[Buddha-l] gorgeous sung version of Heart Sutra

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Thu, 2006-01-12 at 16:05 +0100, Joy Vriens wrote:

> > https://www.dmes.org/dmu/audiofiles/Kirtan04-HS.mp3
> 
> Very nice indeed. Thank you for posting the link.

Yes, thanks for posting it. It's a fascinating example of the perfection
of silliness.
Who ever got the idea to put the Heart Sutra to music (with a Bengali
accent, yet)? The Heart Sutra is not even in verse. It's not even
written in ornamented prose. Some say it wasn't even written in Sanskrit
but was translated into rather ugly Sanskrit from Chinese. 

Singing the Heart Sutra makes about as much sense as singing a recipe
for making chocolate chip cookies, or chanting instructions for putting
together a garden shed. Sure, it can be done, but at what cost to our
aesthetic sensibilities?

-- 
Richard