Can anyone with good Chinese point me to the section of the Sarvāstivāda vinaya that ethnomusicologist Pi-yen Chen speaks of here?
The importance of music, and chant in particular, in the Buddhist tradition dates from the beginning of the discipline, when the Buddha himself advocated its use. The Sarvāstivāda Vinaya, translated into Chinese in AD 404 by Punyatara and Kumarajiva, records an episode in which the bhikṣu Bhadrika- one of the Buddha's first disciples and an especially gifted chanter- performed a pātha (recitation with melody) as an offering to the Buddha. Upon hearing the performance, the Buddha enumerated the five advantages of pātha: it lessens physical fatigue, helps memory, lessens psychic fatigue, lessens strain on the voice, and improves understanding. He recognized that the sonic (or musical) organization had the potential to advance many religious functions. Indeed, chant training as a basic monastic curriculum remains prevalent among Buddhist traditions, and music continues to play a significant role in three important aspects of Buddhist life: liturgical transmission, religious cultivation, and the practical management of monastic social relations. Buddhist chants and their notation facilitate liturgical transmission because they serve as mnemonic tools for recalling and reconstructing ritual frameworks. They also energize ritual processes and inspire religious cultivation by mediating the experience of personal and collective transformation, by verifying Buddhist doctrine through tangible experience, and by engendering an impulse of common commitment in the community. Finally, chants are essential in managing monastic social relations because they effectively encode Buddhist cultural forms in everyday life and harmonize the monastic and secular political environments, both of which are essential to the survival and development of Buddhism.
Sarvāstivāda vinaya section
- Caoimhghín
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Sarvāstivāda vinaya section
Then, the monks uttered this gāthā:
These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?
The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?
The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
Re: Sarvāstivāda vinaya section
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?
2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.
3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.
4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.
1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?
2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.
3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.
4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.
1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
- Caoimhghín
- Posts: 3419
- Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2016 11:35 pm
- Location: Whitby, Ontario
Re: Sarvāstivāda vinaya section
Thank you!
Then, the monks uttered this gāthā:
These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?
The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?
The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)