Buddhist liturgy

• 1. Introduction

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  Buddhist liturgy begins before dawn in thousands of temples across the world, where monks rise to perform the zaoke, the morning service, in near-darkness. The ritual has a specific shape: chanting, mantra recitation, offerings of incense and water, and the measured beat of wooden percussion instruments. It is not an occasional observance but a daily practice, sometimes performed more than once a day, found in nearly every traditional denomination of Buddhism. What makes it remarkable is how much it varies and, at the same time, how much it holds in common. The same impulse to venerate and worship in a formalized way runs through Chinese Buddhist halls, Japanese Pure Land temples, Nichiren communities, and Vajrayana practice alike. How did these liturgical traditions develop? Who shaped the texts that practitioners still chant today? And what does the structure of a single service reveal about the priorities and beliefs of each tradition?

• 2. The Shape of a Service

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  Liturgies across Buddhist traditions share a recognizable core. Practitioners typically chant sūtra passages, recite mantras and dhāraṇīs, sing verses of praise to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and perform acts of offering and repentance. The service almost always takes place before an object of veneration, accompanied by offerings of light, incense, water, or food. Whether the practitioner attends a temple or performs the ritual at home, the basic orientation remains the same.

  In the Chinese tradition, the daily service has two distinct sessions: the morning service called the zaoke and the evening service called the wanke. Together they form what is known as the zhāo mù kè sòng, or Morning and Evening Chants. Vocal performance within these sessions falls into three categories: nian, meaning recitation; song, meaning chanting; and chang, meaning singing. Sūtras are typically read on a single note with a regular beat that may gradually speed up. Mantras are chanted. Gāthās of praise are sung in a metric form using composed melodies.

  The sonic landscape of a Chinese Buddhist service is dense and specific. Practitioners use the muyu, a wooden fish percussion instrument; the qing, or sounding stones; the gu, or drums; the zhong, or bells; the chazi, meaning cymbals; the yinqing, a type of hand bell; and the dangzi, a small handheld gong. A particularly clear, melodious style of ritual chanting is given its own term, fanbai, which translates as the speech of Brahmā. Beyond these shared instruments, individual temples and overseas Chinese communities maintain their own regional performance traditions.

• 3. Yunqi Zhuhong and the Liturgical Canon

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  Yunqi Zhuhong, who lived from 1535 to 1615, is one of the most consequential figures in the history of Chinese Buddhist liturgy. He was the Eighth Patriarch of the Chinese Pure Land tradition and the abbot of a temple on Mount Yunqi in Hangzhou. His motivation for compiling what became the Zhujing Risong Jiyao, or Compilation of Essentials for the Daily Chanting of Various Sūtras, came directly from frustration. In his own preface to the manual, Zhuhong described how an existing manual in wide circulation at the time contained false scriptures. Rather than discard that text entirely, he used it as a foundation, removing the erroneous material and inserting new scriptures and mantras in their place.

  Zhuhong printed the Zhujing Risong Jiyao and sent it into circulation. He later made further revisions and reprinted it as a booklet, which was preserved at his temple. As abbot, he used the compilation to standardize daily practice and monastic training within his own community. The text spread beyond Mount Yunqi when Ouyi Zhixu, who lived from 1599 to 1655 and served as both the Ninth Patriarch of the Chinese Pure Land tradition and the Thirty-First Patriarch of the Tiantai tradition, reprinted and re-edited it. Zhixu and the monks at Zhuhong's temple at the time also added material from the Vinaya canon intended to be useful for beginners.

  The Zhujing Risong Jiyao's influence remained active for centuries. Two liturgical compilations in contemporary use, the Chanmen Risong and the Fomen Bibei, both show heavy influence from Zhuhong's work. The Chanmen Risong dates in its earliest extant printed form to 1723, when it was printed at Hoi Tong Monastery during the Qing dynasty. The Fomen Bibei first appeared during the Republican era. One of the most widely used modern editions of the Chanmen Risong traces back to a version published by Tianning Temple in Changzhou, which has since seen reprints by retailers and publishers.

• 4. Yinguang and the Republican Era

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  Yinguang, who lived from 1862 to 1940, was the Thirteenth Patriarch of the Chinese Pure Land tradition and the founder of the Honghua Society, an organization whose name translates as the Society for the Promotion of the Dharma. In 1937, the Honghua Society published a liturgical compilation called the Risong Jingzhou Jianyao Keyi, or Concise Rituals for the Daily Chanting of Sūtras and Mantras, under Yinguang's direction.

  The Republican era also produced influential commentaries on liturgical structure. The monk Guanyue Xingci, who lived from 1881 to 1950, wrote a work called the Erke Hejie, or Compiled Explanations on the Two Services. The Buddhist scholar Huang Zhihai, who lived from 1875 to 1961, wrote the Chaomu Kesong Baihua Jieshi, meaning Explanations on the Morning and Evening Services in the Common Vernacular. Huang was a student of Yinguang, which connects the two scholarly efforts to the same lineage. These commentaries were directed not at a specialist monastic audience but at practitioners who needed clarity on why each step in the service existed and what it was meant to accomplish.

• 5. The Morning and Evening Orders

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  The Qing dynasty monk Yulin Tongxiu, who lived from 1614 to 1675 and held the title of National Preceptor, wrote short commentaries on both the zaoke and wanke services that many contemporary liturgical texts still append. His commentary on the zaoke is called the Zaoke lunguan; the wanke equivalent is the Wanke lunguan.

