Analytical Approaches to World Music (Jun 2022)
Everyday Temple Chant in South Korean Chogye Sect Buddhism: An Analytical Study of the Personal Styles Cultivated by Monks
Abstract
The Chogye sect is by far the largest Buddhist sect in South Korea, administering around 1700 temples scattered across the country. The resident monks in these temples offer daily rituals throughout the year, which anybody is welcome to attend. Here, the ritual texts are articulated entirely through the medium of Buddhist chant (yŏmbul), with most sections chanted congregationally to the accompaniment of the officiating monk’s hand-held wooden bell (mokt’ak) and a small proportion delivered solo, usually to the accompaniment of a handbell (yoryŏng). Despite being so widespread, these everyday temple chanting practices have scarcely been examined by ethnomusicologists. Rather, scholarly attention has been directed towards the rare Buddhist ritual arts transmitted by a tiny minority of monks under the auspices of the Intangible Cultural Properties System—especially the spectacular arts associated with the UNESCO-appointed Yŏngsanjae ceremony (ICP no. 50). The current study addresses this lacuna by presenting a broad and deep analysis of Chogye sect everyday chanting practices, as encountered by the authors during a nine-week ethnographic fieldtrip visiting diverse temples in all eight mainland provinces (supported by the Academy of Korean Studies). The study centres on a detailed musical analysis of 30 different monks’ chanting practices, wherein the monks’ preferred modes, patterns and techniques are elucidated, and the true extent of stylistic heterogeneity accommodated within the sect is revealed. In addition, this study draws from extensive interviews with the monks themselves to explain why they chant as they do, shedding light on their understandings of chant’s objectives, the philosophical underpinnings of their practices, their learning experiences, and the processes through which they forge their own styles.
