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1078
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
According to Tiele, writing was known in India before the third century B.C., but was applied only rarely, if at all, to literature. “But all this,” observes Mr. J. M. Robertson (Christianity and Mythology, p. 143), “is perfectly compatible with the oral transmission of a great body of ancient utterance. All early compositions, poetic, religious, and historical, were transmissible in no other way; and the lack of letters did not at all necessarily involve loss. In all probability ancient unwritten compositions were often as accurately transmitted as early written ones, just because in the former case there was a severe discipline of memory, whereas in the other the facility of transcription permitted of many errors, omissions, and accidental interpolations. And the practice of oral transmission has survived.” Even at the present day young Brabmans are taught Vedic hymns from oral tradition, and learn them by heart.
“They spend year after year under the guidance of their teacher, learning a little day after day, repeating what they have learnt as part of their daily devotion............. In the Mahabharata we read, * Those who sell the Vedas, and even those who write them, those also who defile them, shall go to hell.' Kumarila says: “That knowledge of the truth is worthless which has been acquired from the Vedas if.........it has been learnt from writing or been received from a Sudra ?' How then was the Veda learnt ? It was learnt by every Brahman during twelve years of his studentship or Brahmacharya."*
As pointed out in a footnote to p. 143 of Mr. J. M. Robertson's highly interesting work already cited, this description corresponds remarkably with Casar's account of the educational practices of Druids. He tells us that many entered the Druid discipline, learning orally a
* Max Müller's History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 501-3.
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