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CHAPTER VII
WRITING -- THE BEGINNINGS
LITERATURE of all kinds laboured under a L curious, disability. There were, for a long time, no writing materials — that is, none that could be used for the production and reproduction of books. And the Indians not only did not feel the want of them, but even continued, for centuries after materials had become available, to prefer, so far as books are concerned, to do without them. The state of things thus disclosed, being unique in the history of the world, deserves a detailed exposition.
The oldest reference to writing is in a tract called the Sīlas, embodied in each of the thirteen Dialogues which form the first chapter of the first division of the Suttantas, or conversational discourses of the Buddha. This tract inust therefore have been already in existence as a separate work before those Dialogues were put together by the early disciples within the first century after the Buddha's death. The tract on the Silas may be dated, therefore, approximately about 450 B.C. The
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Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
