This article presents an overview of the texts, melodies, and aesthetics of the performance of 'Dharma songs' (Khmer: dharm pad) in contemporary Cambodia. Dharma songs, also known as smūtr (sometimes smūt or smūdhy), are a corpus of narrative, didactic, and liturgical texts in Khmer and Pali, sung with complex melodies in various Buddhist rituals. I first survey how the Pali concepts of saṃvega and pasāda function in classical South Asian and contemporary Khmer Buddhist contexts. Within the Cambodian Dharma song tradition, I argue that saṃvega and pasāda can be understood as aesthetic experiences (Sanskrit: rasa) that are essential to Buddhist soteriology. By exploring how Dharma song texts and melodies are centered around the evocation of saṃvega and pasāda, I demonstrate how these aesthetic experiences define the performance of Cambodian Dharma songs. This particular Khmer tradition exemplifies the importance of recognizing, studying, and documenting the ways Buddhists live their religion through music.
目次
1 Prelude 271 2 Saṃvega and Pasāda as Aesthetic Experience 277 3 Dharma song texts 286 4 Dharma song melodies 301 5 Coda 317 Acknowledgments 319 General Abbreviations 320 References 320
