GHOST FESTIVAL RITUALS Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage Beth Szczepanski (Columbus, Ohio) Every year in the seventh lunar month, two Buddhist temples in the holy mountain region of Wutaishan in Shanxi Province are the scene of elaborate daily musical rituals to commemorate the dead and to release “hungry ghosts” from their unfortunate state of existence. Large numbers of people (monks, donors, curious spectators) turn up to watch rituals marked by prayers, offerings and powerful music played on flutes, double-reed pipes, mouth organs and percussion. While most other temple sites at Wutaishan (and many temples elsewhere in China) perform ceremonies to honour the dead in the seventh month, only two include wind music in these rites. So what is the exact nature of these rituals, and what role does instrumental music play (or not play) in them? This article traces ways in which the rituals and music of the “Ghost Festival” have throughout history functioned to carve a place for Buddhist monasticism within Chinese society, with particular reference to ritual practices at Wutaishan. For at least sixteen centuries, special Buddhist and indigenous Chinese observances for the dead intended to complement ordinary filial rites for ancestors have been held on the week of Ghost Festival, from the ninth to the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month. Today in Wutaishan, a holy Buddhist mountain in Shanxi Province, this week comprises one of the most active times for monastic ritual involving a local style of wind music. During this time, donors make food offerings to their ancestors and to Buddhist temples to alleviate the suffering of the departed. In addition, monks perform rituals in order that hungry ghosts, horrible beings with flaming mouths, tiny throats, and distended stomachs who wander the depths of Buddhist hells famished but unable to ingest food, may be fed and reborn into a better mode of existence. Ghost Festival rituals and the texts upon which they are based have historically played vital roles in the assimilation of the foreign concept of Buddhist monasticism into Chinese society. The texts upon which the Ghost Festival rituals are based present Buddhist ritual as the only means by which one’s ancestors can be guaranteed a comfortable existence after death, making the activities of monastic Buddhists a necessary element of proper filial behaviour. The salvation of hungry ghosts also prevents such beings from causing trouble for the living. Buddhist Ghost Festival practices today maintain their importance as a component of filial behaviour and as a means of controlling 38 Chime 18-19 (2010) the supernatural, but additionally the use of the shengguan wind ensemble during these rituals marks the practice as a colourful cultural relic valued by the local and national governments. This music, performed by an ensemble including sheng mouth organ, dizi transverse flute, guanzi double-reed pipe and a battery of ritual percussion instruments, can be found in a number of Buddhist and Daoist temples throughout northern China, but the ensembles in Wutaishan perform in a unique local style. The perceived value of this ritual music as a local folk practice justifies government support and protection for a practice that might otherwise be marginalized as superstitious. Through an examination of Ghost Festival scriptures and rituals in history and as currently used at Wutaishan, this article will explore how Ghost Festival observances have historically taken on various functions in order to justify the existence and ritual practices of the Buddhist monastic community, and how music plays a role in carving a place for Ghost Festival rituals such as Yulanpen hui and Fang Yankou in the political and economic context of modern China. Buddhist Scriptures and Ghost Festival Practices A Buddhist sutra, or written record of a sermon of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni, entitled Fo shuo yulanpen jing, provides the earliest known scriptural background for ghost festival observances. This text was either translated into Chinese from Sanskrit in the early fifth century C.E. or was written in China around the sixth century.1 In this sutra, a disciple of the Buddha named Mulian discovers through his great spiritual powers that his mother has been reborn as a hungry ghost. He makes offerings of food to her, just as one should in proper Confucian rites for the dead, but they all turn into flaming coals in her mouth. Distraught at his inability to help his mother, Mulian goes to the Buddha for advice. The Buddha informs Mulian that his mother’s sins are too deep for him to expiate them by himself. The Buddha thereupon preaches a method by which hungry ghosts such as Mulian’s mother can be saved. This method involves giving offerings to the monastic community on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. At this time, the monastic community has at its disposal a vast store of spiritual power accumulated over the three months of heightened asceticism of the summer retreat, and therefore can at that time empower food offerings in order to release their own ancestors, and those of donors, from any kind of suffering, including existence as a hungry ghost. This text presents offering food to the Buddhist monastic community as a filial responsibility. This is an important claim for the Buddhist community in China, given that the concept of leaving home to become a monk or nun contradicts the traditional view that one’s primary responsibility in life is to look after the comforts of one’s living and dead ancestors. This sutra illustrates the unique capabilities of monastic Buddhists to protect both their own deceased ancestors and those of donors from the fate of suffering for eons as hungry ghosts. Teiser writes that, because of the importance of Ghost Festival rites as filial observances, Chinese society, “not only accepted monasticism, it placed the renouncer [of household life] at the very centre of secular life: in the ghost festival the participation of monks is deemed essential for the salvation of ancestors.”2 Stephen Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 46. 2 Teiser, Ghost Festival, 14. 1 Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 39 This sutra functions in Chinese Buddhism not only as a response to critiques that monastic Buddhism is an unfilial way of life, but also as a critique of traditional ancestor worship practices in China. The plight of Mulian’s mother implies that the standard practices of making offerings to one’s ancestors might not always be sufficient; if one’s ancestor happens to be a hungry ghost, ordinary offerings of food will be to no avail. Ghost Festival offerings found a place not only in the ancestor worship of ordinary Chinese people, but also in the all-important veneration of imperial ancestors.3 As Ghost Festival rites came to be seen as vital to the well being of these ancestors as well as ordinary ones, the monastic community strengthened its ties to highest echelons of the political hierarchy in China. While these ties remained strong, the monastic community could avoid accusations from political leaders that its contributions to the economic and ritual life in Chinese society did not outweigh the economic drain involved in maintaining a large group of individuals who survived solely on offerings from the economically productive members of that society. Such accusations could flourish at times when economic and political concerns outweighed the need for the addition of Buddhist rites to the standard practices for dead ancestors; the great persecution of the Buddhist monastic community in China in 845 resulted from xenophobic attitudes toward the foreign religion as the empire faced invasion from foreign powers, as well as economic weakness that rendered the support of the monastic community untenable. During times of relative peace and prosperity, however, the monastic community and its ghost festival rituals played important roles in the ancestor worship of both ordinary and elite Chinese people. Variations of the Mulian story appear in a variety of performance and literary genres, including bianwen (Buddhist transformation texts), operas and baojuan (precious volumes). Lay people were more likely to encounter and understand the story in these more readily accessible forms rather than as presented in the sutra. Bianwen, popularized in the Tang Dynasty, consist of a Buddhist sutra presented in prose and poetry and augmented with spicy plot elements to make it more appealing to the lay masses.4 While bianwen are no longer performed, operas based on the Mulian story remain part of the repertoire today. Baojuan, a type of vernacular Buddhist literature likely dating from the thirteenth century, may be sung, chanted or recited to a lay audience, and, like bianwen, act to popularize Buddhist teachings.5 One such baojuan relates a variation of the Mulian story entitled Mulian qiumu chuli diyu shangtian baojuan (Precious Volume of Mulian Rescuing his Mother to Escape from Purgatory and Ascend to Heaven) dated to 1372. The moral to this version of the Mulian story is that “all should imitate the Honoured Mulian in being filial to their parents and seek out enlightened teachers, recite the Buddha’s name, and maintain a vegetarian diet so that [for them] birth-and-death will forever stop. [All should] cultivate the Way with determination, so as to repay the profound kindness of their parents in raising and nourishing them.”6 Unlike bianwen, baojuan continue to be performed today; Mark 3 Teiser, Ghost Festival, 5. Kenneth K.S. Ch’en, “The Role of Buddhist Monasteries in T’ang Society,” History of Religions 15, no. 3 (Feb. 1976): 225. 5 Daniel Overmyer, Precious Volumes: An Introduction to Chinese Sectarian Scriptures from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). 6 Translation from Overmyer, Precious Volumes, 46. 