諸經要集 4.43

4.43

又十誦律云。為諸天聞唄心喜故。開唄聲也。又毘尼母經云。佛告諸比丘。聽汝等唄。唄者言說之辭。雖聽言說。未知說何等法。佛言。從修多羅乃至優婆提舍。隨意所說。十二部經復有疑心。若欲次第說文。眾大文多恐生疲厭。若略撰集好辭。直示現義。不知如何。以是因緣具白世尊。佛即聽諸比丘。引經中要言妙辭。直顯其義。爾時有一比丘。去佛不遠。立高聲作歌音誦經。佛聞不聽用此音誦經。有五過患。同外道歌音說法。一不名自持。二不稱眾。三諸天不悅。四語不正難解。五語不巧故義亦難解。是名五種過也。

Furthermore, the Daśabhāṇavāra-vinaya says: Because the gods rejoice in their hearts upon hearing chanting (pāṭha), the chanting voice is permitted. Furthermore, the Vinayamātṛkā says: The Buddha told the monks, "I allow you to chant (pāṭha)." A chant is words of spoken discourse. Although speech was permitted, they did not know what Dharma should be spoken. The Buddha said: "From sūtras to upadeśas, speak whatever you wish." Regarding the twelve divisions of scriptures, they again had doubts: "If we wish to speak the text sequentially, the assembly is large and the texts are vast, so we fear weariness and boredom will arise. If we make a brief compilation of fine phrases to directly reveal the meaning, we do not know if that is permissible." For this reason, they fully reported it to the Bhagavat. The Buddha then permitted the monks to cite essential words and wondrous phrases from the sūtras to directly reveal their meaning. At that time, there was a monk not far from the Buddha who stood and loudly recited the sūtras in a singing tone. The Buddha heard this and did not permit reciting the sūtras with this sound. There are five faults in expounding the Dharma with a singing tone like that of non-Buddhists: 1. It is not called self-restraint; 2. It does not suit the assembly; 3. The gods are not pleased; 4. The speech is not proper and difficult to understand; 5. Because the phrasing is unskillful, the meaning is also difficult to understand. These are called the five faults.