A relief of Onjō-Bosatsu (Musician Bodhisattva) playing a flute on the bronze octagonal lantern located in front of the Great Buddha Hall of Tōdai-ji, Nara. Eighth century. Wikimedia Commons File: ONJYO BOSATSU Todaiji.JPG
Music researchers and contemporary composers began to take an interest in shōmyō as one of the main genres and sources of Japanese vocal music.
The term shōmyō is a translation of the Sanskrit term śabda-vidyā, one of the five branches of learning mastered by the Brahmans of ancient India—namely the linguistic study of Sanskrit. It only began to be used to refer to Japanese Buddhist chant from the twelfth century, largely replacing the term bonbai (‘Sanskrit chant,’ the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese term fanbei), which had been used until then.
Buddhism originated in India in the fifth century BCE. Its founder Śākyamuni permitted the recitation of sutras but prohibited monks from listening to secular music. The innovative Mahāyāna (Great Vehicle) Buddhism, which developed in India from about the first century CE, began to use secular music as an offering to the Buddhas. The most positive evaluators of music and dance were the followers of Mantrayāna (Esoteric) Buddhism, which emerged in the seventh century. According to their teachings, song is seen as a type of mantra (textual formula), and dance a type of mudrā (hand gesture).
Soon after it developed, Mahāyāna Buddhism was introduced to China, where chant was sung in transliterated versions of the original Sanskrit, and in Chinese, using both Chinese translations of the Sanskrit texts and newly composed Chinese texts. From the third century, Yushan (Jp. Gyosan) in Shandong Province became the center of Chinese Buddhist chant.
Buddhism was transmitted to Japan from the Korean kingdom of Baekje by the middle of the sixth century CE, and later became one of the guiding principles of national politics. In 710, Nara was established as Japan’s capital, and Nara Buddhism flourished as a form of Buddhism for the protection of the nation. Sūtras were recited in Chinese, and lectures in Japanese were given to help people understand their contents. In addition, repentance ceremonies in prayer for national peace and abundant harvests were widely held. Among these, the Shuni-e (or Omizutori), a ceremony of repentance dedicated to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, was initiated in 752 by Jitchū of the temple Tōdai-ji, and has been performed annually without interruption for over a thousand years.
In the same year, 752, the consecration ceremony for the Great Buddha at Tōdai-ji was held. Under the head priest, the Indian monk Bodhisena, over a thousand monks sang what became the four standard shōmyō pieces: Bai, Sange, Bonnon, and Shakujō. By the ninth century, a ritual form known as bugaku-shika-hōyō, which combines these chants with the performance of gagaku dance and instrumental music in a complex ritual structure, became established. It became the most important ritual form used in large-scale ceremonies of most of the Japanese Buddhist sects until the nineteenth century.
What became the two major Buddhist sects of the Heian period (794–1192) were introduced by priests who studied in China: Saichō (767–822) of the Tendai sect, and Kūkai (774–835) of the Shingon sect. Kūkai was central in transmission of the Mantrayāna teachings and its ritual forms, as well as the two types of vocal pieces indispensable for esoteric ritual: the repertoires of Sanskrit hymns (bongo no san) and Chinese hymns (kango no san). These were used in elaborate ceremonies, including those held annually at the imperial court that played a central role in legitimizing the emperor’s authority. Buddhist chant of the Shingon sect was brought to its full form by Kanchō (or Kanjō, 916–98), and thereafter passed down in master-to-student lineages. In the late 1140s, Prince-Priest Kakushō (1129–69, son of Emperor Toba) held a long conference at the Kyōto temple Ninna-ji, where four lineages of Shingon shōmyō were formally recognized. The lineage that eventually passed down to Kōya-san in Wakayama prefecture, the Nanzan-shin branch, is the only one that has survived to modern times, splitting up into various sub-branches as it did so.
Tendai shōmyō began with Ennin (794–864), a disciple of Saichō. After spending nine years in Tang China, he brought back the chanting traditions of the Chinese Tiantai (Tendai) and Pure Land teachings, as well as those of esoteric Buddhism, and integrated them with pre-existing practices. His student Enchin (841–91) also studied in China. After his return, the Tendai shōmyō tradition split into two main branches: Ennin’s Sanmon (‘mountain gate’) branch based at the temple Enryaku-ji on Mt. Hiei, and Enchin’s Jimon (‘temple gate’) branch based at the temple Onjō-ji (Mii-dera) in Ōtsu, on the western shore of Lake Biwa. In the early twelfth century, Ryōnin (1073–1132) synthesized the Tendai chanting traditions that had been transmitted separately since Enchin’s time. In 1109, he built the temple Raigō-in in Ōhara, north of Kyōto, and established it as the main temple of the Ōhara school of Tendai shōmyō. Ōhara came to be called Gyosan, after the Chinese center Yushan, and the term gyosan became synonymous with shōmyō. Ryōnin’s disciples included Kekan and Raichō, and many outstanding shōmyō masters emerged from the late twelfth to thirteenth centuries.