4 40 Chime 18-19 (2010) Bender has described the practice of jiangjing (telling scriptures) in Jiangsu Province in which a single performer, the fotou (Buddha head), sings, recites and chants a baojuan with the assistance of apprentices and a chorus.7 Alternate forms of the Mulian story like these must have contributed to the popularization of Ghost Festival rites based on the Fo shuo yulanpen jing among lay Buddhists in China. In keeping with the teachings of the Fo shuo yulanpen jing, Ghost Festival offerings of food and gifts to the monastic community became widely popular in Medieval China. Through most of the Tang Dynasty, for example, Buddhist Ghost Festival observances constituted a vital part of the cycle of calendrical ritual. By the sixth century, as recorded by Tsung Lin, these observances became an opportunity for public displays of wealth and artistic skill: On the fifteenth day of the seventh month monks, nuns, religious, and lay alike furnish bowls for offerings at the various temples and monasteries. The Yü-lan-p’en Sūtra says that [these offerings] bring merit covering seven generations, and the practice of sending them with banners and flowers, singing and drumming, and food probably derives from this… later generations [of our time] have expanded the ornamentation, pushing their skilful artistry to the point of [offering] cut wood, carved bamboo, and pretty cuttings [of paper] patterned after flowers and leaves.8 Not only food and decorations were offered, but music as well. Offerings were made by common people and rulers alike, and, under some emperors of the Tang Dynasty, state funds were used to provide Yulanpen bowls.9 In the seventh century, another scripture that came to play important roles in Ghost Festival practice was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. This scripture, the Dizang Pusa benyuan jing (Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha Vow Sutra), describes the role of Kṣitigarbha in the salvation of people whose bad karma has led to rebirth in hell.10 The first chapter of the sutra relates the story of a pious daughter who made offerings to the Buddha and meditated in order to save her recently deceased mother from the tortures of hell. After successfully seeing that her mother was reborn in a heaven, this daughter made a vow to help all spirits escape hell. She was reborn as the (male) bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha, who will not allow himself to ascend to buddhahood until all sentient beings have been saved from suffering in the afterlife. This story has remarkable parallels to the Mulian story, and works just as well as a means of illustrating the importance of Buddhist activities as a form of filial behaviour. According to the sutra’s final chapter, recitation of the Dizang Pusa benyuan jing promises to bring with it a myriad of benefits for both the one who recites and for his or her ancestors, seven generations of whom will be released from all forms of suffering in the afterlife. In the eighth and ninth century, Tantric Buddhism enjoyed a period of popularity in China, and Tantric Buddhists disseminated a new story as the basis for Ghost Festival 7 Mark Bender, “A Description of Jiangjing (Telling Scriptures) Service in Jingjiang, China,” Asian Folklore Studies 60 (2001): 105. 8 Tsung Lin (ca. 498-561), Ching-ch’u chi, trans. by Teiser, Ghost Festival, 56-57. 9 Teiser, Ghost Festival, 56. 10 Yih-Mei Guo, transl. The Bodhisattva Ksitigharba Vow Sutra. Taipei: Privately published, 1998. Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 41 observances. In Tantrism, practitioners seek a direct connection to the Buddha through the use of incantations or mantras, gestures or mudras, and meditation on sacred diagrams or mandalas rather than seeking progress toward enlightenment through the Pure Land practices of visualizing the Buddha and reciting his name or the Chan practice of breaking down delusions through such means as long-term seated meditation. This story appears in the ninth-century sutra Fo shuo jiuba kouyan egui tuoluoni jing (Mantras for Rescuing Flaming Mouth Hungry Ghosts) and in the ritual manual Yuqie jiyao yankou shiyi (Yoga Tantras for Giving Food to Flaming Mouth Hungry Ghosts). Rather than describing the efforts of filial offspring to release their parents from suffering in the afterlife, this text presents a story in which the arhat Ānanda, an accomplished disciple of Śākyamuni Buddha, encounters a hideous hungry ghost named Yankou (flaming mouth) who prophesies that Ānanda himself will die in three days’ time, and that he will be reborn as a hungry ghost. The terrified arhat goes to the Buddha to ask how this fate can be avoided, at which time the Buddha teaches him some spells to chant in order to instill food offerings with the power to alleviate the suffering of hungry ghosts. These spells are to be chanted during Fang Yankou (releasing Yankou) rituals, and the food thereby consecrated will not turn to coal when hungry ghosts come to eat it. Once the ghosts are no longer hungry, they are more receptive to Buddhist teachings and can be led through the chanting of more spells to rebirth in a better plane of existence.11 Although this story retains the concept of redeeming hungry ghosts through offerings of spiritually empowered food, it nonetheless displays some important differences from the Mulian and Kṣitigarbha stories. Ānanda goes to the Buddha not to save his mother, but rather because he has been frightened by a hungry ghost’s threats and wishes to prevent himself from becoming a hungry ghost as well. In this case, the releasing of hungry ghosts acts to benefit the living, not the dead; if all hungry ghosts are released from hell, then no one will be harassed by such beings on earth. In addition, the compassionate act of releasing hungry ghosts accrues for the practitioners of this ritual good karma, which brings with it a myriad of benefits: Ānanda, if monks and nuns and male and female devotees regularly use this spell with the names of the four Thus-Come Ones to empower food and distribute it to ghosts, they will moreover get complete satisfaction and uncountable merit. It would be no different from getting the merit from offerings made to one hundred thousand myriads of Thus-Come Ones. Their lifespan will be prolonged and enhanced and the good roots will be completed. All nonhumans, demons (yakṣyas), and spectres (rakṣas) and all of the evil ghosts and spirits will not dare to harm them, and they will be able to attain limitless merit and long life... Through the use of the spell of Majestic Virtue, each and every one will accomplish their fundamental vows and all good merit, and at the same time each and every one will issue a vow, wishing to distribute food to people so that their lifespans will be lengthened and their appearances and strength will be peaceful and joyous… 11 Charles Orzech, “Saving the Burning-Mouth Hungry Ghost,” in Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed, Religions of China in Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 279. 42 Chime 18-19 (2010) Moreover, the spell will cause the minds of those who witness the rite to be upright, understanding, and pure. They will each completely attain the majesty of the god Brahmā. Moreover, the merit obtained is like the merit gotten by making offerings to one hundred thousand myriad of Thus-Come Ones; thus all sorts of injustices and enemies will be unable to afflict or harm you…12 The benefits of this practice go primarily to the practitioners themselves, who attain long life and merit, rather than to their ancestors. The emphasis on lengthening the lifespan of oneself and others relates this Buddhist text more closely to traditional Taoist practices concerned with seeking immortality than to Confucian concepts of proper behaviour toward ancestors. This text originated during the high point of the Tang Dynasty, a time generally viewed as the apex of Buddhist culture in China. With the place of Buddhism in Chinese society well established, adherents of Tantric Buddhism used new Ghost Festival texts and rituals to demonstrate that their sect had greater power than others for redeeming hungry ghosts and assisting the deceased ancestors of donors. This greater power arises from the use of the magical incantations, gestures and diagrams of Tantric practice.13 Fang Yankou relies exclusively on these elements to make food offerings available to hungry ghosts. The text does not indicate that these offerings will be useful only on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month when the spiritual power of the sangha is at its greatest, as had been the case for earlier rites for redeeming hungry ghosts. Instead, the power of the mantras, mudras and mandalas allows food offerings to be effectively made to hungry ghosts at any time. Nonetheless, in many monasteries a performance of Fang Yankou comprises a vital part of Ghost Festival observances, a practice that likely began with the ninth-century dissemination of the Fo shuo jiuba kouyan egui tuoluoni jing. Shengguan Practice at Wutaishan As noted at the beginning of this article, some monasteries at Wutaishan perform rituals using shengguan wind ensemble music during Ghost Festival Week. In fact, the most musically-active monastery in Wutaishan，Shuxiang si (Mañjuśrī Image Monastery), uses this music during all donor-sponsored and calendrical ritual performances. It is not known precisely when this practice began. Wutaishan, considered the earthly abode of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, has housed Buddhist temples since the first century C.E. By the fifth and sixth century, Wutaishan had become a centre for pilgrimage. There is no evidence, however, that instrumental music was used in ritual at Wutaishan at this early date. It appears that the practice had not yet taken root in the mid-Tang era; in 840, the Japanese pilgrim Ennin went to Wutaishan and wrote detailed descriptions of two large-scale rituals held at Zhulin si (Bamboo Grove Monastery), mentioning several different types of chant 12 Translation based on Fo shuo qiuba yankou egui tuoluoni jing, Amoghavajra’s translation, by Orzech, “Saving the Burning-Mouth Hungry Ghost,” 282-83. All parenthetical additions are Orzech’s. 13 Kenneth K.S. Ch’en, Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 327. Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 43 but no instrumental music.14 Han Jun attributes the foundation of Wutaishan’s shengguan practice to a master of Chan or Zen Buddhism named Jin Bifeng, who led disciples at Wutaishan during the time of transition between the Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty (1344-1368). Han writes, “Between the Yuan and Ming eras, Jin Bifeng (Treasured Jin) brought instrumental music to Wutaishan Buddhism, stating that ‘attempting to follow the Flower Adornment Sutra, the sound of hymns of praise should be clear and elegant, with all forty-two zou, as is the earthly practice.’ This led to the eventual perfection of Wutaishan Buddhist music.”15 Han takes Jin Bifeng’s term “zou” to refer to pieces of instrumental music, as the term is often used in modern Chinese. Cui Wenkui, however, posits that this passage refers instead to the forty-two phonemes listed in the twenty-ninth book of the Flower Adornment Sutra that, when spoken, lead through various doors of wisdom.16 It is more likely that Jin Bifeng’s zou refers to phonemes than that it refers to instrumental music. More solid evidence for the use of instrumental music in Wutaishan’s monasteries does not appear until the fifteenth century, when the Great Mañjuśrī Hall of Foguang si (Bright Buddha Monastery) was decorated with images of arhats, or accomplished followers of the Buddha, playing the instruments of the shengguan ensemble. The practice of using shengguan music in Ghost Festival rituals at Wutaishan likely dates approximately to the fifteenth century. According to Shi Miaojiang, head of the Chinese Buddhist Association, Wutaishan’s shengguan music was originally centred at the imperial temple Tayuan si (Stupa Courtyard Temple), home of an enormous white stupa that houses a relic of the Buddha, and that music was formerly used only during large-scale rituals involving thousands of monks performed on behalf of the imperial family.17 Political events in the twentieth century brought disruption to ritual practice at Wutaishan. Events leading to the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and the ensuing warlord struggles, Japanese occupation and civil war created a huge number of refugees, many of whom went to Wutaishan to enter a monastery in order to obtain a reliable source of shelter and food. As a result, the existing infrastructure of the area’s monasteries was stretched to the breaking point, and traditional means of ritual transmission were discontinued. Traditionally, Wutaishan’s monasteries accepted novices under the zisun miao system, in which a would-be monk or nun had to choose a master from among the monastery’s ordained monks and nuns and then gain that master’s approval. With the great influx of refugees in the twentieth century, most monasteries converted to the shifang tang, system, accepting as many newcomers as they could house and transmitting to them a simplified form of ritual practice.18 At the same time, some of the area’s monasteries were taken over as barracks by Japanese and Communist armed forces, and Wutaishan remained a site of 14 Han Jun, “Wutaishan Fojiao yinyuede lishi jiazhi,” [The Historical Value of Wutaishan Buddhist Music]. Wutaishan yanjiu 3 (2004): 28. 15 Han Jun, “Wutaishan Fojiao yinyuede lishi jiazhi,” 28. 16 Cui Wenkui, “Ming Qing shiqide Wutaishan Fojiao yinyue” [Wutaishan Buddhist Music of the Ming and Qing Dynasties], Wutaishan yanjiu 3 (2005): 25. 17 Shi Miaojiang, Head of Chinese Buddhist Association, interview at Zhulin si, Wutaishan by the author, 16 August 2005, translated by Ye Xiujuan. 18 Qu Yannan, “Qingliangshan fanyue yu Nanshan si” [Wutaishan Buddhist Music and Nanshan si], Wutaishan Yanjiu 4 (1997): 34-35. 44 Chime 18-19 (2010) violent conflict until its liberation by Communist forces in 1947. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Maoist policies created further difficulties for the transmission of Wutaishan’s local ritual practices. Under land reform laws enacted starting in 1950, officials took monastic landholdings and distributed them to be used as collective farmland, cutting off a vital source of income for those monasteries. Many monks and nuns returned to lay life at this time, while others joined collectives and worked the land formerly held by the monasteries. With the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, all monasteries in Wutaishan were shut down and all monks and nuns forced to return to lay life. Fortunately, the difficult terrain and lack of good roads prevented large groups of Red Guards from entering the area, so only the most accessible Buddha images and some temple halls were destroyed. The effects of the decade-long disruption of ritual practice, however, continue to be felt today. Starting in the late 1970s, ritual activity gradually started again at Wutaishan. Monks and nuns from all over China were attracted to the famous holy area in the ensuing decades, and many of the monasteries currently active in the area house few or no local monks and nuns. Most of the monks and nuns expert in the local forms of ritual and ritual music had taken up new professions during their decade of lay life, some taking advantage of musical skills gained in the monastic setting to join cultural troupes performing the anthems of the Cultural Revolution, and few returned to the newly reopened monasteries to pass on their knowledge. Although gongche pu scores for the repertoires can be found, very few monks know how to read the notation, and those who do still need the guidance of an experienced teacher to demonstrate rhythmic and ornamentational aspects of performance not indicated in the notation. In addition, the musical instruments of the shengguan ensemble cannot be acquired in Wutaishan itself, and must be purchased in the cities of Xinzhou or Taiyuan. Artisans qualified to repair the temperamental sheng mouth organ visit Wutaishan’s monasteries only rarely, so it is difficult to keep instruments in good working order. For these reasons, most monasteries have not re-established the use of local forms of ritual, embracing instead a more universally Chinese form of chanted liturgy. Currently, of the more than fifty active monasteries in Wutaishan, only four maintain the local tradition of using the shengguan ensemble. Because Mañjuśrī is an important figure in both Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, and because Wutaishan lies just south of Inner Mongolia where Tibetan Buddhism dominates the religious landscape, both Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries exist in Wutaishan. Both types of monastery traditionally use shengguan ensembles in rituals. Today, two Chinese monasteries, Shuxiang si (Mañjuśrī Image Monastery) and Nanshan si (South Mountain Monastery), and two Tibetan monasteries, Pusa Ding (Bodhisattva Peak) and Zhen Hai Si (Ocean-Taming Monastery), maintain this practice. In Tibetan monasteries, however, Ghost Festival is not observed, so this article focuses only on practice in the two Chinese monasteries. In Wutaishan’s Chinese monasteries, shengguan pieces are divided into two types: henian (accompaniment to chant) and xiaoqu (small songs, performed without words). Henian tend to include much repetition, since in most cases a rather short melody is used to accompany extensive chanted text. Xiaoqu come in two types; short, quick pieces used as a coda to henian and longer self-contained pieces used to fill time during some rituals. Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 45 Many xiaoqu derive from secular sources, such as local folksong, famous opera tunes and pieces composed for secular instrumental performance. In some cases, however, henian melodies can be used as long xiaoqu simply be performing those pieces without chanting the associated text. The instrumentation of the shengguan ensemble at Shuxiang si includes from two to five sheng mouth organs, one to two guanzi double-reed pipes, one to three dizi flutes and one each of various types of hand cymbals, gongs, drums, bells and temple blocks. In performance, one sheng player acts as the leader of the ensemble. He plays the opening phrase of each piece, and then the other instrumentalists join in. This differs from the practice in Wutaishan’s Tibetan monasteries, where one guanzi player leads the ensemble. A number of Buddhist and Daoist institutions and associations throughout north China feature shengguan ensembles, but Wutaishan’s monastic ensembles maintain unique local repertoires, playing styles and performance contexts. Compared to the shengguan ensemble of the Beijing Buddhist Association, for example, Wutaishan’s shengguan ensembles perform music with greater influence from local folk music and less variety of style. In addition, while the Beijing ensemble incorporates suona shawms in some of its pieces and uses modernized sheng mouth organs with added metal resonator pipes, the Wutaishan ensembles use a smaller variety of less-modernized instruments. As discussed below, the Chinese Buddhist monasteries at Wutaishan make use of their shengguan ensemble in the course of Ghost Festival in unique ways as well. Current Musical Ghost Festival Rituals at Wutaishan: Yü Lan Pen Hui I observed and recorded events that took place during Ghost Festival week in the summers of 2005 and 2006 at Wutaishan. During these weeks, the monks of Shuxiang si (Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī Image Monastery) held sutra chanting sessions twice a day, one beginning at about 10:00 AM and another beginning at about 3:00 PM. Each day, they chanted the entire Dizang Pusa benyuan jing and the Fo shuo yulanpen jing, both of which act to benefit the deceased ancestors of monks and donors. These chant sessions were held in the monastery’s Zushi tang (Patriarch Hall, which contains an image of Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism). The monks sat at a long table laden with donated fruit, candy and soft drinks, and during breaks in the chanting would help themselves to some of the offerings, and offer some to the visiting doctoral student as well. As they chanted, visitors to the monastery filed past the monks in the Zushi tang, peering over the monks’ shoulders at the chant texts, food offerings and musical instruments on the table. The sutras were chanted in nian style (reading aloud), a form of what Pi-Yen Chen terms “free chant.”19 The monks each read from an accordion-folded sutra book, chanting each phrase of text, three to eight syllables in duration, on a single pitch and then falling approximately one whole step on the final syllable. Some monks chanted this melody throughout each session, while others at times added ornamentational lines to create a heterophonic texture. Ornamentational melodies remained within the framework of a pentatonic scale (A-C-D-F-G in the example below). In all cases, each syllable was chanted on a single pitch. The final syllable of each phrase was marked in the sutra text with a circle or a dash to facilitate proper recitation. The 19 Chen Pi-Yen, “The Chant of the Pure and the Music of the Popular: Conceptual Transformations in Contemporary Chinese Buddhist Chants,” Asian Music 35, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 2004): 83. 