For those who associate Buddhism with sensory denial, the compound “Buddhist Music” may seem like a contradiction in terms. Indeed, the Buddhist ideal was, from earliest times, one intended to be fulfilled primarily by renunciates, who subjected themselves, in varying degrees, to an ascetic discipline that would seem to imply the necessity of renouncing the appeasement of musical appetites. Be this as it may, by the time of the establishment of an official code of conduct for monks, or Vinaya, the participation of the Buddhist priesthood in musical practices had given rise to enough conflict for it to require strict regulation. Nevertheless, even after the establishment of prohibitions on singing, dancing, and instrumental music in the monastic context, chanting practices were retained and developed by the monastic establishment, until the time at which, during the political, social, and religious upheavals of the medieval Indian period, intricate song and dance forms were reincorporated into formal Buddhist institutions

In this talk, an account will be given for the development of Buddhist musical practices on the Indian subcontinent from their earliest, datable instances to the disappearance of Buddhist institutions from India proper, demonstrating the persistence of descendant traditions of Sanskrit Buddhist chant and song in contemporary Japanese, Tibetan, and Newari esoteric Buddhist communities. It is argued that the Buddhist musical theory and praxis of these three cultural spheres preserve features of ancient and medieval Indian Buddhist chant and song that have otherwise, along with historical Buddhist institutions themselves, disappeared from the Indian subcontinent.