The Foundations of Buddhism

The Word of Buddha: Scriptures and Schools 39

generations perhaps, the teachings of the Buddha were preserved

and handed down directly from master to pupil orally without

ever being committed to writing. It is tempting for us in the

modern world to be sceptical about the reliability of this method

of transmission, but it was the norm in ancient India; the use of

mnemonic techniques such as the numbered list and frequent

repetition of certain portions of the material within a given text

aided reliable transmission.^8 Indeed the evidence of the trans-

mission of the Vedic texts, for example, is that oral transmission

can be more reliable than a tradition of written texts involving

the copying of manuscripts.^9

In the early phase of their transmission then the only access

to Buddhist 'texts' was by hearing them directly from someone

who had heard and learnt them from someone else, this oral trans-

mission of the 'texts being an activity that went on primarily within

the community of monks. Even after these texts began to be com-

mitted to writing their study was primarily a monastic concern.

Thus the ordinary lay Buddhist's access to Buddhist teachings

was always through the Sangha: he or she learnt the Dharma by

sitting in the presence of a monk or nun and listening to their

exposition of the teachings. Thus, in so far as a monk or nun neces-

sarily follows a way of life defined by the prescriptions and rules

of Buddhist monasticism, the study of Buddhist theory always

took place in a context of practice. It is only in the twentieth

century-with the arrival of the modern printed book in tr.adi-

tional Buddhist societies, and the demand in the West for books

and information on Buddhism-that this state of affairs has begun

to change. That is, for· over two millennia it was only by some

form of contact with the living tradition of practice that there

could be any knowledge of Buddhism.

The first recitation of scriptures: the four Nikayas/Agamas
and the Vinaya
According to a generally accepted ancient tradition, the first
attempt to agree the form of the Buddhist textual tradition, what

was remembered as the authoritative 'word of the Buddha',