Yunnan Southern Buddhism Spread Ritual Music Chanting Style Research

The Theravada Buddhism in China, mainly distributed in the South-western border region inYunnan Province(Xishuangbanna, Dehong, Lincang, Simao, has five main ethnic followerstheDai，the Bulang，the De’ang, the Achang, and the Wa nationality. The Theravada Buddhism includes both the rich content of primitive Buddhism and the unique charm of local culture as it spreadsand develops in Yunnan Province with the process of nationalization and localization, thus constitute a complex, diverse ritual music and chanting style. Set in the project Anthropological Researchof the Chinese Theravada Buddhism music supported by the National Social Science Foundationof China hosted by my tutor, I set the project The Study of the Ritual Music and Chanting Style ofTheravada Buddhism in Yunnan Province supported by the Foundation of Yunnan Educational Committee as the research aim. The chanting style of the Theravada Buddhism is the main researchcontent. According to the ifeld investigation and participating investigation of ethnomusicology, this thesis, by means of scripture system and transluminal system, puts the research object in a specific cultural background and probes into the formation of chanting style of the Theravada Buddhism in Yunnan Province and tries to analyze the factors, the Theravada Buddhism ceremony and music being the breakthrough point.This paper consists of three parts-introduction, four chapters and conclusion. The introduction emphasizes on the explanation of my research background, purpose, data sources, research status, subject orientation, research methods and so on. In the main body, the first chapter summarizes theresearch background of the Theravada Buddhism’s chanting style about ritual music, including themissionary history, regional situation of Yunnan Theravada Buddhism and its music’s chanting style. Regional situation means the geographical situation, cultural background of missionary history and social situation. Here it includes the situation and cause of formation of distribution pattern;the chanting style of ritual music includes sound styles, sound content and ritual relations of ritualchanting. There is also related definition of ‘system and style’ and ’idiosyncracy and characteirstics’ which are main concepts involved in this paper. The second chapter carires about a detailed presentation and descirption about the core of chanting style of Yunnan’s Theravada Buddhism—libretto system (scripture and writing system) and transluminal chanting system. This part plays a role i n the paper as the core of forming the chanting style and the foundation of the following analysis.The third chapter presents objectively the formation and characteirstics of chanting style in the region where Yunnan’s Theravada Buddhism spreads. On the basis of the description of the previouschapters, the fourth chapter explains and analyzes relevant contents about the formation of chanting style. This chapter includes two parts; firstly, it is the interpretation of characteirstics of chantingstyle, that is，the analysis on the duality of chanting style; secondly, it is the interpretation of the regularity，namely, it’s the analysis on factors of forming chanting style. The conclusion makes theprospects of the future study by summarizing the body of the paper.