Yīnqǔ mìyào chāo 音曲祕要抄
Anthology of the Secret Essentials of [Buddhist] Music by 凝然 Gyōnen (述)
About the work
A single-fascicle treatise on Buddhist musical theory by Gyōnen 凝然 凝然 (1240–1321), companion to his Shōmyō genryū-ki KR6t0431. Where the Genryū-ki covers the historical-lineage dimension of shōmyō, the Onkyoku hiyōshō covers the theoretical-musical dimension — the doctrinal-cosmological understanding of musical pitch, mode, and performance in the Japanese Buddhist tradition.
Abstract
The treatise covers the musical-theoretical apparatus of the Japanese Buddhist tradition: (1) the twelve pitch-pipes and their cosmological correspondences; (2) the seven modes and their devotional applications; (3) the bīja mantric basis of singing — i.e. how the bīja seed-syllables of the esoteric tradition relate to the melodic structures of shōmyō; (4) the breathing and vocal-production techniques of authentic shōmyō performance; (5) the doctrinal interpretation of musical performance as a cosmological-soteriological practice.
The work is doctrinally distinctive in providing a Kegon-influenced reading of shōmyō practice — Gyōnen, as a Tōdai-ji Kegon scholar, reads the interpenetration (yūzū) of music and doctrine through the Kegon enkyō framework. This is the principal alternative to the Tendai-Ōhara internal reading and the Shingon-Mt. Kōya internal reading, and one of the few extant Nara-school theoretical treatises on shōmyō.
Date. Composition in Gyōnen’s mature career, c. 1280–1321, contemporary with Shōmyō genryū-ki.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div25.xml, T84N2721) records the work as a single-fascicle treatise by Gyōnen with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
Critical edition: Taishō vol. 84. No English translation. Major studies: Imatomi Yū, Tendai shōmyō no kenkyū (Hōzōkan, 1991); Sawada Atsuko, Nihon shōmyō no kenkyū (Iwanami, 2009); Ishida Mizumaro, Gyōnen no kenkyū (Daitō shuppan, 1973).
Links
- CBETA online
- Author: 凝然 (Gyōnen)
- Companion: KR6t0431 (Gyōnen, Shōmyō genryū-ki), KR6t0398 (Gyōnen, Jōdo hōmon genryūshō)