Hello everyone,
I am practicing more chanting lately and noticed something interesting. Some traditions have fairly simple chanting styles, and others demonstrate more embellished, melodic styles (essentially singing).
This piqued my curiosity, given that the seventh precept deals specifically with entertainment, singing, shows… I wonder how this stylistic chanting of the Dhamma developed, and whether we know how the Buddha and his disciples chanted.
I did find this passage from Cv V 33:
(For context, a couple of Bhikkhus want to chant the Dhamma in a style similar to the Vedas to help ensure uniformity. The Buddha strongly rejects this.)
“How can you, O foolish ones, speak thus, saying, “Let us, Lord, put the word of the Buddhas into verse?” This will not conduce, O foolish ones, either to the conversion of the unconverted, or to the increase of the converted; but rather to those who have not been converted being not converted, and to the turning back of those who have been converted.’
And when the Blessed One had rebuked those Bhikkhus, and had delivered a religious discourse, he addressed the Bhikkhus, and said:
'You are not, O Bhikkhus, to put the word of the Buddhas into (Sanskrit) verse. Whosoever does so, shall be guilty of a dukkaṭa”
The implication seems to be that the Buddha was trying to avoid the brahmanic traditions of Vedic recitation. I am no Pāli scholar, and I don’t know much about Vedic oral recitation either, so if anyone has any ideas about this subject I would appreciate it!