The Foundations of Buddhism

The Word of Buddha: Scriptures and Schools 37

impart and acquire simply on the basis of theoretical manuals;

one needs a teacher who can demonstrate the training and also

comment on and encourage one in one's own attempts to put

the instructions into practice.^3 In fact a sense that knowledge is

not properly communicated by the written word colours the

traditional Indian attitude to learning in general: knowledge

must be passed from teacher to pupil directly. This does not mean

that at the time of the Buddha India had no literature. On the

contrary, in the form of the 8-g Veda India has a literature that

predates the Buddha by perhaps as much as a thousand years.

But this literature is 'oral'. It was composed orally, memorized,

and then passed from teacher to pupil directly by a process of

oral recitation for centuries, without ever being committed to writ-

ing. India'~ is, of course, not the only culture to have an ancient

oral literature; the Iliad and the Odyssey, for example, grew out

of a tradition of oral composition, yet the oral origins of tradi-

tional Indian learning continued to inform its structure long

after texts had begun to be committed to writing.^4

In presenting its teachings to the world, the Buddhist tradition

would thus point towards an unbroken lineage or succession of

teachers and pupils: just as the Buddha took care to instruct his

pupils, so they in turn took care to instruct theirs. The visible

and concrete manifestation of this succession is in the first place

the Sangha, the community of ordained monks (bhikkhu) and

nuns (bhikkhunz). Becoming a Buddhist monk or nun requires

a particular ceremony that is legitimate only if properly carried

out according to prescribed rules, which apparently go right

back to the time of the Buddha himself. In particular the pre-

scriptions for the ceremony require the presence of a minimum
of five fully ordained bhikkhus of at least ten years' standing.
Thus when someone ordains as a Buddhist monk there is in effect
a direct link back to the presence of the Buddha himself. Of course,

the principle of the passing of the teachings directly from per-

son to person may also operate outside the Sangha, for members

of the Sangha do not only teach other members of the Sangha,

they teach lay people as well. Yet the Sangha remains the tan-

gible thread of the tradition.