諸經要集 4.43

4.43

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.