Dàyuán shēngmíng bóshì tú 大原聲明博士圖
Diagrams of the Ōhara Shōmyō Notation [hakase] [compiler unknown]
About the work
A single-fascicle illustrated reference for the hakase (博士) — the medieval Japanese neume graphical notation system used for shōmyō — as employed in the Ōhara Raigō-in gyo-san tradition. The work is anonymous and circulated as a musicological reference among Ōhara shōmyō practitioners through the medieval period.
Abstract
The hakase system is one of the oldest continuously-transmitted musical notation systems in the world. It uses graphical neumes — small marks placed above or beside the text-syllables of the hymn — to indicate pitch direction, duration, ornamentation, and rhythmic articulation. The system descends from Tang Chinese jieyin graphical notation, transmitted to Japan with Buddhism in the 7th–9th c., and was elaborated by the Ōhara gyo-san lineage into its full medieval form.
The work presents the complete catalogue of hakase symbols with their interpretation: rising pitches, falling pitches, sustained pitches, ornamented pitches, melisma-figures, breath-marks, etc. For each, the graphical form is given alongside a verbal description and exemplary occurrences in the standard repertoire. The work is musicologically essential for reading the medieval Japanese shōmyō manuscripts and is the principal key to the otherwise opaque notation system.
Date. Anonymous compilation. Conservatively c. 1200–1400 on the basis of textual style and references.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div25.xml, T84N2715) records the work as a single-fascicle anonymous text with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
Critical edition: Taishō vol. 84. No English translation. Standard musicological reference for the hakase system: Steven G. Nelson, “Court and Religious Music in Heian Japan,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 2 (CUP, 1999); Sawada Atsuko, Nihon shōmyō no kenkyū (Iwanami, 2009); Imatomi Yū, Tendai shōmyō no kenkyū (Hōzōkan, 1991); Niels Guelberg, Buddhistische Zeremoniale (kōshiki) (Stuttgart, 1999).
Links
- CBETA online
- Companion: KR6t0423 (Gyo-san shōmyōshū), KR6t0425 (Gyo-san mokuroku)