A Study on Ceremonial Buddhist Music Focusing on Beomeum and Beompae

‘Yeongsanjae’ is one of the best Korean buddhist ceremony, registered as the Korean intangible heritage \#50 and the world intangible cultural assets by UNESCO september, 2009. Yeongsanjae is performed through the buddhist music and dance.So it is necessary to understand Beomeum and Beompae the ceremonial buddhist music and Jakbeopmu the ceremonial buddhist dance. The theme of this paper is the buddhist music. In fact buddhism has a negative attitude to music and dance as those are prohibited by precepts. But the reason music and dance can be performed in ritual is that those are considered as a method to spread the dharma or as a method to undergo discipline. So we have to approach to it in the spiritual aspect.There are two parts of buddhist ceremonial music. One is ‘Anchaebie’ focusing on theoretical aspect and the other is ‘Bakkatchaebie’ focusing on spiritual aspect. The former play a role in giving a tension and the latter play a role in giving a relaxation. So those lead people to the buddhist utopia Middle Way.As those are classified into sound, Anchaebie has short and mechanical sound line to deliver the contents exactly and it needs high degree of precision because it deals with theoretical aspect. Bakkatchaebie is very long and has a high level of difficulty. It is performed to relax the tense atmosphere from dealing with spiritual aspect. Its predominant feature is ‘ileumdagok’-one note many songs and it has a relation with India the native place of buddhism where a ruminant cow is adored.So it has a feeling of country bordering on western china. The buddhist music Beomeum and Beompae are arranged in its features and usage of terms at modern people’s eye level in this paper. We can meet many persons through the tunnel of culture beyond time and space and finally arrive at the world of buddha. So understanding and interest in culture is very important.