46 Chime 18-19 (2010) tempo of the chanting varied, generally starting quite slowly and gradually accelerating, then suddenly returning to a slower tempo. While the tempo changed, the rhythm remained constant throughout, as shown in the example below. Pauses occurred only at the ends of chapters. Tempo changes were dictated by the beating of the muyu (“wooden fish”: a wooden block that, with some imagination, resembles a curled fish), the only percussion instrument to accompany nian style chanting. The muyu was struck either at each syllable or at every two syllables. Faster tempos usually brought with them higher volume levels. The monks sang hymns in the more melodic chang style to mark the conclusions of some chapters of the text. In the morning chant session, the monks chanted the first seven chapters of the Dizang Pusa benyuan jing, while in the afternoon session they chanted the final six chapters of that sutra and the entire Foshuo yulanpen jing. After some chapters, the monks Text from the opening of the Dizang Pusa benyuan jing as chanted in nian style: basic melody on top line, examples of ornamentation on second line. Shuxiang si’s Patriarch Hall with Yulanpen Offerings, August 2005 Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 47 Yulanpen hui, Shuxiang si, August 2005. stood and chanted a zan (hymn) in chang style (singing) before returning to the main text in the nian style. During some Yulanpen hui chant sessions, the shengguan ensemble accompanied melodic hymns before the sutra chanting and between the chanting of some chapters of sutras. Most chant sessions opened with a performance of Hua Yan Hui (Garland Assembly), an opening invocation with shengguan accompaniment. In 2005, after the final chapter of scripture, the shengguan ensemble played Qiansheng Fo (A thousand calls to the Buddha) as the monks proceeded from the Zushi tang to stand in front of the Wangsheng tang (Hall of Rebirth). Those monks who were not playing wind instruments sang “Namo Amituofo” (Reverence to Amitābha Buddha) as the instrumentalists played the Qiansheng Fo melody. Once there, they performed Huayan hui again. This was followed by a hymn without shengguan accompaniment, then a performance of the hymn Liuju Zan (Six Sentence Hymn) with shengguan, and then one more hymn without the wind instruments. The shengguan ensemble then joined in again for a performance of Qiansheng Fo, accompanying the brief procession back into the Zushi tang. Once there, they bowed toward the image of the sixth patriarch and the session concluded. In 2006, the procession to the Wangsheng tang was omitted. Instead, the monks stood in the Zushi tang, performed Liuju zan, and then concluded the session with a performance of the untexted xiaoqu (small song) Jing ping 48 Chime 18-19 (2010) (Pure Bottle, a reference to the bodhisattva Guanyin’s bottle of water which can clean any stain). In a few cases, the shengguan did not perform at all in the course of chant sessions. The flexibility of the use of the shengguan ensemble during Yulanpen hui at Shuxiang si reflects that this practice has only recently been reinstated at the monastery. In fact, the monastery’s monks are still learning how to perform this ritual properly; in 2005, older monks asked for a copy of a video recording I had made of their ritual to use as a teaching tool. This flexibility also demonstrates that wind music is not a crucial element of Yulanpen hui. The texts chanted contain no mention of instrumental music. Although all of Wutaishan’s active Han Buddhist temples hold Yulanpen hui chant sessions, only two, Shuxiang si and Nanshan si (South Mountain Temple) have recently used wind instruments during these sessions. Nanshan si’s continued use of shengguan during Yulanpen hui seems more tenuous than that at Shuxiang si; in the summer of 2005, the shengguan ensemble at Nanshan si consisted of only one sheng and one guanzi, and I was told that the monastery no longer housed any dizi flute players. Some older monks at the monastery complained that most of the young monks trained as musicians at Nanshan si had returned to lay life to pursue careers in secular music. In the summer of 2006, Nanshan si’s Yulanpen hui did not include the shengguan ensemble, and it is not clear whether or not the practice will be reinstated. Because no local ritual manual describes the past practice of Yulanpen hui at Wutaishan, we cannot be sure what role, if any, shengguan music played in these sessions in the past. The monks of Shuxiang si nonetheless have compelling reasons to continue using the shengguan ensemble during most of their Yulanpen hui chant sessions. Shuxiang si’s leadership cultivates the monastery’s reputation as a musical as well as spiritual institution, helping to set Shuxiang si apart from the other monasteries in the area in the fierce competition for attention from donors and for government support. As the most musical monastery in Wutaishan, Shuxiang si is a necessary stop for all group tours of the area. In addition, cultural cadres visit the monastery to create audio and video recordings of the monks’ musical performances. The dissemination of these recordings provides valuable publicity for the monastery, and brings even more visitors and donors. To that end, as noted above, all donor-sponsored and calendrical rituals at Shuxiang si are performed with the accompaniment of shengguan music. Although the monks of Shuxiang si have not yet found a stable role for the shengguan ensemble in Yulanpen hui, the benefits of using wind music make it likely that such a role will be established in the coming years. The daily chanting of the Fo shuo yulanpen jing and the Dizang Pusa benyuan jing demonstrates the continued importance of Buddhist tales of filial piety in Chinese Buddhist practice. This practice remains relevant not only to the monastic community, but also to lay Buddhists who visit the temple during Ghost Festival week. Yulanpen hui provides monks with an opportunity to spread Buddhist teachings and to succour spirits suffering in the afterlife while providing visitors with a chance to provide assistance to their own deceased ancestors. The shengguan ensemble, while not essential to the efficacy of the ritual, acts to draw more visitors to the monastery’s Zhushi tang and Wangsheng tang, increasing the number of people exposed to the teachings presented and attracting visitors to donate money to bring further assistance to their own ancestors. Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 49 Tantrism and Ghost Festival: Fang Yankou Each year during Ghost Festival, monks in the Han Chinese monasteries at Wutaishan perform the Tantric Fang Yankou ritual. This reflects the tendency toward syncretism in Chinese monastic Buddhism; rather than competing for absolute dominance, sects tend to simply absorb each other’s practices. Mainstream Pure Land practices such as reciting the name of the Buddha combine with the meditation and philosophy of Chan and the magical incantations, gestures and diagrams of Tantrism in many of Wutaishan’s monasteries. This is the case at Shuxiang si and Nanshan si; Pure Land practice outweighs the others, but each monastery houses a shrine to Bodhidharma, the founder of Chan Buddhism, and each performs the Tantric Fang Yankou ritual. The area’s Tibetan monasteries, whose practices focus on Tantric teachings, do not perform the Chinese Tantric Fang Yankou ritual. Published descriptions of Fang Yankou indicate that these vary from temple to temple. The rituals last from three to six hours and involve a variable number of participants and regionally specific instrumental accompaniment. Necessary elements for the performance of a Fang Yankou include the participation of three ritual leaders, the wearing of certain ritual apparel, and the use of some specific ritual objects. All active participants in the ritual wear yellow ceremonial robes, but the central figure, the Vajra Grand Master or jingang shangshi, also wears a special five-pointed crown decorated with the images of the five Buddhas of the five directions. These Buddhas are: a yellow Vairocana (Damu Rulai) in the centre, a blue Akshobhya (Budong Fo) in the East, a red Ratnasambhava (Baosheng Fo) in the South, a white Amitābha (Amituofo) in the West, and a black Amoghasiddhi (Bukong chengjiu Fo) in the North. The Five Buddha Crown marks the jingang shangshi as an embodiment of the bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha (Dizang Pusa). While the textual basis for Fang Yankou replaces Kṣitigarbha’s filial piety with Ānanda’s self-interest, Kṣitigarbha remains important in Tantric practice as a saviour of those suffering in the afterlife. The jingang shangshi and his two attendant monks mirror the iconographic practice of depicting a central buddha or bodhisattva, in this case Kṣitigarbha, with attendant bodhisattvas on each side.20 These three furthermore represent the Three Jewels of Buddhism, the Buddha, dharma [Buddhist law] and sangha [community of monks].21 The jingang shangshi, like the fotou in jiangjing performances, is responsible for the majority of recitation and chanting during the course of the Fang Yankou, with the other monks providing group responses and occasionally taking over the lead in the chanting. Karl Ludvig Reichelt colourfully describes the Fang Yankou ritual as he observed it in the early twentieth century: The scene begins with a fanfare of musical instruments. A little bell is rung, and then the “living Buddha” begins to sing the first verses of the mass in an endlessly long chant. Dressed in an especially beautiful costume with an arrangement resembling a halo round his head, he sings his verses with solemn and impressive expression. It is a high-pitched 20 Shi Guojun, monk and jingang shangshi, interview at Shuxiang si, Wutaishan by the author 23 December 2006, my translation. 21 Karl Ludvig Reichelt, Truth and Tradition in Chinese Buddhism: A Study of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, trans. Kathrina van Wagenen Bugge (Shanghai: Commercial Press, Ltd., 1927), 102. 