Chapter 8 Chapter 2 Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties

The Indian nation has been a nation capable of singing and dancing since ancient times.According to legend, when Zhang Qian traveled to the Western Regions, he obtained two pieces of music in the Western Regions, called "Mahadule"; Li Yannian, a great musician in the Western Han Dynasty, refurbished the pieces from the Western Regions and created 28 new pieces; The music modified on the basis of the music of the Western Regions was used as "martial music" for the troops guarding the frontier (Cui Bao's "Gu Jin Zhu").In other words, in the Han Dynasty, China had its own military music due to the influence of music from the Western Regions.The appearance of military music was first in India.Before the Han Dynasty, the Indian army had military music and used military bands in combat, while the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Egyptians, etc. at that time did not have military music.In addition, the words "Mahadule" are also Indian words.Therefore, Chinese music was influenced by India in the Han Dynasty.

In the process of teaching Buddhist scriptures, Indian Buddhists, in addition to reciting scriptures, pay special attention to phonology, chanting and singing with full of rhythm.Generally speaking, Buddhist scriptures are often written in two styles: rhyme and prose, which is the so-called "rhyme and prose" form: the prose is interspersed with rhyme from time to time (called 节 [jiji], verse or song praise, i.e. verse).In this way, when encountering scriptures in prose style, you can recite them, and when you encounter scriptures in rhyme style, you can sing them, which is neither boring nor easy to remember.After Buddhism was introduced to China, people called the recitation of the scriptures "transcription" and the singing of verses "fanbai" [fanbai rice worship].

With the introduction of Buddhism, Indian Buddhist music also spread to China, and had a great influence, and Chinese Buddhist music appeared.The founder of Chinese Buddhist music is generally considered to be Cao Zhi, a famous writer and poet during the Three Kingdoms period. Cao Zhi is the son of Cao Cao, Emperor Wu of Wei, and the younger brother of Cao Pi, Emperor Wen of Wei.Because he was named King Chen and his posthumous title was "Si" after his death, he was also called King Chen Si by later generations.He was very talented in literature since he was a child, and he became even more outstanding when he grew up, and he was very much loved by Cao Cao.But he was incompetent politically and militarily, so Cao Cao did not let him inherit the throne.The story about his creation of Buddhist music is recorded in the twelfth volume of "Chu Sanzang Ji" written by Liang Sengyou in the Southern Dynasty, "Chen Siwang Ganyushan Sanskrit Voice System". Unfortunately, the original text has not been handed down, only this one Catalog and title, we have no way of knowing the details of his creation.However, according to other documents, we can roughly infer that he was granted the title of King of Dong'e in the third year of Taihe (229 AD), and his fiefdom was in Dong'e County, Shandong Province today; in the second year (230 AD), he visited Dong'e Yushan in the territory, heard the voice of Fanbai singing in the cave, and was deeply affected, so he adapted and created songs such as "Prince Song"; the fanbai he composed was called "Yushan Fanbai" by later generations.

Cao Zhi loves music, understands music, is a poet, is interested in Buddhism, and has participated in the translation of Buddhist scriptures. These are the subjective conditions for him to first create Chinese Fanbai.In addition, during the period when Buddhism was introduced to China, many monks who came to China from India and other regions in the Western Regions were good at Fanbai, and they created the objective conditions for the emergence of Chinese Fanbai to a large extent. Cao Zhi's creation of Yushan Fanbai is not only a good story in the history of Chinese Buddhism, but also a good story in the history of cultural exchanges between China and India.From the Three Kingdoms period where Cao Zhi lived to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Chinese Buddhist music has developed.Especially during the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang in the Southern Dynasties (502-548 A.D.), because the emperor himself believed in Buddhism, he used his supreme status to vigorously promote Buddhism.He wrote the lyrics himself, "creating a new sound", and asked the musician Shen Yue to compose the music, and then let the musicians play it.He reformed the court music at that time, and listed the songs "telling the Dharma" as "Zhengyue", which were played in the court, and the boy singing Buddhist songs as "Dharma music", which was used in important rituals such as "Uncovered Conference" Activities ("Sui Shu·Music History").He also absorbed the content and form of dances from India and the Western Regions, and reformed court dances.In this way, ancient Indian music and dance had a profound impact on Chinese court music and dance.