The Buddha's Voice
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2018 The Buddha’s Voice: Ritual Sound And Sensory Experience In Medieval Chinese Religious Practice Kelsey Seymour University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Asian Studies Commons, History of Religion Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Seymour, Kelsey, "The Buddha’s Voice: Ritual Sound And Sensory Experience In Medieval Chinese Religious Practice" (2018). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2814. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2814 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2814 For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Buddha’s Voice: Ritual Sound And Sensory Experience In Medieval Chinese Religious Practice Abstract This dissertation explores Buddhist chanting practices in mainly the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), showing that they were more than just one part of ritual practice: chanting could also be a type of music, an educational tool, a means for manipulating the supernatural, and a cure and cause of illness. Previous studies of chanting practices in Chinese Buddhism have addressed histories of transmission, doctrinal approaches, and made efforts to preserve melodies through notation. However, they do not necessarily capture how individuals who engaged in chanting experienced this practice. Therefore this dissertation aims to investigate this experience through accounts found in hagiography, miracle tales, and other Buddhist materials. In studying chanting from this perspective, we can see how local and individual experiences, goals, and needs interacted with practices, and how these practices operated within Chinese Buddhist communities. Furthermore, we can understand how and when these understandings and practices were informed by scripture, and when they were not, through how individuals performed, listened to, and promoted them. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group East Asian Languages & Civilizations First Advisor Victor H. Mair Keywords Buddhism, chant, China, music Subject Categories Asian Studies | History of Religion | Religion This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2814 THE BUDDHA’S VOICE: RITUAL SOUND AND SENSORY EXPERIENCE IN MEDIEVAL CHINESE RELIGIOUS PRACTICE Kelsey Seymour A DISSERTATION in East Asian Languages and Civilizations Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 Supervisor of Dissertation Victor H. Mair, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Graduate Group Chairperson Christopher P. Atwood, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Dissertation Committee: Linda H. Chance, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Justin McDaniel, Professor of Religious Studies THE BUDDHA’S VOICE: RITUAL SOUND AND SENSORY EXPERIENCE IN MEDIEVAL CHINESE RELIGIOUS PRACTICE COPYRIGHT 2018 Kelsey Alise Seymour ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to a great number of people who contributed to the completion of this dissertation in many ways. First, I would like to thank my advisor, Victor H. Mair, for his encouragement and patience throughout the process. His constant reminders helped to keep me on track, and useful feedback and readiness to point out references were indispensable not just to my writing process, but also throughout my time at Penn. I also owe a great deal to Justin McDaniel for his support and understanding during the writing period. His presence in my committee was a constant reminder to speak to a broader audience. An immense thank you also to Linda Chance, who was not only reassuring during every step, but also provided invaluable feedback on my writing. Next I must thank Zhao Lu, who read every single word of every single chapter, and decorated each section amply with red comments, entirely to my benefit. It has been my absolute privilege and pleasure to wrestle through each sentence with him, and without his encouragement and input, this dissertation might have taken a very different form. I owe a thank you to Michael Lackner, Fabrizio Pregadio, and the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities (IKGF), with whom I stayed in 2015-2016, reading texts and putting together research. This opportunity was very fruitful for gathering and conceptualizing my ideas. I am indebted to the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica, and my sponsor there, Liu Shu-fen, for the support provided during my stay in Taiwan in 2016-2017 through the Academia Sinica Fellowship for Doctoral Candidates in the iii Humanities and Social Sciences. My scholarship owes much to her careful guidance in reading Chinese hagiography, her willingness to accompany me to chanting rituals, and a very effective talisman of the Śūraṃgama-dhāraṇī she presented to me on our first meeting. I am also grateful to Department III at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and Dagmar Schäfer for providing support during my stay as a Visiting Predoctoral Fellow for six months in 2017-2018. This stay was particularly impactful in transforming my research perspectives and questions, especially in the final stages of writing. I owe a particular thanks to Foguangshan Monastery, where I spent a month chanting during the summer of 2015. I am additionally grateful to the Dharma Drum Institute for Liberal Arts, which hosted two programs I was fortunate to have participated in, as well as the scholars who ran these programs: the 2016 winter program on Buddhism and East Asian Cultures, run by Chen Jinhua, and the 2017 summer program “Space and Cyberspace” for Buddhist Digital Humanities, run by Marcus Bingenheimer. The friendships forged with the monks, nuns, scholars, and students who gathered in these places has provided a wonderful opportunity to become immersed in Buddhist Studies as a community. A huge thanks goes to my brother Tyler for providing desk space, and to my mom and Stuart who put up with much eremitic behavior during the final throes of writing. And finally, thank you to Noa Hegesh for her colossal emotional support during the past six years, and to the bodhisattvas watching over both of us. iv ABSTRACT THE BUDDHA’S VOICE: RITUAL SOUND AND SENSORY EXPERIENCE IN MEDIEVAL CHINESE RELIGIOUS PRACTICE Kelsey Seymour Victor H. Mair This dissertation explores Buddhist chanting practices in mainly the Tang dynasty (618– 907 CE), showing that they were more than just one part of ritual practice: chanting could also be a type of music, an educational tool, a means for manipulating the supernatural, and a cure and cause of illness. Previous studies of chanting practices in Chinese Buddhism have addressed histories of transmission, doctrinal approaches, and made efforts to preserve melodies through notation. However, they do not necessarily capture how individuals who engaged in chanting experienced this practice. Therefore this dissertation aims to investigate this experience through accounts found in hagiography, miracle tales, and other Buddhist materials. In studying chanting from this perspective, we can see how local and individual experiences, goals, and needs interacted with practices, and how these practices operated within Chinese Buddhist communities. Furthermore, we can understand how and when these understandings and practices were informed by scripture, and when they were not, through how individuals performed, listened to, and promoted them. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ v INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1 ..................................................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2 ..................................................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER 3 ..................................................................................................................... 82 CHAPTER 4 ................................................................................................................... 111 CHAPTER 5 ................................................................................................................... 139 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 170 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 173 INDEX ............................................................................................................................ 192 vi INTRODUCTION On December 31, 839 CE,1 the Japanese Buddhist pilgrim Ennin 仁 (c.794-864 CE) recorded the following ritual of chanting sūtras in his diary while he was staying at a Sillan monastery in Chishan2: 羅誦經儀式大唐喚念經打鍾眾了下一僧起打唱一敬敬禮常 住三次一僧梵如來妙色身等兩音韻共唐一般梵之會一人香 盃眾之急々便大眾音誦摩訶般題十也有一師陳 申誦經來了大眾音誦經或時經本或時不經本念經了師獨唱 依依法依僧次稱菩薩號師唱云南無十二大大眾云藥師 璃光師云南無藥師也大眾音云璃光師云南無大慈悲也大 眾音云觀世音菩薩餘如禮了師獨結向々々稍長向之 師云心大眾音亦云心次師唱禮三次主 物師呪便去 The Sillan Ritual for Chanting the Sūtras: The Great