shomyo

— 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 wasan. Because the Japanese adopted Chinese ideographs for their written language, giving them Japanese pronunciations, it is possible for them to sing Chinese songs with their own pronunciation. This form of shōmyō developed into a distinct style called kōshiki.