Ru
EnO. Arsenyeva
Buddhist sho:myo chants in Japan: towards the etymology of the concept and the origins of the tradition
The article examines the term sho:myo: in its narrow and broad meanings. In the narrow meaning, the analysis of the term, due to the polysemantic nature of the hieroglyphic sign, allowed us to identify its primary meanings, indicating a direct connection with the Buddhist cultural tradition (common for the countries of the Indo-Buddhist region) and point to the foreign cultural origins of the sho:myo tradition in Japan. The roots of sho:myo: art are connected with the language of the Vedas (Sanskrit) and ancient Indian Vedic-Brahmanist musical theory (sho:myo: meaning swara), with the Chinese doctrine of the Tao De Jing and Chinese linguistics (designation of the musical tones of the Chinese language). Thus, the synthetic nature of the art of sho:myo:, reflected in the term, brought together linguophilosophy, poetics and music. The broad understanding of the term sho:myo: made it possible to turn to the national origins of this art: the tradition of the "musically recitative narrative" (katarimono) and the tradition of singing "songs of antiquity" (uta-o-yomu), examining the latter in detail. The author emphasises the importance of the cultural period of pre-Buddhist Japan as a period of formation of the Japanese mentality. The article discusses: "the doctrine of the word, its soul and heart" (koto, kotodama and kokoro); the ritual of its pronunciation (uta o yomu), directly connected with the ritual of "looking at the country" (kunimi); the variety of the diversity of the oldest methods of poetics and the composition of the tanka genre as an example of the realisation of the concept of "verse – body". It shows how these ideas shaped their original attitude to sound as a sacred beginning ("the sounding sign of the true being"), as a musical sound, to the word as a "thing" ("building material", the word as a "thing" which the world can be constructed); to a special sense of space (as the "space of sight") and time as concrete, sensual and figurative, subjective-religious-magical time of the "sounding word" in the conditions of ritual. As a result, the author concludes about the special "flavour" of ancient cultural traditions, their place and role in the formation, preservation and functioning of Buddhist chants.
Key words
sho:myo:, svara, Buddhist chants, Vedic-Brahmanic musical theory, vaka, tanka.
For citation
Arsenyeva O. Buddhist sho:myo chants in japan: towards the etymology of the concept and the origins of the tradition. In: South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2024. No. 2. Pp. 35–47.
