"When praying to Buddha, one should utter each word clearly, without breaking the rhythm or prolonging a syllable.
"When praying to Buddha, one should adjust one's pitch to accord with that of others. Pray neither too fast nor too slowly, and do not let the mind be disturbed by other thoughts."
These are two of the rules in the Buddhist Prayer Hall of the Nanputuo Temple in Xiamen, a coastal city bordering on the Taiwan Straits, in east China's Fujian Province.
To musicologists, these rules may seem like musical directions to guide the performance of this special kind of music: Buddhist chanting -- which involves both vocal and instrumental music.
However, for Buddhist followers, chanting is firstly a method of religious cultivation. It is practiced in all three branches of Chinese Buddhism: Han Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Southern or Pali Buddhism, though each branch has its own styles
Now, for the first time ever, music of all three schools of Chinese Buddhism is being presented in a "Chinese Buddhist Music Concert," which has just finished three performances in Taiwan, on February 20, 22 and 24, and will tour Macao and Hong Kong in early March. The ensemble will also present a concert each in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the United States and Vancouver in Canada, between March 21 and 30.
The performers are from eight famous temples and monasteries from both sides of the Taiwan Straits: Fo Guang Shan Temple in Taiwan Province, Nanputuo Temple in Fujian Province, Yunmen Temple and Anshou Temple in Guangdong Province, Shaolin Temple in the Songshan Mountains of Henan Province, Labrang Monastery in Gansu Province, the Yonghe Lamasery in Beijing and Main Buddhist Temple (Zhong Fosi Temple) in Yunnan Province.
The concert presents a world of diverse musical forms that are little known to most people, both inside and outside China. The programme includes vocal music like the chanting of the "Auspicious Sutra" of Southern Buddhism, instrumental music for a reading of the Great Vehicle (Mahayana) scriptures, originally from Mount Wutai, a sacred Buddhist mountain in Shanxi Province, and the performance of rituals that involve both music and dance.
The concert opens with "sa jing" (cleansing with water), a performance blending similar rites from the different schools of Chinese Buddhism. While a monk of the Han Buddhism sect sprinkles water on the floor, a bhikku monk of the Southern Buddhism scatters flower petals. Both rituals have the same purpose: to clean away worldly filth and plant wisdom in people's mind.
Another rite included in the concert is "Yan-kou-shi-shi," or "feeding the fire-spitting hungry ghosts," one of the best-known Buddhist rites in China, performed by monks from the Nanputuo Temple.
This rite requires the chanting of a powerful dharani (essences of sutras) seven times, during which one lump of solid food is said to be transformed into a limitless amount of food in a swallowable form sufficient to fulfill the needs of hungry ghosts.
Beyond this, this rite also helps to free the ghosts from their suffering and elevate them to a higher realm.
"Buddhism preaches mercy," says Guo Jun, one of the performers of this rite, "while in a Taoist rite a ghost might be killed with a sword, in this Buddhist rite ghosts are fed."
Guo Jun says that what they do on stage is not a complete and formal rite, so it can't really have its true effect, but the performance will help the audience know more about Buddhism.
Gyamyang Sangye, a lama from the Yonghe Lamasery, says that whether the rites performed at the concert have efficacy or not also depends on the audience.
The performance of the lamas from Yonghe Lamasery is part of tiaobuzha, the "exorcizing of ghosts" rite of the Gelupa (Yellow Sect) of Tibetan Buddhism.
Created by Tsongkhapa, the founder of the sect, tiaobuzha serves to remind disciples to refrain from prurience, corruption and killing. The ghost to be exorcized is, thus, not a real ghost, but rather an evil spirit, which might exist in anybody's heart.
Tibetan Buddhism involves more artistic elements in its religious activities than does Han Buddhism. With its music, dance, masked acting and storylines, tiaobuzha shares some common features with Tibetan Opera.
The rite is held in the Yonghe Lamasery in Beijing annually on the last day of the first month and first day of the second month of the Chinese lunar year.
