A Chant Has Nine Lives: The Circulation of Theravada Liturgies in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam

“While in modern times there is at least a broadly accepted view among Theravadins that the Tipitaka (Pali canon) contains the core monastic rules [vinaya], discourses [sutta], and higher teachings [abhidhamma] as outlined by the Buddha, there is very little in the way of a standard liturgy”, remarks the author in his preamble. 

“Theravada societies across linguistic, cultural, and national borders tend to share certain Pali canonical materials in their chanting curricula, including the three refuges [tisaraṇa], the five precepts [pañcasīla], various protective discourses [paritta], and fixed monastic rites [kammavācā] such as ordination [pabbajjā/​upasampadā] and recitation of the monastic rule [pāṭimokkha]. Beyond these commonalities, however, most of the texts that Theravada Buddhists regularly recite and commit to memory are not directly excerpted from the Tipitaka but from much more recent Pali and vernacular compositions.”

Analyzing the Khmer variant of ancestral Pali chants, the author notes: ​“The Khmer stanzas, by contrast, imply that all living beings are helplessly mired in ignorance. The author of this version memorably expands on the nature of this ignorance: ​“Completely enveloped in darkness / and crouched over like the blind, / they’re confused and they convulse, / as if strangled by a noose.” These lines, while absent from the Pali and Siamese antecedents, heighten the stakes for the ritual invitation to preach. They also demonstrate how the process of transferring a chant from one Theravada culture to another in Southeast Asia usually results in an expanded text. In this case, the doctrine shifts as well. The Buddha’s mandate is no longer restricted to a select few; he is instead called to teach all beings, even in the frightening depths of their delusion.”