Committed. . .

Committed. . . When people hear that the Buddhist scriptures were orally transmitted for several centuries, they assume that they must be very unreliable. Centuries before the Buddha, the brahmins, the hereditary priests of Brahmanism, had perfected ways of committing the Vedas to memory so they could be passed on to the next generation (itihàsa). The earliest Vedas, the èg Veda, date from between about 2000 and 1500 BCE and did not start being written until at least the 11th or 12th century CE. This means that they were orally transmitted for nearly 3000 years. Despite this, linguists and Indologists agree that the Vedas reflect daily life, beliefs and language of the time they were composed, i.e. that they have been faithfully handed down. How was this done? A brahmin’s whole life was dedicated to becoming a living receptacle for the Vedas. Twelve years was given to learning each of the four Vedas by heart, a task taking 48 years altogether. Great attention was given to getting pronunciation, the intonation and the word order correct. Usually a father was the `passer on’ of the sacred hymns and his son was the `receiver’ of them. Many of the Buddha’s disciples were brahmins and they brought to their new faith the mnemonic skills they had been educated in. These same skills were used to preserve the Buddha’s sermons, talks and sayings. And like the Vedas, the suttas are clearly structured to be chanted. They are full of mnemonic devices rhyming verses, repetitions, numbered lists, stereotyped phrases, etc. It is also important to realize that lay Buddhists had a role to play in orally transmitting the suttas too. The Buddha said he wanted not just his ordained disciples but also his lay men and women disciples to be `knowers of the Dhamma’ so that they could `pass on’ what they had learned to others. Peace and Love, Jim #committed #thedailybuddha Buy Me A Coffee – A Easy Way To support The Daily Buddha! The Daily Buddha – Support The Server The Daily Buddha  – Web The Daily Buddha – YouTube The Daily Buddha – Facebook