の道の大體、我一流の見…, on making this book of strategy in five scrolls: to divide the way into five and let each scroll teach its own advantage, I write it out in five scrolls as earth, water, fire, wind and space; in the scroll of earth, the outline of the way of strategy and my school's view… [15]. The last book opens by saying what 空 is to a swordsman: 二刀一流の兵法の道、空の卷として書顯はす事、空と云心は物每のなき所、しれざる事を空と見たつる也、勿論空はなき也、有所を知りて無所を知る是則空也, writing the way of the two-sword school as the Book of Space: the meaning of 空 is the place where there is nothing; what cannot be known we take as 空; of course 空 is nothing; to know what is and thereby know what is not, that is 空 [15]. It closes 空有善無惡 智は有也 利は有也 道は有也 心は空也, space has good and no evil; wisdom is, advantage is, the way is, and the mind is space, and is dated 正保二年五月十二日 and addressed 新免武藏 to 寺尾孫之丞殿. Musashi's 空 is the Buddhist term worn as a swordsman's: not the sky, but the nothing that is known by knowing what is. The typeset also prints, at the head of the last book, the colophon of the copy it was set from, 寛文七年二月五日 寺尾夢世勝延 to 山本源介殿, a 1667 transmission; the book's editors say the original was in the hands of the 前田 family of 玉名 in Higo, and the dictionaries say no autograph survives, dating the work to the years 1643 to 1645. A second typeset, 『武術叢書』(国書刊行会 1915), has the same sentence in slightly different wording [16].

The dictionaries today. デジタル大辞泉, 五大: 仏語。万物をつくる五つの要素。地・水・火・風・空の五大種, a Buddhist word: the five elements of which everything is made. ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 gives the lineage from the Indian schools through the Sarvāstivāda to esoteric Buddhism's six and the five-ring stupa: 密教ではこれらの5元素を哲学的形而上学的にとらえ，識と合せて，この6つが宇宙を構成する要素であるとする。五輪の塔はこの思想に基づく [1].

What is not a source. The Chinese 五行, wood, fire, earth, metal and water, are a different five with a different logic of cycles and are not this set, though the 簠簋抄 runs the one into the other in a single sentence [13]. The five-ring stupa is a use of the doctrine, not its source. Musashi's book is the reason many readers know the five and not the reason they exist.

The word in English

1896. Brinkley's dictionary. Under Gorin, 五輪, marked as Buddhist, Cont. form of Gorinto, and, marked as from Hindu literature, The five elements or bodies: earth, water, fire, wind, and space; and Gorin-no-tō, a monument composed of five sculptured layers of stone, one on the top of another [3]. The doctrine's 空 is space here.

1974. Victor Harris, A Book of Five Rings. His contents run The Ground Book, The Water Book, The Fire Book, The Wind Book, The Book of the Void; his Musashi names the five as Ground, Water, Fire, Tradition (Wind), and Void. His note on the book's title gives the doctrine in the same words: The "Go Dai" (Five Greats) … are the five elements which make up the cosmos: ground, water, fire, wind, void; his note on the last calls the void, or Nothingness, a Buddhist term; and his Book of the Void opens What is called the spirit of the void is where there is nothing. It is not included in man's knowledge. Of course the void is nothingness. By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist. That is the void [4]. Void is Harris's word for Musashi's 空, and he uses it for the doctrine's fifth element as well.

1993. Thomas Cleary, The Book of Five Rings. Fifth is the Emptiness Scroll. The reason this scroll is entitled Emptiness is that once we speak of "emptiness," we can no longer define the inner depths in terms of the surface [5].

2018. Alexander Bennett, The Complete Musashi. SCROLL 5: The Ether Scroll (Kū-no-Maki), with the note that the word is otherwise known as Void, Emptiness, Nothingness or Heaven, and the judgment that even though the "five elements" point to Buddhist doctrine, this was not Musashi's intention [6]. Ether is the older English for the doctrine's ākāśa.

Today. One doctrine and two readings of its fifth word. From Kūkai to the dictionaries the five are the stuff of everything, and 空 among them is space, the place matter occupies, the hollow the breath goes through; Brinkley's English says space. Musashi takes the five as the names of his books and, in the last, reads 空 for a fighter, the nothing that is known by knowing what is. Void is Harris's English for it, emptiness Cleary's, ether Bennett's. Both readings are right about their own text, and a history should say which is which.

A reading

Five characters that need no argument and one that needs a sentence. The five are the doctrine in the order every source gives, the word for them is 五大, and the earliest Japanese writing of them the great dictionary knows is Kūkai's, in a dedication of 821 that says the elements and consciousness are everywhere together. By the seventeenth century they were how anyone might name the parts of a body, a flower arrangement or a hand on the reins. The needed distinction is about 空: to the doctrine it is space, to Musashi it is the nothing known by knowing what is, and void is his translator's word, not the stupa's.

References

  1. 「五大」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典・ブリタニカ国際大百科事典・世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/五大-65026
  2. 「五輪塔」, デジタル大辞泉・世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/五輪塔-66586
  3. F. Brinkley, Nanjō Bun'yū and Iwasaki Yukichika, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, 1896, s.v. Gorin and Gorin-no-tō.
  4. Victor Harris (trans.), A Book of Five Rings, Overlook Press, 1974: the contents; the Ground Book, from p. 37, with the notes on Five books and Void; the Book of the Void, from p. 95.
  5. Thomas Cleary (trans.), The Book of Five Rings, Shambhala, 1993, the Earth Scroll's outline of the five scrolls.
  6. Alexander Bennett (trans.), The Complete Musashi: The Book of Five Rings and Other Works, Tuttle, 2018: the contents, the introduction, and the headnote to Scroll 5.
  7. 空海, 遍照發揮性靈集, 巻七, 奉爲四恩造二部大曼荼羅願文, Keichō–Genna print, vol. 4, scans 5, 6 and 7. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2543948/1/5 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2543948/1/6 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2543948/1/7
  8. 「性霊集」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典・世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/性霊集-79978
  9. 空海, 性霊集, 巻七, 1893 typeset, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/819438/1/22
  10. 「六大」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/六大-152663
  11. 「地水火風空」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/地水火風空-565888
  12. 天台圓宗四教五時西谷名目, Kan'ei era print, scan 13. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532197/1/13
  13. 簠簋抄, Kan'ei era print, vol. 1 scan 31 and vol. 2 scan 51. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544460/1/31 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544461/1/51
  14. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search for 地水火風空, sorted by date: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=地水火風空&fullText=true&sortKey=ISSUED&order=ASC · 伊勢物語聞書, 1609, scan 64: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2555020/1/64 · 謡本, about 1623, scan 6: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1288035/1/6 · 驊騮全書, 1629, scan 34: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544137/1/34 · 仙傳書, 1679, scan 25: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2536096/1/25
  15. 宮本武蔵, 五輪書, in 宮本武蔵 (宮本武藏遺蹟顯彰會編, 金港堂, 1909), ch. 9, scan 101 and scan 141. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992019/1/101 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992019/1/141
  16. 五輪書, in 武術叢書 (国書刊行会, 1915), scan 128. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/128

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations; the s358 gate's additions and corrections have not been through an outside checker

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 地水火風空 (chi sui ka fū kū)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/chi-sui-ka-fu-ku.