[Buddha-l] liturgical languages

[Michel Clasquin]

curt wrote:
> To be honest I just don't think that 
> Western Buddhism
> has yet produced the personell who are QUALIFIED to compete with such 
> works of
> art as the Morning Bell Chant in Sino-Korean, for example. That will 
> require people
> who are, first of all, fully enlightened, second of all, exceptional 
> scholars, and third
> of all, gifted poets.

An excellent idea! Of course, we must be fair and consistent and apply 
the same criteria to the authors of those 2000 year old chants.

Now this means that if the author of a text is unknown, or if there is 
the least doubt about authorship, we can discard that text. That should 
take care of about 90 percent of all Buddhist writings.

Next, I take it that by *fully* enlightened you don't mean "having 
attained full and unsurpassable Buddhahood". That would leave us with 
exactly one historical figure (for argument's sake, Richard, for 
argument's sake!) and his writings were all taken down by others and 
transmitted down long lists of possibly unenlightened memorisers, 
transcribers and editors.

But even if we stipulate a lesser degree of realisation, we still have 
the problem of *proving* that the author was enlightened. Proving that 
one is enlightened is hard enough when the potential enlightenee is in 
front of us. At a 2000 year divide ... I don't think so.

Exceptional scholar? A little easier. Of course we do get all the same 
problems of certifying that it really was the scholar who wrote the 
chant and not, say, another monk by the same name a century later. Just 
seeing his name on a list of patriarchs won't cut it. The chant could 
have been composed by a pupil and retroactively approved in the master's 
name.

Gifted poet? Here we get into a problem of circularity. If a text really 
gets popular, no matter how oddly its grammar was structured to start 
with, it is not merely regarded as an exceptional example of that 
language, it starts to drive the development of that language itself. 
This is not a situation peculiar to Buddhism or Asian languages. In 
Islam, for example, the beautiful Arabic of the Qu'ran is held up as 
proof of its divine origin. But when you ask how you can learn to write 
  good Arabic, they will tell you to model yourself on the Qu'ran! In 
English, it is now almost impossible to say that Shakespeare was a lousy 
poet, because Shakespeare's English continues to define the language 
itself. The same applies to Cicero's Latin or Panini's Sanskrit. We may 
still be able to look at a 2000 year old piece of text and recognise it 
as poetry. But disentangling it from its own influence on  the language 
and judging its quality is very, very difficult.

So, if we apply the same three criteria to ancient texts that you want 
to apply to modern ones, it seems we have nothing left! Actually what is 
left is emotional attachment and reverence for the old words and by 
extension for their (supposed) authors. Nothing terribly wrong with that 
(except that all attachments are eventually to be let go).

> I really don't think we are there yet. When true 
> Master/Scholar/
> Poets do arise in the West I think that their work will be persuasive on 
> its own merits
> to people across sectarian/cultural lines.

If that were true, why are we all not chanting Gary Snyder's "Smokey the 
Bear Sutra"? Snyder could qualify for all three IMHO. The ironic touch 
in the STBS is obvious, but hey, that is not unknown in Buddhism either.

<ducking for cover>

But seriously, I very much doubt that any chant will be acceptable 
across sectarian lines unless the sects amalgamate first (fat chance!). 
Until then, a text will be considered unsuitable not because of its own 
merits, but because the author's enlightenment was not certified by *my* 
guru!

Michel
-- 
"Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so."
-- Bertrand Russell