Wǔbù gānxīn jì 五部肝心記
Heart-Marrow Notes on the Five Families by 眞濟 (記)
About the work
A single-fascicle ritual-procedure compendium by Shinzei 眞濟 (800–860), Kūkai’s senior disciple at Takao-san-ji, presenting the essential meditative and ritual sequence (gān-xīn 肝心 = “heart-marrow”, the indispensable core) for the five-family abhiṣeka practice. Where the companion KR6t0172 Takao kuden is a wide-ranging notebook of Shinzei’s oral records, the present work is a focused step-by-step procedural manual for the central abhiṣeka contemplation.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: the work is universally ascribed to Shinzei in the Shingon catalogs; the dating window is 821–860, between the full establishment of the Takao-san-ji esoteric centre and Shinzei’s death. A copyist’s colophon dates the present transmission to Kyūan 4 (1148), 2nd month, 3rd day, copied at Daigo-ji (久安四年二月三日醍醐寺□□院書了), then “Bunji 5 (1189), 5th month, 7th day” for a further re-collation.
Doctrinal content: the work opens with the standard preliminary ritual sequence — taking seat (zhuózuò 著座), universal prostration (pǔlǐ 普禮), anointing with fragrance (túxiāng 塗香), the three-family armor (sānbù bèijiǎ 三部被甲), purification of the land (淨地), body (淨身), and three karmic gates (淨三業), and the five directional prostrations (wǔfānglǐ 五方禮). It then proceeds through the formal opening of the dais (kāibái 開白), the fivefold turning of merit (wǔhuí 五迴), the five great vows (wǔdàyuàn 五大願), the four immeasurables contemplation (sì wúliàng guān 四無量觀), and the adamantine mind-of-victory (shèngxīn 勝心).
The technical core of the work is the five-mudrā / five-wisdom sequence: adamantine wheel (jīn-gāng-lún 金剛輪) → earth-binding / four-bindings (dì-jié / sì-jié 地結／四結) → adamantine eyes (jīn-yǎn 金眼) → joined-palms / adamantine-bind / open-mind / enter-wisdom / unite-wisdom (合掌・金縛・開心・入智・合智) → Samantabhadra samaya (pǔ-xián sān-mèi-yē 普賢三昧耶) → paramārkaṇa (jí-xǐ 極喜) → Trailokyavijaya (jiàng-sān-shì 降三世) → lotus samaya → dharmacakra → great-desire / great-bliss-Amoghavajra (dà-yù / dà-lè bù-kōng 大欲・大樂不空) → summoning-of-sin / extinguishing-of-sin / removal-of-karmic-obstacles / arousal-of-bodhicitta (召罪・摧罪・業障除・成菩提心).
The final section, “stage of samādhi entry” (sān-mó-dì děng 三摩地等), instructs the practitioner to “close the eyes, seal the mouth, press the tongue against the palate, suspend the nose-line over the heart, form the discerning-wisdom mudrā, refine the breath until extremely subtle, and recite the mantra: ‘All dharmas are as illusion, as flame, as a gandharva-city, as a fire-wheel, as the echo in an empty valley; not seeing body or mind, dwelling in extinction, equal and final, the true wisdom.‘” The text thus links the elaborate ritual sequence directly to the anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi contemplation that is its ultimate goal.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- Standard Japanese reference: Mikkyō daijiten s.v. Gobu kanjin ki.