[Buddha-l] liturgical languages (was: Will new the pope verify Buddhist doctrine?)

[Franz Metcalf]

Curt et al.,

> Is the same true of "Japanese" Buddhist chants - are these
> actually in a "Nipponized" liturgical version of Chinese?

Yes, exactly, at least in the Zen traditions. Total gibberish, but 
that's a Zen point of pride, the mind of unknowing and all that. 
Shingon brings in Nipponized versions of Sinified versions of Sanskrit, 
too. Lucky them--and those are *mantras*! One wonders what unintended 
powers the new sounds might have. The Pure Land traditions are perhaps 
not as bad, being more folksy from the get-go (though they do chant 
from the Sukhavati Sutras, which are--like all Mahayana 
sutras--incomprehensible even if they're written in own's own 
language). I'm not sure they do this in Japan, but, in America, Jodo 
Shinshu Buddhists often chant from the writings of Shinran and those 
should be at least as comprehensible to contemporary Japanese as, say, 
Chaucer is to English speakers.

[Now to include obligatory Chaucerian content]

This reminds me to be mindful of smale foweles maken melodye outside my 
window. Aprill, with his shoures soote, really *is* making me longen to 
goon on pilgrimages.

Franz Metcalf