After the ninth-century abolition of missions to Tang China, which had been the main vehicle for the introduction of Chinese culture, Japan began to develop unique traditions in various fields. For Buddhist chant, this meant the development of shōmyō in the Japanese language. One way this was accomplished was by reading Chinese texts in Japanese, rearranging the words of a text and adding grammatical elements to transform it into a type of highly literary Japanese. This was used for explanatory texts that needed to be understood readily by those present at a ritual, usually chanted solo, with little melodic inflection. The other way was through the creation of new texts in vernacular Japanese, often in the seven- and five-syllable lines of Japanese poetry, which were usually performed in a more song-like manner.
Belief in Amida of the Western Pure-Land inspired the popularity of nenbutsu, the repeated invocation of Amida’s name. Genshin (942–1017) wrote Ōjō yōshū (‘Essential Teachings on Rebirth in the Pure Land’), which informed people of the horrors of hell and instructed them about ways to attain rebirth in Amida’s pure land. A text he wrote for an assembly of twenty-five priests who met monthly to support each other in their worship was later recast into the Rokudō kōshiki (‘Lecture-Sermon on the Six Realms’). Lecture-sermons (kōshiki) in this format became popular, on the model of the Ōjō kōshiki (‘Lecture-Sermon on Rebirth in the Pure Land’) of Yōkan (or Eikan, 1033–1111).
The noble Fujiwara no Yorimichi (990–1074) built the famous Phoenix Hall (Hōō-dō) at the Uji temple Byōdō-in in 1053, on the site of what had been his summer retreat. The hall houses a famous Amida image by the foremost sculptor of the period, Jōchō (d. 1057). With the paintings that once covered the inner surfaces of its doors, and the multitude of small sculptures of celestial deities playing music and making other wondrous offerings suspended from the walls, the whole building expresses the idea of raigō, the joyous welcome of a newly departed spirit into the Pure Land.
In the twelfth century, popular song and music flourished, under the lead of Emperor Go-Shirakawa (1127–92) and many other prominent musicians, and the concept of achieving enlightenment through music and literature (sanbutsu-jō) was preached. Fujiwara no Moronaga (1138–92), Grand Minister of State from 1177 to 1179, was the foremost musician of the time. After ordination, he styled himself Lord Myōon-in (‘Wondrous Sound’) and studied Tendai shōmyō under Genchō and Kekan. He established his own theory of musical scales and founded the Myōon-in school of shōmyō. His disciple Fujiwara no Takamichi (1166–1239) was also an outstanding musician who inherited the Myōon-in school. The school was also transmitted by Shōsen of the Nara temple Kōfuku-ji, and Kenna (1261–1338) of the temple Shōmyō-ji, close to Kamakura, and continued until the fifteenth century.
Two priests of the Nara schools, Jōkei (1155–1213) and Kōben (Myōe Shōnin, 1173–1232), greatly expanded the thematic content of kōshiki lecture-sermons to include the historical Buddha as well as a multitude of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other deities. The latter’s set of four kōshiki (Shiza kōshiki)—on the death of the historical Buddha, historical sites associated with him, his disciples, and his relics—is still part of the modern Shingon shōmyō repertoire.
During the Kamakura and Nanbokuchō periods (1192–1392), new Buddhist sects emerged, including the Pure Land sects of Jōdo and Jōdo Shin, the Zen sects of Rinzai and Sōtō, and the Nichiren sect centered on belief in the Lotus Sutra. Many of these new Buddhist sects grew from the Tendai sect, so their chant was based on Tendai practice. Although referred to as the ‘old’ Buddhist sects, the Tendai, Shingon, and Nara sects were still influential. Both Tendai and Shingon shōmyō were influenced by the Myōon-in school, leading to reactionary movements within each lineage to rework music theory and notational systems, and compile collections of musical notation.
Tanchi (1163–1237?), of Kekan’s school, worked to establish the musical theory of Tendai shōmyō. In his Shōmyō mokuroku (‘Catalog of Buddhist Chant’), he classified the modes and initial tones of shōmyō chants, and in his Shōmyō yōjin-shū (‘Essentials of Buddhist Chant’), he specified five-tone and seven-tone scales, the twelve pitches of the octave, three basic modal types, the concept of modulation, and various notational styles. In 1238, Tanchi’s disciple Shūkai compiled another catalog (Gyosan mokuroku) that indicates the notational style of each piece, and clarifies the initial pitch of each character of the text by adding a shutton-zu, or graph of initial tones.
The various schools of Shingon shōmyō also saw similar efforts to develop coherent music theories, styles of notation, and collections of notation. The most significant was the development in around 1270 of the goin-bakase (‘five-tone neumes’) style of notation by Kakui (1212–93?), of the Nanzan-shin branch. In this notation, the initial position, angle, and direction of the notational line make it possible to read the pitch of the notation even in long melismatic phrases, i.e., phrases in which a single syllable of the text is set to many notes. This became the fundamental notational style of Shingon shōmyō.
