地水火風空 chi sui ka fū kū Five Elements

地水火風空 Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

地水火風空, chi sui ka fū kū, names the five great elements of Indian and Buddhist doctrine, earth, water, fire, wind and space, the elements of which everything is made. The earliest Japanese example of their name, 五大, that the 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives is Kūkai's dedication of 821, and by the seventeenth century the five turn up in a lecture on the Tales of Ise, a noh chant-book, a horsemanship manual and a flower book as well as in a Tendai handbook and a divination manual. Miyamoto Musashi named the five books of his Book of Five Rings, dated 1645 at its close, for the same five characters, and in the last book gives 空 a swordsman's sense: the place where there is nothing, known by knowing what is. English has space for the doctrine's fifth in a dictionary of 1896 and void in the translation of 1974, for Musashi's 空 and, in the translator's note, for the doctrine's as well; a reader of the five needs to know 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 read here gives, the word for them is 五大, and the earliest Japanese example of that word the 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives is Kūkai's, in a dedication of 821 that prays for all that the five elements pervade and all in whom consciousness dwells. 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 place where there is nothing, known by knowing what is, and void is his translator's word, not the stupa's.

Overview

The sense. The five great elements of Indian and Buddhist doctrine, the elements of which everything is made; the fifth is space, 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 is sometimes 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, Japanese 虚空, a word whose Sanskrit senses run from space to sky and ether; the dictionaries give this 空 as 虚空・空間, space ^[2][3]. It is not the Buddhist emptiness śūnyatā, which Japanese writes with the same character, 空, and which is a different word ^[3]. The readings of the set are the Sino-Japanese ones, ち・すい・か・ふう・くう; beside them a divination manual of the early Edo period, read below, prints ソラ, sora, the everyday reading of 空. 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 ^[4].

The text in English. Brinkley's Japanese-English dictionary of 1896 gives the five as earth, water, fire, wind, and space ^[5]. 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 ^[6][7][8].

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 ^[9]. 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, when Kūkai's disciple 真済 compiled the collection ^[1][10]. The dedication opens 弟子苾蒭空海歸命兩部曼荼羅, I, the disciple and monk Kūkai, take refuge in the mandalas of the two realms, and near its close it turns to everyone who took part, 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 kind and the hostile, all that the five elements pervade, all in whom consciousness dwells: may they awaken to the letter A at the origin of all, and to the Three Jewels in the three mysteries ^[9]. The 1893 typeset reads the same, 讚毀, and carries the sentence on one page ^[11]. 五大所遍、心識所在 are the last of those the prayer names, set in parallel with the pairs before them, and 悟 is their verb: the dedication reaches all beings by the five elements and by consciousness, which together make the esoteric six, 六大 ^[12]. For the six as a doctrine, 六大, the dictionary cites Kūkai's 即身成仏義 and dates it about 823 to 824 ^[12].

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, the declaration at the first marking of the sacred bounds on Mount Kōya, 高野建立初結界時啓白文 ^[2]. The Keichō–Genna print reads, at the page, 沙門遍照金剛敬白十方諸佛〈略〉弁此中地水火風空諸鬼等, I, the monk Henjō Kongō, respectfully address the Buddhas of the ten directions … and the spirits of earth, water, fire, wind and space herein ^[13]; the 1893 typeset also reads 十方, and where the print has 此中 it reads 此山中, in these mountains ^[14]. The dictionary quotes the line as 敬白十万諸仏〈略〉并此山中地水火風空諸鬼等, with 十万 where both prints read 十方, the ten directions ^[2][13][14]. The dictionary dates it 1079, the year 済暹 gathered again the last three volumes of the collection, which had been lost, and 世界大百科事典 notes that those three volumes include pieces not by Kūkai ^[10]. 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 ^[2].

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 ^[15]. 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 ^[16].

