Smot

Smot (ស្មូត, smot) is the Cambodian Buddhist art of singing sacred verse to slow, richly ornamented melodies, most often at funerals. Its texts, in Khmer and Pali, tell of the Buddha's life, teach the Dharma and lament the dead, and it has been part of Buddhist ritual in Cambodia for centuries.

Illustration inspired by a chanting table in a temple hall.

Tradition details
Khmer name	ស្មូត
Also known as	smot; smutr; smot srei
Practice type	Performing art
Usual occasion	Funerals and ceremonies
Subjects	Music & Sound; Dance & Theatre

Names

Smot is also written smutr, smūt or smūdhy, and is known in English as Cambodian Buddhist chant or Cambodian Dharma song. In Khmer it is also called a dharma song, thor bot. The word comes from the Sanskrit root sutra, a set prayer or verse. The Khmer verb sot (សូត្រ), "to pray," takes an infix to become smot, "to cause one to pray." It has two Khmer spellings, ស្មូត and ស្មូធ្យ, of which ស្មូត is the more common. Smot is often paired with tomnounh (ទំនួញ), "to lament." Women's smot is called smot srei.

Practice

Smot is the slowest, longest, most complex and most ornamented of all Cambodian Buddhist vocal styles. It is usually sung solo and a cappella, by men or women, monks or laypeople, though Khmer instruments such as the tro sau fiddle sometimes accompany it. It is neither ordinary singing nor chanting. It is sweet and melodious, free in its timing rather than held to a strict beat, with rich vibrato, sweeping slides between notes and a light falsetto. The singer holds notes for a long time and, by tradition, sings with eyes closed, while listeners attend to the words and think on life and death.

Melodies and ornaments are fixed in advance, so there is little improvisation. The slow song of the achar, the lay ritual leader, can go on for hours until the gathering joins in, raising the pitch and quickening the pace until it becomes a loud cry. Singers read from traditional accordion-fold manuscripts of rhyming stanzas. Some smot songs call on the teveda, Hindu celestial beings, for help, as in "Chey Teous" and "Bat Sara Phanh."

Songs of pasāda, a feeling of clarity and faith, often use bright major pentatonic scales with devotional words, and are sung for worship and blessings. Songs of saṃvega, being deeply moved and shaken by suffering and impermanence, use mournful pentatonic scales and suit funerals, healing rites and tragic Buddhist stories. The laments most often use modified six-note Dorian and Mixolydian scales. Smot is regarded as a way to enlighten and heal the listener's mind.

Repertoire

Smot serves as lament, as a song of duty to parents, as Jataka story, as a telling of the Buddha's life, and as Buddhist chant and blessing. It is best loved as a Khmer lament. Tom Nounh Pret (ទំនួញប្រេត), "The Lament of the Ghost," is one of the most popular smot pieces at Pchum Ben. It draws on Khmer belief in the harm ghosts can do, and it opens by urging listeners to go to the temple and make offerings for relatives who may benefit from the merit. The songs of filial piety teach little doctrine beyond respect for parents, and many dharma songs are dramatic stories of grief and loss. "Sovannasam's Lament" tells of the moment in the Syama Jataka when the future Buddha grieves that his death will leave his parents without care. "The Last Testament of the Buddha" shows the Buddha urging Ānanda to keep practicing after his passing.

Smot songs teach that life involves suffering and point to acceptance and the Noble Path. They address impermanence, suffering and not-self. Other songs include "Lotus Flower Offering," "The Subtle Marks" and "Orphan's Lament." "Bat Sara Phanh," widely known in Cambodia, is often said to have been composed by Chu Nath. "Bat Kiriminon," about failing eyesight, counsels acceptance of it as part of growing old.

Some Cambodian puja and paritta chants resemble smot, but they are generally sung only by monks, and some are in Pali alone, so most lay listeners cannot follow their meaning.

