The ‘Images of Five Visceral Spirits’ (五臓神形図) Appended to Kakuban’s Gorin kuji myō himitsushaku 五輪九字明秘密釈

Abstract

A number of studies on Kōgyō Daishi 興教大師 Kakuban’s 覚鑁 (1095–1143) famous work Gorin kuji myō himitsushaku 五輪九字明秘密釈 have been carried out by Seiryu Nasu, Yoshitoyo Yoshioka, Fumio Tanaka and Shunsho Manabe. In these studies, the overall contents of the aforementioned work have been sufficiently discussed. Nevertheless, specialized investigations on the diagram of the ‘Images of Five Visceral Spirits’ (五臓神形図abbreviated as ‘IFVS’) appended to Kakuban’s work remain incomplete, and especially its origin is not clearly known.

With regard to IFVS, 4 points have drawn the author’s interest. First, the male figured in the lung god’s image is holding a spear. Second, a boy and girl are figured in the liver god’s image. Third, the jade lady figured in the heart god’s image is holding a jewelled vase. Fourth, the gesture of the spiritual beast figured as the kidney god.

In this paper, the origin of IFVS, with focus on the above four points, will be discussed by examining materials found in a Tang period Taoist text called the Chart on the Procedures for Filling and Emptying the Six Receptacles and Five Viscera according to the Inner Landscape of the Yellow Court (Huangting neijing wuzang liufu buxie tu黄庭內景五臟六腑補瀉圖) by the priestess Hu Yin胡愔 (fl. 848).