50 Chime 18-19 (2010) lament of woe over the hungering, thirsting, and freezing souls, which flit about the gloomy chambers of the underworld, but it contains also a happy promise of redemption to be obtained through the compassionate Buddhas. Here the instrumental music strikes in. There is a perfect storm of tumultuous shouting and violent music, which is intended to burst open the doors of hell.22 Reichelt vividly conveys the mysterious spirituality of the Fang Yankou as he experienced it, but he provides few details to allow comparison of the music used in this ritual to others. For example, this published account does not indicate where in China this ritual took place. Reichelt mentions the music used, but only in passing; we are not told what instruments took part in the opening fanfare or the “violent music” purportedly intended to break down the doors of hell. Still, some of Reichelt’s description matches Fang Yankou as described in other publications and as I have observed at Wutaishan. His description of the costume of the presiding monks and the use of a “thick wooden implement,” or fangchi, for example, coincides with what I have observed at recent Fang Yankou rituals in Wutaishan. In the 1960s, Holmes Welch published a much dryer description of a Taiwanese Fang Yankou ritual: This was a Tantric ritual lasting about five hours and always held in the evening when it was easier for hungry ghosts to go abroad. The presiding monks wore red and golden hats in the shape of a five pointed crown. Before them was a collection of magical instruments—mirrors, sceptres, spoons, and so on. The monks assisting them—usually six to eighteen—were equipped with dorjes and dorje bells (which sounded, when rung together, rather like a team of reindeer). In the first half of the ceremony the celebrants invoked the help of the Three Jewels. In the second half they broke through the gates of hell, where, with their instruments and magic gestures, they opened the throats of the sufferers and fed them sweet dew, that is, water made holy by reciting a mantra over it. They purged away their sins, administered the Three Refuges, and caused them all to take the bodhisattva resolve. If all this was properly done, the ghosts could be immediately reborn as men or even in the Western Paradise. The merit arising therefrom accrued to the deceased person whose relatives were paying for the ceremony—and who, of course, might also have been among those directly benefited.23 Welch does not mention the use of musical instruments that could produce a fanfare like that Reichelt heard, listing only dorje bells as accompaniment to the ritual chanting. These differences likely result in part from regional or historical variations in Fang Yankou practice and in part from differences between the items each author found noteworthy. Some elements, such as the costume of the ritual leader and the basic plotline of the ritual as it unfolds, remain the same between these two descriptions. Arnold Perris writes that during certain Fang Yankou rituals in Taipei in the mid 1980s, a brass band performed old-fashioned popular songs, including Aloha Oe and Auld Lang Syne. At the same time and in the same hall, the donor family held a boisterous dinner for 22 Reichelt, Truth and Tradition, 103-105. Homes Welch, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism 1900-1950 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 185-87. 23 Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 51 about fifty guests. The band’s performance and the dinner party were peripheral to the ritual (or vice versa); the monks, musicians and guests each carried on their own activities without paying much attention to the others. Perris writes, “All this was appropriate to the occasion. The family was not expected to pay attention to the rite or the mournful concert; they were contributing something else: fine food, companionship, and conspicuous joy to be conveyed to the spirit world.”24 This Fang Yankou was performed not as part of Ghost Festival observances, but as part of a funeral. It is not clear if a brass band would participate in a ritual held on the fifteenth day of the lunar seventh month if the donors were not recently bereaved. According to these descriptions, Fang Yankou practices vary significantly in terms of instrumental accompaniment used.25 Nonetheless, in each case it appears that Fang Yankou retains its general ritual procedure as well as its function as a means of transferring merit to one’s deceased ancestors. In the post-Cultural Revolution reestablishment of monastic ritual practice at Wutaishan, then, temple leaders had a wide variety of practices to choose from. These choices, predicated on the pre-Cultural Revolution practices to which those leaders were accustomed and on the availability of ritual objects, varied from temple to temple. Fang Yankou at Wutaishan Two categories of Fang Yankou ritual are currently performed at Wutaishan. Most of the monasteries at Wutaishan perform what local monks call “Southern yankou,” a ritual similar in form and content to what is performed in mainstream Buddhist monasteries throughout China. This style of Fang Yankou is more commonly known as Chan Yankou. Two monasteries, Shuxiang si and Nanshan si, perform a local version of the ritual, locally known as “Northern Yankou.” 26 A more common term for Fang Yankou performed with melodic instruments is Yinyue Yankou. The most notable difference between the two styles is the use of shengguan music, an integral component of “Northern Yankou” lacking in the southern form of the ritual. In the southern form of the ritual, chanted text is presented at a stately, slow tempo, while in the northern style much of the text is presented in a virtuosic, rapid-fire style. These two styles of Fang Yankou use very similar ritual manuals, but that for the northern practice is a bit longer than that for the southern. Both the “Northern Yankou” and “Southern Yankou” ritual manuals contain no melodic notation, but only texts for chanting and diagrams for the performance of mudras (ritual gestures) and the drawing of a mandala. In the “Northern Yankou” manual, however, titles of shengguan pieces appear in places where the wind ensemble accompanies the chanted text. Notation for these pieces appears in separate booklets of gongche pu notation, although during ritual performances most monks perform the instrumental parts from memory. The southern ritual 24 Arnold Perris, “Feeding the Hungry Ghosts: Some Observations on Buddhist Music and Buddhism from Both Sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Ethnomusicology 30, no. 3 (Autumn 1986): 433. 25 For more on Fang Yankou using shengguan music, see Yuan Jingfang, Zhongguo hanchuan Fojiao yinyue wenhua [Han Chinese Buddhist music culture] (Beijing: Zhongyang minzu daxue chubanshe, 2003). 26 Han Jun, Wutaishan Fojiao yinyue [The Buddhist Music of Wutaishan] (Shanghai: Shanghai Music Publishing Co., 2004), 68. Translated by Ye Xiujuan. 52 Chime 18-19 (2010) lasts about six hours, while the northern ritual takes only four hours due to the faster speed of chanting. Since “Northern Yankou,” is local to Wutaishan, it is considered by those who still practice it and by the Chinese scholars who write about it as a form more in line with local tradition than “Southern Yankou,” which is accompanied only by percussion. The following description of Fang Yankou at Shuxiang si is based on my observation of seven performances of this ritual, performed for both Ghost Festival and funeral observances at the monastery from 2005 to 2007. Fang Yankou at Shuxiang si begins at dusk, usually around 7:00 PM in the summer months. The monks assemble in the Yankou Tang wearing yellow ceremonial robes. The jingang shangshi and his two attendants, as well as some of the other higher-ranking monks, wear the red jia sha (ritual attire, in this case a cape draped over the right shoulder）used during rituals. The jingang shangshi wears zhuyi (presiding monk’s garment), a red cape made of many rectangular pieces of cloth each bordered by a golden cord, while the two attendants and others wear qiyi (seven garment), similar red capes made of only seven pieces of red cloth. Qiyi is worn by monks who have passed beyond novice status during everyday Buddhist activities, but zhu yi is worn only by ritual leaders during special rituals. The jingang shangshi is further set apart by the string of jade fozhu (Buddha beads) down his back and the crown on his head. The Yankou Tang contains a high altar facing the door. Silk drapes, flowers, and a Kṣitigarbha statue are arranged in front of the altar, rendering it very difficult for those below to observe what takes place there. Below the altar, four rows of long desks are arranged on each side. The monks who comprise the shengguan ensemble stand behind these long desks. On the wall to the left of the door is a smaller altar which holds the donations brought by the donor family and, in some cases, photographs of the ancestors to be benefited by the ceremony. For a northern Fang Yankou held at the Ghost Festival at Shuxiang si, wind instruments used include three or four sheng mouth organs, two or three guanzi double-reed pipes and one or two dizi flutes. In most cases when Fang Yankou is performed as part of a funeral service, fewer monks take part and fewer instruments are used. In portions of the ritual that involve the shengguan ensemble playing alone, one of the sheng players acts as a leader, choosing the pieces and playing the first few pitches alone, after which the others join in. The percussion necessary for a Fang Yankou include two pairs of large hand cymbals, one bo (bowl-shaped) and one nao (flat), one set of cha, (small hand cymbals), a dagu (large drum), a sanyinluo (frame of three pitched gongs) and a dangzi (small gong suspended in frame). The sound of the cymbals play vital roles in the ritual, acting as the sign that the ritual is beginning and marking each moment when a buddha or bodhisattva is invited to attend the proceedings. The jingang shangshi and his two attendants also play percussion instruments. The jingang shangshi himself occasionally raps the table with the fangchi and rings a hand bell with a vajra handle, what Holmes Welch terms a “dorje bell,” while the attendant to his right carries a yinqing (a small cup-shaped chime suspended on a wooden handle) and the one to his left holds a small muyu (temple block). Three styles of chant are used during Fang Yankou: nian, the “reading aloud” style used in most of Yulanpen hui, song, a solo recitation style that falls between nian style and singing, and chang, the singing style used for hymns. In most cases, mantras chanted by the entire assembly are presented in nian style. As was the case in the Yulanpen hui, Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 53 nian is most often accompanied only by muyu, which helps the chanters maintain unison rhythm while improvising melodic variations. Chang (singing) style is used for hymns in praise of various buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the Three Jewels, as well as most invocations. The sung melodies are not notated in the ritual manual, although the notated shengguan repertoire contains those that have instrumental accompaniment. Texts presented in chang style that are not accompanied by shengguan are accompanied by most or all of the percussion instruments used during the ritual. The third chant style, song, falls between singing and free chant. The majority of the jingang shangshi’s extended passages of chant are presented in song. This style of chant is unaccompanied, although occasionally the jingang shangshi will strike Shuxiang si’s Jingang shangshi, Shi Guojun, the altar table with the fang chi wooden block