I have been learning/memorizing chanting in the Dhammayut Order, I use Thanissaro Bikkhu’s online chanting audios and I have his monastery’s chanting book. I have completed the morning and evening chant (all pali) and now wish to continue on the following chants such as ‘contemplation of the body’, ‘five subjects for frequent recollection’, ‘the verses on friends’ etc. Thanisarro bikkhu recites these going back from pali to english.
I plan to go to malaysia soon to Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary and to other monasteries throughout asia. In general, do asian theravadan monasteries (that are considered international-friendly and know english) go back and forth between pali and english as well? I assume not.
Thus, I’ve look for solely pali audios for these chants online but to no avail. Can anyone offer me direction here?
No; that’s not been my experience (including at SBS, which is wonderful BTW!).
Recitation styles vary very considerably, so be prepared to encounter differences from monastery to monastery. And maybe don’t chant too loudly until you get the hang of the tune. I remember one monk at a centre berating us for sounding like a group of banshees. The next night nobody dared make a sound, so the Venerable ended up doing all the chanting himself
The Thai temple here mix pali and Thai, like one sentence pali, then one sentence Thai, but don’t worry too much, when you visit a temple, the monks there generally are more than happy to help you with the chanting, just ask.
Chanting is good for learning chants as you can follow the audio with the text in a sort of ‘karaoke’ style. I think though that not all the chants have accompanying audio but it may be worth a look.
After a few weeks of deeper research, with thanks to the direction gained from several responses to this thread, I have amassed a list of buddhist chanting (PALI LANGUAGE ONLY) with links. The purpose of this collection is to have easy access to buddhist chanting audios (outside of the common morning/evening pujas) in the pali language.
Notes to consider:
This does not include all of the chants found in the average Buddhist chantings book, but only the ones I could find audios for in pali language alone.
I recorded the page number according to the Dhammayut Order, Wat Metta Chanting Book translated by Thanisarro Bikkhu. There will be other page numbers in the links connected to other chanting books such as Amaravati’s chanting book.
There are sometimes different names for each chant depending on the chanting book / translator. The bolded title of the chants is the Pali and English according to Thanissaro bikkhu and the wat metta chanting book. Some of the links will have different titles.
I have included chanting from both amaravati and abhayagiri. While they have the same style of chanting and come from the same lineage, I included both when possible, even for the same chant, as the audios may have different qualities, rhythms, voices, etc.
Devatayuyyojana Gatha - Verses Ushering the Devas back home
pg. 187 in wat metta chanting book
Taking the Eight Precepts (and three refuges)
pg. 192 in wat metta chanting book
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All of the audios by Wat Metta / Thanisarro Bikkhu listed can be found online here: Pali Chants | dhammatalks.org. One can download them altogether at the bottom of the page. Within this, there are also Pali/English chanting audios for chants such as ‘the five subjects for frequent recollection’ or ‘contemplation of the body’. I could not find Pali only chanting audios of these chants, therefore, they are not included in this collection.
