Buddhist Music (Yangxian Buddhist Music)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Buddhist Music (Yangxian Buddhist Music)

Applicant: Yang County, Shaanxi Province

Item No.: 637

Project No.: Ⅱ - 138

Time of publication: 2011 (the third batch)

Category: Traditional Music

Region: Shaanxi Province

Type: Extension Project

Applicant: Yang County, Shaanxi Province

Protection unit: Yangxian Cultural Center

Introduction to Buddhist Music (Yangxian Buddhist Music)

Applicant: Yang County, Shaanxi Province

Yangxian Buddhist music is distributed in the eastern edge of Hanzhong Basin, southern Shaanxi Province. It is rise above the common herd of Buddhist music in Shaanxi, and is the representative work of religious music in the western part of China. It is known as the "flower of oil flower" of Buddhist Music (the essence of things).

Yangxian Buddhist music has a history of more than 1400 years. It began to form in the southern and Northern Dynasties, experienced the maturity of the Tang and Song Dynasties, and the heyday of the Ming Dynasty and the first half of the Qing Dynasty.

There are more than 1000 Buddhist music pieces in Yangxian county. These music pieces are recorded in the Ming Dynasty imperial scriptures of Zhiguo temple in Yangxian County, and have been preserved up to now. At present, there are still 200 songs that can be sung and played. There are three kinds of music: Jingyun, drum music, gongs and drums music, especially drum music. Its main musical instruments are pipes and drums. In the history of Chinese Buddhist music, it is rare that Yangxian Buddhist music, which has typical local characteristics and is connected with Yuci drum music class and Yuci Scripture, is inherited. Moreover, most of the Buddhist music is lost today, but there are many Buddhist music preserved in Yangxian County, which provides valuable information for us to study the regional culture, folk custom, religion and people's aesthetic orientation in the upper reaches of the Han River.