Wǔxiàng chéngshēn yì wèndá chāo 五相成身義問答抄
Question-and-Answer Compendium on the Doctrine of “Becoming-Buddha through the Five Aspects” by 濟暹 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle doctrinal treatise in question-and-answer form on the five-aspect attainment of Buddhahood (wǔ-xiàng chéng-shēn 五相成身, Skt. pañcākārābhisaṃbodhi) — the central meditative sequence by which the Shingon practitioner attains Buddhahood-in-this-body. The work is by Saisen 濟暹 (1025–1115), the great Tōji-Daigo-ji systematizer of the late 11th and early 12th centuries.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: the work is universally ascribed to Saisen in the Shingon catalogs; composition window ca. 1060–1115, within Saisen’s mature scholarly career. A copyist’s colophon dates the present transmission to Bunji 6 (1190), 2nd month, 29th day, copied at Myōji [no?] Ōmiya at the hour of the Horse, by an unnamed scribe age 55.
Doctrinal content: the work is structured as a sequence of wèn-dá (問答) pairs systematically arguing for the five-stage correlation between the pañcākāra meditative sequence and the five Shingon practitioner-grades of progressive attainment. The opening question runs:
Q1. Do the five aspects of becoming-Buddha correlate with the five grades of the Mantra Vehicle’s practitioner — namely (1) the arising of faith, (2) the contemplation-cultivation, (3) the partial-realization, (4) the cause-fulfillment, and (5) the fruit-fulfillment? A1. Yes, they do. Q2. Is there a clear scriptural witness for this? A2. Although there is no explicit canonical passage, the systematic correlation can be drawn from the writings of the various masters (rénshī 人師) and from the implicit witness of the yíguǐ ritual texts.
Saisen then proceeds through the technical correlations, citing An-ran 安然 (Annen)‘s Pútí xīn yì 菩提心義, Mind-Ground Contemplation Sūtra 心地觀經, and the standard Shingon scholastic apparatus. He distinguishes the two minds of ordinary beings (fánfū èr xīn 凡夫二心) — the first being the current-existence five-consciousness mind together with their associated mental-states, and the second the independent-head sixth-consciousness mind — and argues that the initial arousal of faith belongs precisely to these two pre-third-stage mental modalities.
The closing section of the work addresses the comparative ritual schema of the Vajra Realm vs. Garbha Realm: in the Garbha Realm the practitioner first establishes the ritual hall and then performs the three-mystery practice (relying on the assisting power of the chief deity); in the Vajra Realm, by contrast, the Jīngāngdǐng sūtra teaches that All-Meaning-Accomplished Bodhisattva (一切義成就菩薩, i.e. Śākyamuni in his pre-enlightenment form) is suddenly warned by the Buddhas of the ten directions appearing throughout space (“as densely as sesame seeds”), and instantly enters the Mantra-way for sudden Buddhahood. Hence the Vajra-realm sequence does not require prior establishment of a ritual hall; space itself is the dais.
The text is a key late-Heian witness to the systematic correlation of Mahāvairocana-sūtra and Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha practice-sequences in mature Shingon doctrine.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- The pañcākārābhisaṃbodhi is treated in David Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism (1987), and in Charles Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom (1998), among other studies of the Yoga Tantras.
- Japanese reference: Mikkyō daijiten s.v. Gosō jōjin.