The seventeenth century, a commonplace. In the National Diet Library's full-text index the five characters are in 62 items dated before 1868, Buddhist commentaries among them and as many books that are not ^[17]. Sōgi's lecture on the Tales of Ise, in his pupil 肖柏's notes, in a Saga movable-type print the National Diet Library dates 慶長14, 1609 (its record names 宗祇 as the lecturer, 肖柏 as the note-taker, and the print as 嵯峨本 古活字版): 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 sets the five against the fingers of the right hand, 右指方地水火風空, and a flower book of 1679, after the five colors to be set up for the boar day, 青黄赤白黒, blue, yellow, red, white and black, with purple for the black, 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 空, 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… ^[18]. 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 空: 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 ^[18]. It closes 空有善無惡 智は有也 利は有也 道は有也 心は空也, in 空 there is good and no evil; wisdom is, advantage is, the way is, and the mind is 空, 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. The dictionaries say he named the five scrolls for the Buddhist 五大 ^[19], and he defines 空 himself, for a swordsman: the place where there is nothing, known by knowing what is ^[18]; Bennett holds that the Buddhist doctrine was not Musashi's intention ^[8]. The typeset also prints, at the head of the last book, a copy's colophon, 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 is now in the hands of the 前田 family of 玉名 in Higo ^[18], and the dictionaries say no autograph survives ^[19]. 世界大百科事典 says the book is said to have been written from 1643 to the fifth month of 1645 and that doubts about its composition remain, and 日本大百科全書 names as the best text a scroll Terao made for 山本源介 in the fifth month of 1667, now in the Hosokawa family's 永青文庫 ^[19]; the typeset's colophon gives its copy the second month ^[18]. A second typeset, 『武術叢書』(国書刊行会 1915), gives the plan of the five scrolls in slightly different wording ^[20].

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 五行 of ancient Chinese thought, wood, fire, earth, metal and water, are a different five with a different logic of cycles and are not this set ^[21], though the 簠簋抄 runs the one into the other in a single sentence ^[16]. 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 Budd., Cont. form of Gorintō, and, marked Hindoo 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 ^[5]. 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, after a first sentence naming the school's way, goes on 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 ^[6]. 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 entryway ^[7].

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 (the comma after Void is missing as printed), and the judgment that even though the "five elements" point to Buddhist doctrine, this was not Musashi's intention ^[8]. Ether is one of the English words for the Sanskrit ākāśa, beside space and sky ^[3].

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 place where there is nothing, known by knowing what is. Void is Harris's English for it, and in his note for the doctrine's fifth as well; emptiness is Cleary's, ether Bennett's. Both readings are right about their own text, and a history should say which is which.

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

地水火風空VB4CBlock

地水火風空VC4BCursive

地水火風空VD5BEri's Choice

地水火風空VS4CSemi-Cursive

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. 「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
3. Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University Press, 2014, s.v. ākāśa and śūnyatā.
4. 「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
5. F. Brinkley, Nanjō Bun'yū and Iwasaki Yukichika, An Unabridged Japanese-English Dictionary, Sanseidō, 1896, s.v. Gorin and Gorin-no-tō (the shelf PDF, page 286).
6. Victor Harris (trans.), A Book of Five Rings, Overlook Press, 1974 (LC 73-33986; read in the 1982 paperback, fifth printing): the contents; the Ground Book's outline of the five books, p. 43, with notes 24 (Five books) and 26 (Void) on the same page; the Book of the Void, p. 95.
7. Thomas Cleary (trans.), The Book of Five Rings, Shambhala, 1993 (read in a later printing): the Earth Scroll's outline of the five scrolls, p. 14.
8. Alexander Bennett (trans.), The Complete Musashi: The Book of Five Rings and Other Works, Tuttle, 2018 (read in the ebook, which has no page numbers): the contents, the introduction, and the headnote to Scroll 5.
9. 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 4, 5, 6 and 7. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2543948/1/4 · 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
10. 「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
11. 空海, 性霊集, 巻七, 1893 typeset, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/819438/1/22
12. 「六大」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/六大-152663
13. 空海, 遍照發揮性靈集, 高野建立初結界時啓白文, Keichō–Genna print, vol. 5, scan 21. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2543949/1/21
14. 空海, 性霊集, 巻九, 高野建立初結界時啓白文, 1893 typeset, scans 32 and 33. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/819439/1/32 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/819439/1/33
15. 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
16. 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
17. 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 (item record: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/api/item/search/info:ndljp/pid/2555020) · 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
18. 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, scans 97, 101 and 141. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992019/1/97 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992019/1/101 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992019/1/141
19. 「五輪書」, 世界大百科事典・日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/五輪書-66594
20. 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
21. 「五行」, 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/五行-63672

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Sonnet 5 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; later additions and corrections have not been through an outside checker

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · November 2026

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.