A Study Of "Shiwanghui"

Zimeng, a large area covering the northwest of Liaoning and the southeast of Inner Mongolia, has been strategically significant since ancient times. Shiwanghui is an organization frequently holding civil ceremonies like funerals and sacrifices by the Zimeng River. It originally specialized in chanting sutras with localized Shifan as the background music; gradually it developed into a fork art featured by the performance of Shifan, a form of folk symphony played by ten musical instruments including pipe, Sheng, Guan, drum, gong, and cymbal. It is considered to have a long history due to its formal similarities to Sanyue, an assortment of folk operas prevailing there in the Liao Dynasty, and Shifan in the Ming Dynasty.In modern times, however, Shiwanghui is considerably impacted by the social development. It is at the edge of extinction because of the loss of notations, deaths of old players, the lack of customers, and many other adverse factors. Thus it is urgent to rescue, reserve, regulate, and give a wide popularity to Shiwanghui.Since Shiwanghui consists of sutra chanting and Shifan playing, this paper centers on the two aspects, tracing their histories and studying their status quo, so as to make known the importance and possibility of inheriting the intangible cultural heritage and to pass on the standout folk music culture.