The part of the tiaobuzha rite performed in the concert is basically taken from the 12th section of the rite. To the solemn sounds of the unique instruments of Tibetan Buddhism, such as the dung-chen (large horn) and dung (trumpet), the ghost is exorcized, symbolizing purification of people's minds.
"Everything that happens has its external and internal reasons," says Gyamyang Sangye. "What we do here on stage is the same as what we do in the lamasery, but it can help only those people who are ready to purify their minds."
Among the three schools of Chinese Buddhism, Southern Buddhism has the simplest religious rituals.
Southern Buddhism, or Pali Buddhism, was brought to Yunnan Province from Thailand and Myanmar.
Using Pali, a form of the Prakrit language of Hinayana Buddhism used in scriptures and liturgy, Southern Buddhists use neither instruments nor body movements when they chant.
"It might be easier to chant uniformly with instruments, as in Han Buddhism, but we can also achieve that as long as we are into it," says Pa Ying, a bhikku monk from the Main Buddhist Temple.
Probably because of the characteristics of the Pali language, the chanting of Southern Buddhism features frequent slides in its melodies. Pa Ying and four other bhikkus from the Main Buddhist Temple, who are all of the Dai ethnic group, demonstrate the style in their cadenced and melodious chanting of the "Auspicious Sutra."
While the music styles of Han Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Southern Buddhism may vary, they are all peaceful and solemn in mood, without any suggestion of excess.
"Chanting purifies one's heart and calms one's mind," says Guo Jun. "It is part of our daily lives."
A monk's life
Now 31 years old, Guo Jun became a monk when he was 17, at Jiuhuashan Mountain, a sacred Buddhist mountain in East China's Anhui Province.
Six years ago Guo Jun moved to the Nanputuo Temple.
Materially speaking, his life is not very different from that of the common people. He has a mobile phone, TV, DVD player and refrigerator. When he is free, he watches world news and TV series in his dormitory.
However, every morning, Guo Jun and other monks at the Nanputuo Temple rise at 4 o'clock. At half past 4, they begin their daily morning lesson, in which they chant the Surangama Sutra, the Great Compassion Incantation and the Heart Sutra. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon they begin their evening lesson, which includes Commentary on the Amitabha Sutra and the Rebirth Incantation.
It is because of years of practice that the monks, though not necessarily all gifted with good voices, always chant in perfect harmony.
Buddhist chanting has been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years.
However, a great deal of instrumental Buddhist music has been or is being lost because of lack of practice and not enough attention having been paid to handing it down, according to Tian Qing, director of the Center of Religious Arts at the Chinese Academy of Arts.
In an effort to preserve Chinese Buddhist music, in the last decade, the committee of the Chinese Audio and Video Encyclopedia has recorded and released 30 cassette tapes of Buddhist music from all over China.
As research and preservation work goes on, the great heritage of Chinese Buddhist music has been yielding up not only Buddhist music itself, but also samples of folk music and court music that have disappeared elsewhere.
But, conversely, some Buddhist music has been absorbed into other forms of music.
DohDar music, a kind of ritual music played at the Labrang Monastery to welcome visiting religious leaders, is a product of acculturation.
Instruments used in DohDar music are mostly those used in Han Chinese folk music, such as the dizi (bamboo flute), sheng (bamboo mouth organ) and yunluo (a set of gongs). The musical notation system use for DohDar music is a kind of Tibetanized gongchepu, the notation system used for most traditional Han folk music.
At the concerts, the lamas from the Labrang Monastery play DohDar music to accompany performances of the famous Shaolin kung fu. Together, they present Chinese Buddhist culture in a work that blends the static with the moving.
The Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Hymn Choir from Taiwan incorporates into their hymns more artistic elements, such as orchestral music and dance, than does the traditional Buddhist music of the Chinese mainland, making their version of Buddhist music closer to secular tastes.
In its long history, Buddhist music has not been isolating itself in the temples, but rather living in interaction with various forms of music. This process is still going on, and the tour of the "Chinese Buddhist Music Concert" will undoubtedly contribute to its continuance.
(China Daily February 25, 2004)
