What is the rap music in Buddhist temples?

The rap music in Buddhist temples belongs to bianwen.

There is a kind of rap music, which is set up by Buddhist temples to publicize teachings. It tells and sings Buddhist scriptures or doctrines in the form of talking and singing, which had a great influence in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. This rap music is a variation. Bianwen is a genre of ancient rap literature, which rose in Tang Dynasty.

It inherited the literary tradition of poetry and novels in the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, and developed under the direct influence of the so-called "singing guidance" of Buddhist monks. It has the characteristics of alternating rap, combining rhyme and white, popular language, tortuous narrative, vivid description and rich imagination. His representative works include Demon Change and Wu Zixu Change.

Brief introduction of Buddhist music

Buddhist music (Buddha Music in Zuoyun Lengyan Temple) is an intangible cultural heritage project of traditional music declared by Zuoyun Cultural Center in Zuoyun County, Datong City, China, and was certified in 2009. The music of Lengyan Temple in Zuoyun County spreads in Zuoyun and Liangcheng counties of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and originally belonged to the Diaodong Road School in Bai Fan, northern China.

Accompanied by the chanting and Buddhist activities of monks, it was produced and sung in the early Ming Dynasty and enriched and developed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the long-term spread process, it also absorbed the elements of Buddhist music such as Tianzhu music, Qiuci music and Anguo music, and combined with local folk music, gradually formed temple music with Mongolian and Chinese characteristics and exotic customs.