Word.ws English Dictionary

shomyo

shomyo noun: a type of Buddhist liturgical chant.

Noun

shomyo (uncountable)

  1. A type of Buddhist liturgical chant.
    • Since shōmyō began as the chanting of Buddhist texts in India and went from there to China before coming to Japan, it is now sung in three different languages. Those songs sung in the ancient Indian dialect are called bonsan […], those in Chinese are called kansan, and the songs in Japanese are...2000, William P. Malm, Traditional Japanese Music and Musical Instruments, page 67
    • Yet another type of lineage to transmit ideas related to hongaku thought was that of the performers of shōmyō, or Buddhist vocal music. Originating in India, shōmyō in medieval Japan comprised several types, including hymns of praise for the Buddha in transliterated Sanskrit; hymns in Chinese...2003, Jacqueline I. Stone, Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism, page 129

Origin of shomyo

Learned borrowing from Japanese 声明(しょうみょう) (shōmyō).

Questions about shomyo

What does shomyo mean?
Shomyo means a type of Buddhist liturgical chant.
What part of speech is shomyo?
Shomyo is a noun.

Words near shomyo in the dictionary

  1. Shomos
  2. Shompangkha
  3. Shompen
  4. shomrim
  5. Shomu
  6. shomyo
  7. Shon
  8. Shona
  9. Shonas
  10. shonda
  11. shondas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shomyo (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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