Chinese Buddhist Music is Urgently Awaiting to Rescue and Protect

Take the Buddhist music in Mount Wutai as an example

Han Jun

Since the Buddhism moved eastward to China, it has fast blended into Chinese society, and become a part of Chinese culture, even the main stream of the culture in some historical periods. At the moment that the Buddhism was introduced into China, the Buddhist music followed. However, in the transmitting process, for the language difference, as the saying goes “Sanskrit has annotation while the music going with the Sanskrit does not”, [1] therefore the localization of the Buddhism is inevitable. “Chinalization Buddhist music has been rooting in the Chinese traditional music and developing with it in the near 2000 year-development. The Buddhist Music in China is actually an inseparable part of the traditional Chinese music.

“Chinalization” Buddhist music was abundant in the very beginning, apart from the chanting sutra ways such as “Fanbei (to chant the scriptures with Sanskrit)”, “Zhuandu (to chant the scriptures with languages other than Sanskrit”, “Changdao (to preach Buddhist doctrines and civilize living beings ” etc,. Creativity has become fashionable, and “No concreted standard”, “Different instructions in different groups”, forming the tunes and schools in various styles. In the succeeding process, with the principle of succeeding the former and creating new”, the works of music takes on booming and various states. Especially in Tang Dynasty (581-681) and the after, the sources of works are not only from the creation of monks, but also the palace music, scholar music, even the folk music; and gradually, Buddhist music become the integrated land for the traditional music.

With the alternation of dynasties and social formations in the 2000 years’ development, the Buddhism follows the changes of history. Now, in the consensus of attaching importance to culture diversity and protecting national culture, we need to review the current situation of Buddhist music in China for more comprehensive and profound understanding of our nation’s traditional music and rules of its development.

Judging from the documentations and investigations for the Buddhist music in the past 20 years: in general, the Buddhist music in China is shrinked. Here the shrinking means not the decreasing in quantity, but the changes of forms, contents, etc,. Take Mount Wutai as an example---

Mount Wutai is the head of the four Buddhist holy mountains in China, and the only holy mount for both Chinese Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhist music in Mount Wutai developed with the Buddhist music in China synchronously, and went ebb and flow with the Buddhism in Mount Wutai. The Buddhist music there experienced the process of beginning, forming, perfecting and waning. Began in the early years of Republic of China, the condition of waning could be understood from the documentations and datum of Mount Wutai

In the middle of 1980s , there are three kinds of Mount Wutai Buddhist music operns: “Xuantong (era name) Version”, “ROC Version” and “Liberation Version”. The three operns books were copied separately in 1910, 1935 and 1978, with 211, 70 and 78 songs respectively. The copier of the “Liberation Version” became a monk in 1930. And the copy of these tunes totally followed his memory in temple, therefore, the “Liberation Version” and “ROC Version” are the same materials in the same year. In 2007, when the second investigation for the Buddhist music in Mount Wutai, there are only 26 operns. The situation of the wane can be understood clearly by judging the operns number, which is 221 in 1910 and 78 in 1978 and 26 nowadays. Judging from the Buddhism ceremony, the Mount Wutai Buddhism has developed a school of its own since the music instruments introduced in ceremony in Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and valued as the representative of “Northern School”. The monks in Wutai called their ceremony as “Northern Buddhism Ceremony” and their tunes as “Old Northern Tune”. The monks said that the difference between the northern and the southern is that whether there are instruments to accompany with chanting sutra. There is accompanying and musical composition for the former. The using of instruments originated from Yuan Dynasty and succeeded to nowadays. However, the scale has become smaller and smaller since 1950s. The Temple Music [2] issued in 1955 recorded: there were almost 100 monks in the largest band in 1940s. There is no record about the southern ceremony, so basically the ceremony in Wutai is of northern ceremony. Mount Wutai Buddhist music [3] issued in 1993 recorded: there was large “Great Dharma Sabha of Ten Temples” in Qing Temple (Chinese Buddhism) before Republic of China, the ceremony was co-held by ten great temples in Wutai.