Study of Chinese Buddhist music plays a key role in understanding the root of Korean Buddhist music because Korean Buddhism has accommodated Mahayana Buddhism of China. Also, studying Chinese Buddhism is crucial to the research of Korean traditional m...
Study of Chinese Buddhist music plays a key role in understanding the root of Korean Buddhist music because Korean Buddhism has accommodated Mahayana Buddhism of China. Also, studying Chinese Buddhism is crucial to the research of Korean traditional music since Buddhist culture and music is supposed to be the foundation of Korean traditional music. However, up to the present, there has been no research at all regarding Chinese Buddhist music in Korea. So, this study first inquires into the historic development of Chinese music. Then, the relationship between Chinese Buddhist music and Korean Buddhist music is examined.
According to the Japanese monk Ennin's writing, Silla immigrants who settled in the Shandong 山東 region of China employed Buddhist ritual style of Tang 唐 and Silla alternatively in the Pŏphwawŏn 法華院 temple. Masters of scriptures (經師) and preaching (唱導師) performed Buddhist rituals and preaching using Buddhist chants and hymns during the Tang dynasty. It is noteworthy that professional masters of preaching captivated many Buddhist believers with beautiful voices in those days. Also, Tang period was the heyday of the literature and the prevailing verse style of the period was that of Silla, namely, pŏmp'ae 梵唄.
It was the latter Tang period when Master Chin'gam (眞鑑 774~850) went the China for study. At that time, Chinese Buddhism has completely accommodated Indian Buddhism and Chinese Buddhist culture was in it's golden age. So Buddhism for the laymen, such Pureland thought, Avalokitêśvara (觀世音) devotion, and Ten King faith (十王信仰) flourished. As Buddhist preaching for the ordinary people (俗講), combined with the popular arts, was in vogue, Buddhist doctrines were taught through songs and stories in order to make them more approachable to the ordinary people.
During this process, various kinds of Buddhist music prevailed, such as sutra recitations (轉讀), chants (唄讀), Buddhist preachings for the ordinary people, chants in morning and evening lessons (早暮課頌), artistic Buddhist hymns sung by professional singers (導唱師) based on the scriptures (講經), and story-telling musics like the Sutra of Filial Piety (父母恩重經), described in the lecture for general Buddhist (俗講). It is unclear to which genre Buddhist chants taught by Master Chin'gam belong, since the record in the Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms (三國遺事) does not mention such music.
The lyric songs of Song dynasty such as Lo-yang-ch'un 洛陽春 (Nagyangch'un in Sino-Korean) and Pu-hsü-tzŭ 步虛子 (Pohŏja) were so popular in China that they were transmitted to Korea. It can be said such trend has some relationship with the literal prosperity of the lyric poem in Song dynasty. Lyric poem is a kind of literature genre originating from high-class restaurants, which has a strong musical character. Praise chants for Buddha with lyric poem has the highest artistic merit in terms of musical form and melodic development among the Chinese ceremonial Buddhist chants.
The lyric songs in Song dynasty prospered during the Ming 明 and Ching 淸 dynasties. However, in Korea, we cannot find any vestige of them. We cannot find any trace of lyric songs of Song dynasty in the Buddhist ritual manual such as Pŏmŭm sanbojip 梵音刪補集 and Sŏkmun ŭibŏm 釋門儀範. Also, no trace of lyric songs of Song 宋 dynasty can be found in any current Buddhist chants in Korea. Generally speaking, religious music tends to accomodate the trend from secular music only after one or two generations. However, the Buddhist music of the Song could not be introduced into the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392~1910) because the Chosŏn had proclaimed anti-Buddhist policy.
The Buddhist Lantern-lighting Ceremony (燃燈會) which prevailed in Koryŏ dynasty (918-1392) was a similar Buddhist ceremony that was also very popular in the Chinese Song Dynasty. On the other hand, P'algwa...