  The morning service opens, on the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month, with a eulogy called the Baoding zan. Then comes the Śūraṅgama mantra, known in Chinese as the Lengyan Zhou. According to Yulin's commentary, this mantra is meant to regulate the five desires, specifically fame, lust, food, sleep, and money, before they can arise, so that the mind can penetrate and directly reveal the nature of the Tathāgatagarbha. After that comes the Nīlakaṇṭha Dhāraṇī, known as the Dabei zhou, whose purpose Yulin describes as purifying the mind. A grouping called the Ten Small Mantras follows, including the Cintāmani Cakravartin Dhāraṇī associated with an esoteric manifestation of the Bodhisattva Guanyin, the Bhaiṣajyaguru Dhāraṇī associated with the Buddha Yaoshi, and the Amitābha Pure Land Rebirth Dharani, which Yulin's commentary describes as a request to the Buddha Amituofo to certify the reciter's rebirth in the Pure Land of Sukhāvatī. The Heart Sūtra, the Bore Xinjing, rounds out the main body. Yulin's commentary explains that it is placed there to prevent practitioners from becoming attached to states of contemplation that arise during chanting, because its teaching on emptiness counteracts that tendency. The service closes with the Ten Great Vows of the Bodhisattva Puxian, drawn from the final chapter of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, followed by the Three Refuges and a transfer of merit.

  The evening service, the wanke, takes a different shape depending on the day. On odd-numbered evenings, the Amitābha Sūtra is recited; on even-numbered evenings, practitioners chant the Eighty-eight Buddhas Repentance Ceremony, prostrating while reciting the names of each of the eighty-eight Buddhas. Both evenings include the Mengshan Shishi, a ritual aimed at feeding hungry ghosts, which contains its own set of mantras and verses including material related to the Bodhisattvas Guanyin and Dizang.

• 6. Gongyō Across Japan

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  In Japan, the word gongyō carries a long history that predates its Buddhist use. The term first appeared in the Taoist classic Zhuang Zi and originally meant assiduous or hard and frequent walking and practice. The philosopher Zhuangzi derived it from an even earlier Taoist text, Laozi's Tao Te Ching, which contains the phrase meaning taking effort and practicing. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, Chinese Buddhist philosophers borrowed the term from Taoist literature, and it traveled with Buddhism to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

  In Japanese Pure Land schools such as Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu, gongyō centers on the nembutsu, the recitation of the name of Amida. Daily practice in these schools also involves chanting excerpts from the Larger Sūtra of Immeasurable Life, particularly the Sanbutsuge or the Juseige sections. In some temples the entire Smaller Sūtra of Immeasurable Life is chanted once daily or reserved for formal occasions. Jodo Shinshu lay practitioners may additionally chant the Shoshinge, a hymn written by the tradition's founder Shinran, which expounds the lineage underlying Jodo Shinshu belief. A shorter hymn, the Junirai or Twelve Praises of Amida, serves as an alternative.

  Shingon gongyō differs among sub-sects, but all versions include the Hannya Shingyo, the mantras of the Thirteen Buddhas, the Light Mantra, and the gohogo, which is the saintly name of Kukai. Shingon practice places particular emphasis on the three aspects of meditation: body, speech, and mind, making gongyō important for lay practitioners as a unified discipline rather than only a vocal performance.

  Nichiren Buddhist gongyō consists of reciting passages from the Lotus Sūtra and chanting daimoku. The chapters most frequently recited are Chapter 2, the Hoben-pon, and Chapter 16, the Juryo-hon, which Nichiren himself used. Nichiren established no formal procedure beyond these two chapters, and their precise format has changed repeatedly over the centuries.

• 7. Soka Gakkai and the Living Format

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  Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, who was the first president of the Soka Gakkai and later, along with the organization's second president Josei Toda, taught members not to hire priests to chant on their behalf, as had long been customary, but to chant for themselves. That shift, which members at the time found both disarming and empowering in their own words, fundamentally changed how gongyō was practiced within the lay community.

  The current Soka Gakkai International format evolved through decades of revision. In the 1970s, silent prayers were added for the success of the organization itself and in memory of Makiguchi and Toda. The most recent update came in 2015. As of that edition, gongyō begins with the recitation of the second chapter and the verse section of the sixteenth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, after which daimoku, the chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, continues for as long as practitioners choose. Silent prayers then conclude the session: gratitude to the Gohonzon, to Nichiren, and to his immediate successor Nikko; appreciation for the three founding presidents; prayers for worldwide kosen-rufu, for the practitioner's own human revolution and goals, and for the deceased; and a final prayer for the happiness of all living beings. The SGI's sutra recitation takes approximately five minutes. The Soka Gakkai emphasizes that more important than the precise wording of the prayers is the practitioner's heartfelt intent.

  In Nichiren Shoshu, gongyō carries the formal name Gon-Gyo, meaning Persevering Action, and serves as the basic supplemental service of Hokkeko believers. At the Head Temple, the service includes a distinct practice called the Ushitora gongyō conducted at the Dai Kyakuden. During the 1930s, the service was shortened to a single format; that consolidation was initiated by Makiguchi and approved by the 57th High Priest Nissho Shonin. The sect requires that lay members use Juzu prayer beads with pure white cords and white ornaments consecrated by a local Nichiren Shoshu priest, while priests use an additional set with white string tassels. Constant rubbing of the beads throughout ceremonies is explicitly prohibited.