Born in Musashi province in 1465. Becoming a monk in his youth, he chose medicine as his path and spent twelve years in Ming China from 1487, studying Chinese medicine. He immersed himself especially in Jin-Yuan medicine — Li Dongyuan's theory of the spleen and stomach and Zhu Danxi's doctrine of nourishing the yin — and returned to Japan in 1498. Displacing the old Ishinpō-line prescriptions, he introduced to Japan an empirical medical practice grounded in new theory. This was the beginning of what came to be called the Goseiha (Later Generations School). Practicing and teaching medicine in the Kanto region, he took on Manase Dōsan as his disciple. Through Dōsan's work spreading medicine in Kyoto, the Goseiha became the mainstream of Japanese medicine from the late Sengoku into the early Edo period.

A man of fierce inquiry, who achieved the extraordinary feat of a twelve-year sojourn abroad at a time when such journeys were almost unheard of for Japanese. An empiricist who did not swallow new medical theories whole but tested them in actual clinical practice before rooting them in Japan. Passionate about training disciples, he was also an educator who nurtured a rare talent in Dōsan.

The Jin-Yuan medicine introduced by Sanki, transmitted through his disciple Manase Dōsan, spread across Japan and became the mainstream of Japanese medicine as the Goseiha until the early Edo period. It later yielded that place to the Kohōha (Ancient Prescription School) led by figures like Yoshimasu Tōdō, yet the Goseiha survives as a living current within modern Kampo. Because he did more than simply import Chinese medicine — Japanizing it through twelve years of study and post-return practice — Sanki can rightly be called one of the true founders of Japanese Kampo.