Occasions

Smot is sung most often at funerals, and also at memorials, all-night consecrations of Buddha images, healing rites and yearly festivals. Unlike a dirge, it is sung at gatherings in one place, not in funeral processions. It may be sung at a deathbed, and at pchum vay or pchum benn, the festival for the dead held in September. It is also sung at Bonn Kathun, Pachay Boun and other Buddhist ceremonies at the pagoda, and monks and laypeople sing it privately as well. Many Khmer people link smot with funerals, death and ghosts, although its use is wider. Smot follows the stages of life from birth through adulthood to death, and it carries deep feeling for many Cambodians at ceremonies.

History

The content of smot blends animist, Hindu and Buddhist traditions. In contemporary Cambodia it is classed as casual literature rather than canonical Khmer Buddhist literature. Smot was already practiced before 1975. The monk Balat Un, regarded as the foremost smot master of the twentieth century, traveled across Cambodia singing Pali and Khmer texts until his death in the early 1960s. He received the title balat by royal decree, and his few vinyl recordings still circulate on cassette and CD. Di Ballad On was a famous smot singer and monk before the civil war.

Under the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's arts were badly damaged, and smot singers were among the musicians targeted and executed. Teacher Ros Samoeun says the regime tried to destroy the tradition by killing many of its masters. Smot remained part of Buddhist life for Cambodians at home and abroad. Monasteries teach it in courses that last several years, with final examinations to find the best singers, and fieldwork in 2010 found it still sung and recorded in several monasteries. "Bat Kiriminon" was recorded at Wat Chan Boryvong in 2010 by three monks, among them Samdech Preah Venarat Noy Chrek. The tradition also lived on through lay singers and through recordings, including those of professional singers, copied and passed around privately on cassette.

In the twenty-first century, cassettes and a shortage of trained masters have made live smot rare, and the art is counted as endangered, with few practitioners left. In 2019, composer Him Sophy joined smot and Khmer instruments with a Western chamber orchestra and chorus in Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia.

Variations

Among the Khmer of southern Vietnam, especially in Tra Vinh Province, smôt is the recitation of rhyming poems in sacred spaces during Khmer folk and Buddhist festivals. From January to July 2019, fieldwork at 50 places in Tra Vinh, with in-depth interviews of 300 Khmer residents, gathered ten smôt texts, mainly from Tra Cu and Cau Ke districts. The practice there is declining, in part because smôt has dropped out of life-cycle rituals.

Community

Smot is most often sung by the achar, an elderly man trained in Cambodia's religious traditions. Singers have also traditionally been older women or elderly monks, and many of the best performers are laypeople rather than monks. Teachers pass on voice and pronunciation to their students in formal lessons. Famous chanters include Prom Uth (1945 to 2009) and the monk Hun Horm (1924 to 2007), later known as Hun Kang. Younger artists include Sinat Nhok and Phoeun Srey Pov.

Cambodian Living Arts seeks out young people to train with the few older masters left, as part of rebuilding Cambodia's heritage after the Khmer Rouge years. Smot is one of the arts taught in its classes. Phoeun Srey Pov, known as Sreypov Smot, auditioned for Cambodian Living Arts in Kampong Speu Province and began learning smot at 13, studying Buddhist texts and voice with Prom Uth and Professor Yan Borin. With a scholarship she continued her studies in Phnom Penh while singing at pagodas. She became a television host with her own program on the Cambodian Television Network and started a business advising families on Buddhist ceremonies. She calls smot "the voice of Cambodia."

At the KCDI school, blind music students learn smot verses. They find some on YouTube, write them in Braille and sing them for their class, and teacher Ros Samoeun recites songs over and over so students can write them down. Chourn Reach sings smot to his chapey lute.

Smot has been presented at the Khmer Arts Academy in Long Beach, California. Srey Pov has performed in Australia, India, Nepal, Taiwan and the United States. She found that hearing smot made Khmer listeners in the United States miss Cambodia.

References