Response to QURA’ANIC   DEBATE - 2.

 By-Satish Saberwal and Manav.

Satish Saberwal : On memorising books:

On point of fact may I say that there was a long tradition of transmitting the vedas only by being memorised by Brahmins. This was thought to be necessary because these texts were believed to be too sacred to be committed to the profane process of writing. Anand Wood, 1985, Knowledge before printing and after: the Indian tradition in changing Kerala. Delhi: Oxford University Press, gives the social context for this process. The vedas were bulky volumes. It was necessary to memorize them accurately not only for their words but also for the sounds because, it was believed, these had to be recited in a sound-perfect manner in order to please the gods so that they would answer one's prayers. So accurately were these texts memorized in various parts of the subcontinent that when these came to be finally written down, I believe early during the colonial period, there was little or no difference between the texts recorded in different places.
Regards
Satish Saberwal

Manav: A few comments on this memorizing stuff:

Firstly, I suppose most will agree that memorizing a huge book by heart proves nothing about its "greatness", especially when the people who memorize it are hardly capable of understanding the meaning of the words they stuff themselves with.

Secondly, as another member rightly poined out, instances of memorizing huge texts are not quite rare. The Vedas and Upanishadas are basically "shruti", passed from generation to generation by word of mouth for centuries before Devanagari script came into being. And all this was happening one or two millenia before Christ. I am not
sure but probably similar instances could be found in the case of Torah or Talmud or Tripitaka, etc.

Thirdly, consider the fact that an average literate Chinese or Japanese can memorise more than 3000 characters. Unless you have seen some of the "advanced characters" with 20 or 30 intricate strokes, you may not be able to even realise the amount of complexity it involves. But they have been peacefully doing it all along. In addition, China and Japan are two of the most respecred Asian nations far ahead of any country in the Islamic world with its teeming millions of Hafiz's.

In short, this tradition of brainless memorisation only shows that certain religions actually want their followers to remember orders flatly without questioning them.

Regards
Manav

 

 

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Published in Mukto-mona : 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/253 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/255 

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