zations is powerful enough to motivate continuing research
on “deep tradition.”
TYPES OF TRADITIONS. Traditions may be verbal or nonver-
bal. Nonverbal traditions include traditional artifacts (e.g.,
icons, monuments, symbolic objects), sites, designs, gestures,
postures, customs, and institutions. Nonverbal traditions
cannot exist in isolation from verbal traditions, for the latter
are needed to interpret them. However, nonverbal traditions
possess a measure of autonomy in relation to verbal tradi-
tions because verbal interpretations can never completely
penetrate the “thickness” of traditional objects or, in the case
of religious objects, their presumed sacrality. Far from being
dependent on specific verbal interpretations, nonverbal tra-
ditions typically host multiple or successive interpretations
without losing their identity or traditional status. The persis-
tence of nonverbal traditions in relative autonomy over
against the interpretations attached to them is a good exam-
ple of traditionality: the ascription of value to something by
virtue of the fact that it has been handed down from early
times on good authority.
Oral and written tradition. Verbal traditions may be
oral or written. Although the distinction pertains first of all
to the means of transmission rather than to tradition, the
substance of traditions is affected by the differences between
oral and written transmission.
First, the forms of expression used in traditions are dic-
tated in part by the means available. Some forms, such as
hymns, proverbs, riddles, and folk tales, are essentially oral.
They may be written down, but writing does not open the
way to a fuller realization of the form. Other forms, such as
chronicles, law codes, and commentaries, depend on writing
or are fully realized only in writing. Some of the most impor-
tant forms of expression used in traditions, such as mytholo-
gy and epic poetry, may reach a high level of development
in either mode.
Second, oral tradition is a much older phenomenon
than written tradition and precedes it in the formative period
of traditions, even after the invention of writing. This fact
suggests that written traditions themselves are shaped in part
by oral traditions. In many literate religious traditions, for
example, scriptural and pedagogical titles recall and even
purport to re-create an oral system of communication. Thus,
QurDa ̄n means “recitation.” The title of the first book of rab-
binic law, Mishnah, comes from a verb meaning “repeat” and
refers to pedagogy based on oral recitation. Upanis:ad, a name
for books of philosophical and esoteric teaching in Vedic tra-
dition, comes from Sanskrit words meaning “sit down before
[a teacher].” An accomplished monk in early Buddhism was
called a bahusuta, “one who has heard much.” The Greek
word euangelion, “gospel” or “good news,” means news in the
literal sense of something proclaimed aloud in the hearing
of the general public.
Third, oral tradition exists mainly in performance, while
written tradition exists also in objective form apart from its
applications. The relative independence of written texts
stimulates the development of intellectuality and greatly in-
creases the possibilities of dissemination in a fixed form. At
the same time, writing involves significant dangers for a tra-
dition. When a tradition is put into writing, its inconsisten-
cies become more evident. It may not be an exaggeration to
say that the quickened intellectuality that accompanies writ-
ten traditions arises first of all from the need to address the
inconsistencies that the writing down of a tradition exposes.
Also, the independence of written texts opens the way to the
use of traditional materials in ways not intended by tradi-
tional authorities, ways that are remote from the “living
word” actualized in pedagogy and cult. To be sure, a written
tradition is not further removed from the living word than
an oral tradition insofar as the latter is understood as a tradi-
tion in the strict sense. Tradition, oral or written, is the word
handed down by others—the vehicle of the living word but
not the living word itself. Nevertheless, the organic connec-
tion of oral tradition with performance guarantees the close
proximity of tradition to the living word, whereas in the case
of written tradition the connection is not as direct and great-
er pains must be taken to regulate the use of traditions.Many moral and religious teachers have felt anxiety
about writing. In the Phaedrus, for example, Plato has Socra-
tes tell a story about a wise Egyptian king who, in reply to
the god who offered the Egyptians the gift of writing as “a
drug to produce memory and wisdom,” observed that the in-
vention was more likely to produce just the opposite, because
those who came to depend on it would tend to seek wisdom
in an external source rather than having to look within their
own souls, and so they would “seem wise without being
wise” (Phaedrus 274c–275).
Fourth, oral and written traditions coexist and influence
each other even after many authoritative sources of tradition
have been committed to writing. Oral tradition is not a stage
that is outgrown with the arrival of written tradition. Even
after it has been replaced by writing as the chief means of
transmission, oral tradition continues to thrive in the form
of customs, folklore, popular preaching, storytelling, esoteric
speculation, practical applications of religion to everyday life,
and other manifestations of traditional mentality. The text
of the Book of Exodus was well established by EAqivaD ben
Yosef’s day, but that did not prevent the rabbi and his col-
leagues from arguing about the number and size of the frogs
sent against Egypt in the famous plague (B.T., San. 67b).
People love to talk, and talk preserves and extends itself by
means of oral tradition. Sometimes oral tradition even gener-
ates new bodies of written tradition, as in the case of the oral
Torah canonized in the rabbinic law codes, the Mishnah and
the Talmud.
The importance of oral tradition in the history of tradi-
tions has been widely recognized in the modern study of reli-
gion. In particular, the concept of oral tradition has been
used by scholars seeking to reconstruct the origins and early
history of religious traditions. Unfortunately, the method-TRADITION 9269