Culture of Buddhism Most Buddhist practices also involve chant in some form, and some also make use of instrumental music and even dance. Music can act as an offering to the Buddha, as a means of memorizing Buddhist texts, and as a form of personal cultivation or meditation. In order to purify the hearts of listeners, Buddhist melodies are strong yet soft and pure. Buddhist music plays a central role in everyday cultural practices of Buddhists since it is also played in many ceremonies such as weddings and funerals Buddhist music developed when Buddhism spread to Tibet. The Tibetan traditions of Buddhism encouraged
Buddhism and Jainism community (or Jain "sangha") consists of monastics, "muni"s (male ascetics) and "aryika"s (female ascetics) and householders, "śhrāvak"s (laymen) and "śrāvakī"s (laywomen). Buddhism has a similar organization: the community consists of renunciate bhikkhus and bhikkhunis and male and female laypersons, or "śrāvaka"s and "śrāvika"s, who take limited vows. Jainism has developed and refined the non-violence ("'Ahimsa") doctrine to an extraordinary degree where it is an integral part of the Jain culture. Jain vegetarianism, for example, is driven by the principle of not harming any animals and both lay and mendicants are predominantly vegetarian. In Buddhism, Mahayana monks in China, Japan (see