conse crating the Five-Buddha crown to emphasize certain passages of the text. during Fang Yankou. The jingang shangshi presents each pair of lines of text in song style with an arch-shaped melody. He begins at a relatively low pitch, leaps upward a fourth in the middle of the second syllable, then descends a minor third in the middle of the third syllable or on the fourth syllable. This pitch level continues for approximately three syllables, and then the melody descends one more step to return to the starting pitch. This pitch continues for five to thirteen syllables, depending on the length of the line of text. The final syllable of each line is intoned one fifth lower than the preceding pitches, falling one octave below the highest pitch of the line. The beginning pitch is not predetermined, and may vary in the course of a single Fang Yankou. Some of the lines presented in song are quite long, and the jingang shangshi presents two lines on a single breath. Extensive practice is required to expand lung capacity and learn to chant these passages quickly enough to finish in one breath, and Shi Guojun, the jingang shangshi who performs Northern Fang Yankou at Shuxiang si, expressed pride in his skill at presenting long passages in song. Northern Fang Yankou can be divided into three sections separated by two interludes during which the shengguan ensemble performs from three to five long xiaoqu , or small tunes. The first portion of this Fang Yankou is primarily concerned with inviting the Three Jewels, as well as particular buddhas and bodhisattvas, whose presence can ensure the success of the ritual. The Chinese incarnation of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, Guanyin or the Goddess of Mercy, is given particular attention. In addition, the monks chant mantras and perform mudras in order to empower the five-Buddha crown and ritual implements such as the huami, or two-colour rice, the vajra and the hand bell. The jingang shangshi 54 Chime 18-19 (2010) performs mudras over each object while these mantras are chanted. Near the end of the first portion of the ritual, the jingang shangshi recites the story of Ānanda meeting the hungry ghost Yankou as discussed above. Several hymns in this first third of the ritual, such as Huayan hui (Garland Assembly, performed at the beginning of all rituals using shengguan at Wutaishan, including Yulanpen hui), Canli tiao (Piece for Taking Part in a Ritual, see below), and Cuihuang hua (Jade Yellow Flower), are accompanied by the shengguan ensemble. After each of these, the ensemble performs a brief xiaoqu with no chant, usually Yizi babao (Eight Treasures beginning on the pitch “Yi”) or Xifu mang (Busy Daughter-inLaw). These are short versions of lively local folk tunes performed, of course, without their secular texts. This instrumental break gives the officiating monks an opportunity to rest and prepare themselves for the succeeding portions of the ritual. Canli tiao from Fang Yankou. Translation of text: “Assembly of Buddhas, Buddhas of 10,000 merits, Reverence to the cloud-borne assembly, Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas.”27 The first long xiaoqu break accompanies the drawing of a mandala representing Mount Sumeru, the representation of Buddhist cosmology. The jingang shangshi draws this mandala on the altar table using huami. The mandala consists of three concentric circles. 27 My transcription based on recorded performances from Shuxiang si, 2005-2007. This transcription provides only the basic melody as presented in the gong che score with the addition of the dominant rhythmic elements present in performance, and does not reflect the heterophonic texture created by the simultaneous use of various forms of ornamentation by the different instruments of the shengguan ensemble. Text taken from Ren, “Fojiao yinyue,” 1558-59. My translation. Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 55 In order to make near-perfect circles, the jingang shangshi uses a circular implement such as a drinking glass or a hand bell (not the one used in the ritual) to push the rice into the desired shape. While he is thusly occupied, the monks at the tables below perform approximately five xiaoqu . On Ghost Festival of 2006, these xiaoqu were Wannian hua, (Eternal Flowers, an adaptation of the Beijing opera tune Wannian huan, or Eternal Joy) 28 , Dacheng jing (Greater Vehicle Sutra), Mimo yan (Secret Miraculous Stone, a henian often performed as a processional, used here without the chanted text), Sizi yuegao (High Moon beginning on the pitch “Si,” adapted from a pipa lute piece) 29 and Jing ping (Pure Bottle, performed also during some Yulanpen hui sessions). While these are performed, the two attendants to the jingang shangshi often take off their ritual attire and leave the hall for a break. In the summer of 2005, one of the attendants came down from the high altar and joined in the performance of the xiaoqu , playing sheng. Once the mandala is complete and the attendants have returned to their positions, the ritual continues. The second portion of the ritual includes further invocation of the Three Jewels and invitations to the buddhas Śākyamuni, Amitābha and, once again, the bodhisattva Guanyin. Monks playing sheng and guanzi during a Shuxiang si Fang Yankou. 28 “Wannian huan,” Zhongguo yinyue cidian [Chinese Music Dictionary] (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 1995), 299. 29 “Yue’er Gao,” Zhongguo yinyue cidian, 477-78. 56 Chime 18-19 (2010) In addition, a passage describing the five traditional donations offered to the Three Jewels (water, incense, light, silk and fruit), as well as the intangible donation of music, is chanted. This passage likely helped to inspire Wutaishan’s monks to include shengguan music in their version of Fang Yankou. After a few more buddhas have been invited to the proceedings, the jingang shangshi rings the hand bell for several minutes to mark the beginning of the time that ghosts will be invited to partake of the offered food. Specific invitees include the souls of emperors, concubines of emperors, virtuous officials, generals, high scholars, lower ranking scholars, lower officials, merchants, soldiers, farmers, fishermen, prostitutes and beggars. The ordering of these invitations reflects the traditional conception that one’s position in the social hierarchy follows one to the afterlife. After these ghosts have been invited, the jingang shangshi invites the donors’ ancestors for whom the Fang Yankou has been sponsored as recipients of the merit accrued by the ritual. During Fang Yankou rituals performed on the day of the Ghost Festival, the jingang shangshi recites the lineage of patriarchs at the temple as well. From emperors to patriarchs, the Ghost Festival Fang Yankou at Shuxiang si in 2006 included a total of twenty-five separate invitations. Each of these invitations is followed by a performance of Zhaoqing tiao, a brief chanted refrain accompanied by shengguan. At this point in the ritual, hungry ghosts have not yet been invited. Zhaoqing tiao from Fang Yankou: Translation of text: “Come receive the offered sweet dew of Buddhist food.”30 The second xiaoqu break occurs just after the completion of the invitation of the ordinary ghosts. During this time, a monk places the offerings of steamed bread and fruit on a platter and takes them up to the high altar. Three of the pieces of steamed bread are in the form of a skull, hand and foot, a reference to skeletons intended to remind the viewers and ghosts of the impermanence of existence. The other bread offerings are pellets about one inch in diameter. The remainder of the ritual does not involve the shengguan ensemble. The jingang shangshi performs mantras and mudras over these offerings in order to make them available for consumption by ghosts, even hungry ghosts. Only after these empowered offerings have been tossed little by little toward the open door of the hall are hungry ghosts invited to attend. First, the jingang shangshi chants a description of the suffering of hungry ghosts, and then he invites the hungry ghosts to come partake of the offerings, performing mantras and mudras to dissolve their bad karma and to open their tiny throats and allow them to eat. The remainder of the ceremony consists of mantras to allow the ghosts to be 30 Transcription based on gongchepu score and recorded performances from Shuxiang si, 2005-2007. Text taken from Han, Wutaishan, 94. My translation. Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 57 reborn in a heaven, to transform the tortures of hell into pleasant things (e.g. sword trees into fabulous gem trees), and to allow the ghosts to leave the land of the living. One further mantra forces any remaining ghosts to leave. Shi Guojun informed me that, if some ghosts remain, they will cause trouble for the donor family. Once the ghosts have left, the buddhas and bodhisattvas invited to take part in the ritual are seen off with the chanting of Huixiang jie, a celebration of a successful ritual. Finally, the assembly proceeds outside to the large incense burner in front of the temple gate to burn the food offered to ghosts during the Fang Yankou. According to Shi Guojun, northern style Fang Yankou cannot be carried out without the shengguan ensemble. The ensemble performs the passages of xiaoqu that allow time for the drawing of the hua mi mandala of Mount Sumeru and the preparation of the food offerings to be given to the ghosts. The shengguan ensemble furthermore accompanies much of the chanted text in the ritual, including hymns in praise of the Three Jewels, the invocation of the five buddhas of the five directions, and the chanted coda to each of the invitations of ghosts. The music performed by the ensemble likewise act as an offering to the buddhas and bodhisattvas whose cooperation is needed to make the ritual a success. The nearly universal adoption of the shengguan-free southern style of Fang Yankou at Wutaishan nonetheless demonstrates that adherence to the northern style is not considered necessary to maintain the efficacy of the ritual. As was the case in Yulanpen hui, instrumental music is of tertiary importance to the ritual, playing less vital roles than both the chanted liturgy and the ritual percussion that is common to all Fang Yankou rituals in China. An examination of the justifications for maintaining the musical northern ritual at Shuxiang si, as well as of reasons for continuing Ghost Festival observances in general, will bring into focus the ways that these rituals, and in some cases their music, continue to justify the existence of the monastic community in Chinese society. Meanings and Functions of Ghost Festival Rites at Wutaishan Today Ghost Festival rituals today serve different purposes than they did prior to the twentieth century. Many of the donors who add their ancestors’ names to a monastery’s Wang Sheng Tang during Yulanpen hui or who invite monks to perform a Fang Yankou ritual either during the Ghost Festival or as part of funerary rites now perceive these activities as memorial practices rather than as means of providing actual assistance to their deceased ancestors. Han Jun describes the ceremony as “a special Buddhist activity carried out to memorialize the dead.”31 Holmes Welch writes that, in Taiwan, donors who sponsor Buddhist mortuary rituals do not consider rescuing the souls of their ancestors to be their primary objective: They may become angry if anyone suggests that they are offering incense, rice, and fruit at the altar because they think their parents have been reborn on a lower plane. Their parents are, of course, ling-ming—virtuous spirits who reside in heaven and descend to their tablets to receive filial offerings and reverent reports of family news. Why then do they pay the monks to recite sutras? Because it is a customary form of filial commemoration, they say. No one can be called “superstitious” for engaging in filial commemoration.32 31 Han, Wutaishan, 69. Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 185. 32 Welch, 58 Chime 18-19 (2010) During the Ghost Festival in 2006, two well-to-do men from Inner Mongolia drove for eighteen hours to Wutaishan and donated Y6000 to the temple in order to sponsor a Fang Yankou. The father of one of these gentlemen had recently passed away, and they wished to commemorate his death. The bereaved, a Party official, stated that this was to be a memorial, and seemed to have little interest or knowledge of the traditional function of the rite as a means of feeding hungry ghosts and transferring merit to the departed. I do not wish to imply that traditional ancestor worship no longer takes place in China. In fact, most of the Fang Yankou performed by Shuxiang si’s monks occur outside of the temple as part of local funeral rites, which also involve the burning of paper houses, servants, money and other comforts for the deceased to use in the afterlife. In those cases, the ritual acts more explicitly as a means of contributing good karma to the deceased in order that the afterlife will be comfortable for him or her. The monks who perform these rituals also insist that their actions provide actual assistance to ghosts suffering in the afterlife. In many cases and for many donors, however, erosion of ancestor worship in modern China has brought about changes in the conception of Buddhist Ghost Festival rituals. If Ghost Festival rituals are no longer as strongly valued as a means of assisting the dead, one might wonder why these practices were reinstated after the Cultural Revolution. Many donors view the practice as a mere memorial, so why should they not choose a simpler means of commemorating the death of a family member? Several reasons for the continued support of Buddhist rites for the dead exist. In some cases, the deceased, perhaps more traditional-minded than their offspring, had requested before their passing that a Buddhist ritual be performed after their death. In other cases, the donors might be attracted by the traditional tone and colourful nature of the rituals even if they do not value their purported function. Not only donors, but also government officials have re-evaluated Ghost Festival rites in recent decades. From the late 1970s, state-sponsored music scholars went to Wutaishan with the intention of collecting and preserving Wutaishan’s Buddhist music. In 1978, Tian Qing and others recorded shengguan music played by elderly laicized monks from both Han and Tibetan temples. Many of the pieces performed by musicians who had been monks in Chinese monasteries before the Cultural Revolution were from Fang Yankou. In 1988, Tian returned to the field to record Wutaishan Buddhist music, but the musician/monks he had recorded in 1978 were for the most part no longer playing music. He recorded instead the Chinese Wutaishan Buddhist Music Ensemble, a group of musicians from the surrounding villages who had been put together by the Shanxi Cultural Bureau in 1987 in order to preserve Buddhist music for concert use, though not for ritual use.33 While at this time a few elderly monks were working to reinstate shengguan music as part of ritual practice in Wutaishan’s monasteries, government-sponsored preservation efforts focused primarily on recording and performing the music outside of its ritual context. This, perhaps, made it easier for officials to promote Wutaishan’s shengguan music as a cultural practice to be preserved while downplaying its association with the superstitious. Official emphasis on Ghost Festival ritual music apart from Ghost Festival ritual can be seen in recent scholarly writings about Wutaishan’s Buddhist music. Ren Deze, in his 33 Tian’s recordings make up five of the thirty CDs in Zhongguo Foyue baodian [A Treasury of Chinese Buddhist Music] (Beijing: Zhongguo yinxiang dabaike, 2006). Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 59 introduction to the “Buddhist Music” section of the Shanxi instrumental volume of the Chinese National Folk Instrumental Music Collection, dryly describes the purpose of the ritual: “Yuqie Yankou is commonly called Fang Yankou. It is said that Ānanda, one of the ten disciples of Śākyamuni, saw a hungry ghost named Yankou one night. To avoid becoming a hungry ghost himself, Ānanda asked Śākyamuni to teach him to chant scripture. The Buddhist ritual specifically for feeding and releasing hungry ghosts is called ‘Yuqie Yankou.’”34 This brief outline of the function of Fang Yankou does not give the reader any sense of why this ritual might be of importance to anyone today. Ren takes a very different tone when describing the music used in the ritual. He writes that the ritual, “from beginning to end includes melodious, stately singing, and also kuaiban in lively rhythm, and all kinds of Buddhist mudras and gong and drum music as accompanied by chanting and percussion, so it has a strong artistic flavour. The entire ritual includes thirty pieces. There are ten chanted hymns with shengguan accompaniment, which monks call ‘henian,’…These hymns have serene and elegant melodies and a profound expressiveness, both quick and slow.” He concludes his description, “All of yankou’s music attracts people’s fascination, plucks people’s heartstrings, and in fully tranquil times, this Buddhist music seems to transport its listeners to a fairly land.”35 The effusiveness of this praise for the music of Fang Yankou vastly overshadows the author’s somewhat clinical description of the ritual’s function. It appears that the author views the music of Fang Yankou as something separate from and more valuable than the ritual itself. Han Jun’s passage about Fang Yankou in the 2004 version of Wutaishan Buddhist Music follows a pattern quite similar to Ren’s passage cited above. Describing the purpose of the ritual, Han uses language nearly identical in places to Ren’s: According to “Yankou egui jing,” the hungry ghosts are emaciated, with needle-like necks, and they have fire in their mouths. It is said that Ānanda, one of the ten disciples of Śākyamuni, saw a hungry ghost named Yan Kou one night. To avoid becoming a hungry ghost himself, Ānanda asked Śākyamuni to teach him to chant scripture. There are special texts and chants for feeding hungry ghosts, and the rituals held with this chanting are called Fang Yankou, and are often held at dusk with offerings of food to redeem the hungry ghosts.36 When describing the artistic merits of the ritual, Han echoes Ren’s sentiment that Fang Yankou is a good show: Although Fang Yankou has a very strong religious and superstitious tinge, from the perspective of style it has some aesthetic value with regards to the literature, music and dance (mudras) used. Thanks to its artistry, people are not bored by this 4-5 hour ritual, which not only worships deities and comforts the dead, but also entertains the living. Those who sponsor a Fang Yankou are therefore satisfied both spiritually and aesthetically by the ritual.37 34 Ren Deze, “Fojiao yiyue” [Buddhist Music], in Zhongguo minzu minjian qiyuedian jicheng, Shanxi juan [Chinese National Folk Instrumental Music Collection, Shanxi Province], Vol. II (Beijing: China ISBN Center, 2000), 1547. My translation. 35 Ren, “Fojiao yinyue,” 1547. My translation. 36 Han, Wutaishan, 69. 37 Han, Wutaishan, 68. 60 Chime 18-19 (2010) In this description, Han replaces ritual elements with artistic ones; sacred chant texts become literature, chanted and instrumental ritual music becomes just music and magical Tantric gestures become dance. Depicting Fang Yankou as a wonderful musical show with spiritual overtone, these passages read almost like a concert flyer; readers are encouraged to go to Wutaishan and sponsor a Fang Yankou just for the sake of the music. These writings provide some insight into not only the continued value of Ghost Festival rituals at Wutaishan, but also into the various functions of shengguan music in those rituals. By preserving ritual shengguan at Shuxiang si for Ghost Festival observances, the monastery not only includes music among its offerings to buddhas and bodhisattvas and attracts tourists, but also gleans government support for its cultural practices. Han Jun has taken part in the production of a compact disc of Shuxiang si’s shengguan music in 2005 and in the creation of a television special about the temple’s music in 2006. The majority of the pieces recorded are xiaoqu and chants used in Fang Yankou. The video recording also includes a performance of Zhunti shenzhou, a mantra performed with mudras during Fang Yankou in order to consecrate the Five Buddha Crown. The monastery’s monks also gained official permission to perform their music in Korea in 2001, and they were invited to perform at the 2003 Chinese Buddhist and Taoist Music Exhibition in Beijing. These activities reflect the high regard among the area’s cultural cadres for the temple’s music as an entertaining and educational cultural practice. The publicity garnered through concerts and recordings attract more donors to Shuxiang si to sponsor rituals throughout the summer months, so by sponsoring non-ritual musical activities for the monastery’s monks, officials are indirectly supporting ritual activity at the monastery. The success of concert performances away from the monastery also inspired monastery leaders to open their own Buddhist Music Hall on the monastery grounds. Here, visitors to the monastery can