The priest Gyōnen (1240–1321) of the Nara temple Tōdai-ji left a significant mark on the study of music theory and the history of Buddhist chant in India, China, and Japan. His Shōmyō genru-ki (‘Account of the Origins and Spread of Buddhist Chant’) may be the first music history written in the field.
In addition to the performance of Buddhist chant in the ritual context, there was also a tradition of freely expounding the Buddhist teachings through narrative chanting, which came to be known as shōdō (‘chanted guidance’). Early masters include Chōken (1126–1203) and his son Shōkaku (1167–1235). This, along with the narrative style of kōshiki lecture-sermons, exerted a significant influence on narrative performing arts of the time, such as Heike-biwa (narration of The Tale of the Heike to the accompaniment of the lute, or biwa) and sōga (ceremonial vocal music cultivated by the medieval priest and warrior classes). Influence from these forms is also apparent in the music structure of Japan’s medieval dance-drama nō, which blossomed in the late fourteenth to early fifteenth centuries.
From about the time of the Ōnin civil war (1467–77), Japanese Buddhist chant entered a period of transmission rather than creation, during which music notation was printed for the first time, and new instruction manuals were compiled. Religious texts had been published at the Shingon center of Kōya-san from the thirteenth century. The Bunmei yonen-ban Shōmyō-shū (‘Shōmyō Collection Printed in 1472’) is the oldest printed music notation of Japan, and predates the oldest printed music notation of Europe, the Constance Gradual (1473), by one year. The three existing copies of this edition may be the world’s oldest surviving printed music notation. Subsequent reprinting in the following decades indicate that demand for this printed notation was strong. Despite its humble title, the instruction manual Gyosan taigai-shū (‘Collection of Trivia of Buddhist Chant’), compiled by Chōe (1458–1524) in 1496, is rich in a wealth of detail that may surprise us even today.
With the stabilization of politics and the economy in the Edo period (1600–1868), it became possible for Buddhist ceremonies to be celebrated regularly, and both Buddhist scriptures and collections of notation of Buddhist chant were published at Kōya-san and the head temples of most other sects, as well as by secular printers in the large urban centers of Kyōto, Ōsaka, and Edo (modern Tōkyō).
By this time, the Nanzan-shin school of the Shingon sect had split into two doctrinal schools—the Old-Doctrine (Kogi) and New-Doctrine (Shingi) branches—with the latter having split again in the late sixteenth century into two factions: the Chisan branch based at the Kyōto temple Chishaku-in and the Buzan branch based at the temple Hase-dera in the mountainous southern part of Nara. Both research on shōmyō and publication of collections of notation were undertaken almost exclusively by the Chisan branch, with the Buzan branch making use of its efforts second-hand.
Music notation was not published by the Tendai sect until the mid-seventeenth century, when Kenshin (d. 1683) of Ōhara published a collection, Shōmyō-shū, in five volumes. It was later republished in six volumes, and hence came to be known as Gyosan shōmyō rokkanjō. In the early nineteenth century, Shūen (1786–1859) began compiling an extensive collection of shōmyō materials, the Gyosan sōsho (‘Gyosan Anthology’), and additional materials were added by Kakushū (1817–83).
Following the promulgation of laws to separate Buddhist and ‘native’ Shintō belief at the time of the Meiji Restoration (1868), many Buddhist temples and their holdings were systematically destroyed, dealing a severe blow to the Buddhist community. Some sects reacted by sending students to Europe in preparation for the establishment of modern Buddhist studies, while others created new Buddhist hymns in the style of Christian hymns, following the example of Christian missionary activities. With the loss of occasions for performance, shōmyō came to be heard less and less by the general public. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, a reevaluation of traditional culture began in response to Japan’s rapid Westernization, and the Buddhist community gradually adapted to the times. Although new notation systems influenced by Western staff notation were developed and used to document the state of the chant tradition, most sects continue to use the traditional notation or slightly ‘improved’ versions.
After World War II, the state of traditional Buddhist ceremonies declined even further, and the number of shōmyō practitioners decreased. At the same time, however, music researchers and contemporary composers began to take an interest in shōmyō as one of the main genres and sources of Japanese vocal music, leading to the publication of academic books and recordings, and the performance of Buddhist chant at concert halls and other venues outside of temples.
Further reading
Nelson, Steven G. 2008. “Court and religious music (1): history of gagaku and shōmyō” / “Court and religious music (2): music of gagaku and shōmyō.” In Alison McQueen Tokita and David W. Hughes, ed. The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music. SOAS Musicology Series.
Steven G. Nelson was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1956. After studying at the University of Sydney, he travelled to Japan in 1980 to study the early music notations of gagaku at Tokyo University of the Arts. His main research interests include gagaku, Buddhist chant, Heike-gatari (narration of The Tale of the Heike to the accompaniment of the lute, or biwa), and other accompanied song forms in traditional Japanese music. Presently he serves as professor in the Japanese Department, Faculty of Letters, Hōsei University, Tokyo.
