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II2
BUDDHIST INDIA
without the explanations of the several rules, by heart.
Shortly afterwards we have a rule forbidding the brethren to travel in the rainy season. But among the exceptions' we find the case put that a layman knows how to recite some celebrated Suttanta. “If he send a messenger to the brethren, saying: •Might their reverences coine and learn this Suttanta, otherwise this Suttanta will fall into oblivion ?'” – then they may go, so important is the emergency, even during the rains.
It is evident from such passages -- and many others might be quoted to a like effect—that the idea of recording, by writing, even a Suttanta, the average length of which is only about twenty pages of the size of this work, did not occur to the men who composed or used the canonical texts. They could not even have thought of the possibility of using writing as a means of guarding against such painful accidents. Yet, as we have seen, the Indian peoples had been acquainted with letters, and with writing, for a long time, probably for centuries before; and had made very general use of writing for short communications. It seems extraordinary that they should have abstained from its use on occasions which were, to them, so important. Now the reason why they did so abstain is twofold.
In the first place writing was introduced into India at a late period in the intellectual development of its people — so late that, before they knew of it, they had already brought to perfection, to a perfection
l'inaja Texts, 1. 305.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
