Baikako, held by Zen monks and believers by singing the Buddhism hymn named Baikaryu Eisanka, is a kind of belief activity of Soto School. Baikako first appeared in 1952 at a commemorative activity of the 700th anniversary of Dogen’s death at Shizuoka city. Participants learn the teachings by singing Baikaryu Eisanka in praise of Shakyamuni Buddha and the two founders of Soto Zen School named Dogen and Keizan, and to show respect for the ancestors and the past monks. In a fixed-form ritual, participants sing the teachings ringing bells, remember the important religious figures, experience emotions released through the ritual singings, and feel themselves connected to the teachings. This draws us to questions such as how to define this singing practice experience, how the singing action appears as a vehicle of connection with the religious doctrine, and how to locate the practice and experience of singing the Buddhist hymn within the context of Zen.

This paper, based on the author’s fieldwork on Baikakos of Soto Zen temples in Tokyo, explores into Baikaryu Eisanka singing as a religious phenomenon, and examines the meaning of such religious singing experience to the Soto Zen School and its believers, and reconsiders the functions and the features of this kind of ritualized singing experience from the perspective of Religion. It will shed new a light upon an important but not so much studied aspect of Zen Buddhist in the contemporary Japan.