purchase a ticket for 80 yuan and enjoy an evening of Buddhist music and dance. The music is played by the monks of Shuxiang si, while the dancing is provided by students from a local arts academy who dress like monks. These concerts and recordings might demonstrate an erosion of the formerly strict division between sacred ritual music and music for entertainment. It appears, however, that the monks of Shuxiang si see no conflict between Ghost Festival ritual music as performed in concert settings and as performed during rituals. The line between ritual performance and performance for entertainment is not as clear as it might first appear; during concerts in the Buddhist Music Hall, audience members make offerings of food and incense just as they would during a ritual, while during ritual performances observers crowd into the monastery’s halls to watch the musical monks perform. Han and Ren’s writings demonstrate the perceived relative value of Ghost Festival rituals that use shengguan music in comparison to those that do not. Both authors provide detailed descriptions of northern Fang Yankou, but not of the much more common southern ritual. The northern ritual is treated as more representative of Wutaishan Buddhist music even though it is currently practiced at only one temple. If Buddhist ritual is to be valued by government officials for its artistic content rather than for its ritual function, then the more musical then better. The emphasis on the northern style results as well from its status as a native product of Wutaishan, lending it a greater air of authenticity than the much Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 61 more common southern ritual. In 2005, cadres from the Shanxi Cultural Bureau applied unsuccessfully to have Wutaishan’s shengguan music listed with UNESCO as a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity, demonstrating that officials view this music as a potential gateway to an international acclaim that would raise the status of the entire province. The official focus on preserving Wutaishan’s ritual music, however, does not sit well with Shi Miaojiang, head of the Chinese Buddhist Association and abbot of Wutaishan’s Zhulin si (Bamboo Grove Monastery). He complains that the official preservation efforts have consisted of “all slogans, no action,” and would like to see the provincial government set up a centre at which those elderly monks who still remember how to perform the ritual music 2005 CD of Wutaishan Buddhist Music featurcould gather and pass their knowledge on to ing Shuxiang si’s Monks new generations of Wutaishan monks and 38 nuns. He views the ensemble at Shuxiang si as “just kids,” and does not place much hope in their potential to help promulgate the use of shengguan music in rituals at Wutaishan. So far, though, Shi Miaojiang’s point of view has not been adopted by area officials, who still support efforts to preserve this music in concerts and recordings, but not efforts to increase its use within ritual. The maintenance of the shengguan repertoire associated with Ghost Festival enhances Shuxiang si’s standing as an officially supported Buddhist temple and brings with it exposure in the form of nationally distributed television shows, audio recordings and books. One might wonder, then, why so few of Wutaishan’s temples have recently used shengguan music in ritual. Several obstacles to the establishment and maintenance of such ensembles have thus far prevented their widespread use. After the Cultural Revolution, few of the monks with expertise in playing wind instruments returned to the temples, and some of those who did felt they were too old to continue playing or to teach a new generation of monks to play. Thus, few of those who joined the monastic community in recent decades have had an opportunity to learn to read the traditional gongche pu notation in which the shengguan repertoire is preserved. The majority of the monks currently residing in most of Wutaishan’s Han monasteries spent their novice years in other regions of China, and those monks continue to perform rituals as they first learned them, without the use of wind 38 Shi Miaojiang, Head of Chinese Buddhist Association, interview at Zhu Lin Si, Wutaishan by the author, 16 August 2005, translated by Ye Xiu Juan. 62 Chime 18-19 (2010) instruments. Shuxiang si and Nanshan si are primarily occupied by local monks who perhaps have a greater stake in maintaining local traditions such as the use of shengguan in ritual. It appears, however, that even at Nanshan si the use of shengguan is currently in decline. This might result from the logistical and economic difficulties that go along with maintaining a shengguan ensemble. The musical instruments used, particularly the temperamental sheng, are not available in Wutaishan and must be purchased outside of the area. The frequentlyneeded repairs can also become quite costly. These complications might in most cases outweigh the benefits of increased official support and national exposure for ritual practice that come along with the use of shengguan music. Shuxiang si’s use of the shengguan ensemble has effectively drummed up a large number of donors to sponsor rituals at the monastery, and brought enthusiastic government support to the monastery, but this situation has its drawbacks as well as benefits. Monks and nuns from other temples in the area worry that the emphasis on musical performance at Shuxiang si detracts from the monk’s personal spiritual development. Shuxiang si has as a result gained a reputation as a spiritually shallow institution. Hai Fa, a monk at Yuanzhao si, stated that the monks of Shuxiang si spend so much time polishing their musical performance that they have no time to learn more than the surface teachings of Buddhism.39 This complaint echoes longstanding concerns about the spiritual health of monks who spend too much time performing rituals for donors. Holmes Welch writes that, in early twentieth-century Chinese monasteries, “Some conservative monks were coming to feel that the commercialization of rites reflected poorly on the sangha. There was also a tendency to look down on those monks who spent their time going out to perform them in people’s homes. They were popularly referred to as ‘monks on call’ in contrast to those who spent their time in the monastery on meditation and study.”40 It is true that the monks of Shuxiang si live both as “monks on call” and as “musicians on call,” and generally have little time for meditation or study. This mercenary nature is not unique to Shuxiang si’s monks; with the 1950 enactment of Land Reform laws, Chinese monasteries lost the landholdings that formerly provided the bulk of their revenue. As a result, most monasteries today support themselves primarily through the performance of donor-sponsored ritual. With Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms of the late 1970s, monasteries now compete for donors in the same way that businesses compete for customers. At Shuxiang si, monks are relatively wealthy but have little time for personal cultivation. To some extent, these monks are victims of their success as performers of ritual and music. The events of the Ghost Festival week at Wutaishan carry a variety of meanings and functions. For the monks who perform the rituals and for some of the donors who support them, Yulanpen hui and Fang Yankou provide actual assistance to the deceased, allowing those who are suffering in the afterlife to enter a better mode of existence. According to officially sanctioned writings on the subject, and to many donors as well, these activities act as aesthetically pleasing, locally specialized memorial services. These activities are therefore acceptable even though the traditional idea that ghosts are being aided smacks 39 Hai Fa, monk at Yuan Zhao Si, interview in Taihuai Town, Wutaishan by the author 28 April 2007. His view is coloured somewhat by the fact that he practices Tibetan Buddhism and finds all Han Chinese Buddhism to touch only “surface teachings.” 40 Holmes Welch, Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 198. Szczepanski: Redeeming Hungry Ghosts, Preserving Musical Heritage 63 of superstition. For many, stories of Mulian and Ānanda and their encounters with hungry ghosts no longer instill fear that one’s own ancestors might be hungry ghosts in need of assistance, or that one might be harassed by a hungry ghost some evening. Even as mere memorials, however, Ghost Festival rituals continue to provide a means of demonstrating filial piety, maintaining their original role as a factor justifying the existence of the Buddhist monastic community in Chinese society. In order to gain and maintain official support for the practice, however, these rituals have come to carry additional meaning as well. In the post-Cultural Revolution backlash against the destruction of traditional cultural artefacts, rituals such as Fang Yankou enjoy the protection and support of government officials not because of their purported efficacy in assisting the deceased but due to their aesthetic interest and historical value. As such, the northern ritual, native to Wutaishan and including the use of the shengguan ensemble, receives greater attention from area officials than does the more common southern ritual. Shuxiang si uses Ghost Festival rituals to justify the monastic community’s existence not only as practitioners of rituals necessary for filial responsibility, but also as custodians of valuable cultural artefacts to be preserved. 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GLOSSARY Amituofo Baojuan Baosheng Fo Bianwen Bo Budong Fo Bukong Chengjiu Fo Canli tiao Cha Chan Chang Cuihuang hua Dacheng jing Dagu Damu Rulai Dangzi Dizang Pusa Dizang Pusa benyuan jing Dizi Fangchi Fang Yankou Foguang si Fo shuo jiuba kouyan egui tuoluoni jing Fo shuo yulanpen jing Fotou Fozhu Guanyin Guanzi Henian Huayan hui Huixiang jie Jiasha Jiangjing Jingang shangshi 阿弥陀佛 宝卷 宝生佛 变文 钹 不动佛 不空成就佛 参礼条 镲 禅 唱 萃黄花 大乘经 大鼓 大日如来 铛子 地藏菩萨 地藏菩萨本值经 笛子 方尺 放焰口 佛光寺 佛说救拔口焰饿鬼陀罗尼经 佛说盂兰盆经 佛头 佛珠 观音 管子 和念 华严会 回向偈 袈裟 讲经 金刚上师 66 Jing ping Liuju zan Mimo yan Mulian Mulian qiumu chuli diyu shangtian baojuan Muyu Nanshan si Nao Nian Qiyi Qiansheng Fo Sanyinluo Sheng Shengguan Shifang tang Sizi yuegao Song Shuxiang si Tayuan si Wannian hua Wannian huan Wangsheng tang Wutaishan Xiaoqu Yankou Yinqing Yuqie jiyao Yankou shiyi Yuanzhao si Zan Zhongguo Foyue baodian Zhongguo minzu minjian qiyuedian jicheng Zhuyi Zhulin si Zhuntishen zhou Zisun miao Zou Zushi tang Chime 18-19 (2010) 净瓶 六句赞 秘魔岩 目连 目连求母出离地狱上天宝卷 木鱼 南山寺 铙 念 七衣 千声佛 三音罗 笙 笙管 十方堂 四字月高 诵 殊像寺 塔院寺 万年花 万年欢 往生堂 五台山 小曲 焰口 引磬 瑜伽集要焰口食仪 园照寺 赞 中国佛乐宝典 中国民族民间器乐典集成 住衣 竹林寺 ᡴ提神咒 子孙庙 奏 祖师堂