Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1883-09-19


THE TRUsTwoRTHINEss OF EARLY IRA
DITIoN.-Is memory capable of preserving
through successive generations the facts
of history or whatever else people are
interested in knowing? At first one is apt
to say "no,' remembering how seldom
two people can agree in their recollection
of even the briefest saying or commonest
occurrence But look into the matter
Note how the power of memory differs in
different people and how it may be
cultivated and especially how it strength
ems when Systematically depended on,
while when little is left to it it weakens.
1t is small fact, but not without signif-
canoe, that among the first things which
children are set TO fix in their memories,
apart from any idea of sacredness, are
long series of historical names, dates and
events-Euglish kings. American cclonists
and presidents, ls,-fareXceeding in difficulty
those Israelitsh histories which Kunen
thinks cannot be trusted because only
preserved by memory. This shows that
it is less a question of the power of memo
ry than how far memory is looked on as
sacred, and guarded so us to hand on its
contents unimpaired. AS for evidence of
IuC pOWGl VI WbaS DCllGl CuH We
desire than the well known fact of the
transmission of Iliad, with its 10 677 lines
for generations, perhaps. for centuries.
before it was ever written? Y,t even that
is a mere trifle compared with the trans
mission of the Vedas. Tie Rig Veda,
with its 1917 hymns, is about four times
the length of the lliad. That is only II
part of the ancient Vedic liera-
ture, and the whole was composed
and fixed and handed down from memory
only as Max Muller says, by memory
kept under the strictest discipline" There
is still class of priests in India who have
to know by heart the whole OF Rig Veda
And there is this curious corroboration Of
the fidelity with which this memorizing
has been carried on and handed down;
tt at they have kept on transmitting in the
ancient literal form laws prohibiting prac.
tices that have nevertheless become estab
lished. Suttee is now found to be con
demned by the Vedas themselves. This
was first pointed out by their European
students, but has since been admitted by
the native Sanskrit cholars. Nothing
could show more clearly the faithtulness
of the traditional memory and transmits
sion. 1t has, too, this further bearing on
the date of the so called Mosaic legislation;
it shows that the fact of customs existing
in country for ages unchallenged does
not prove laws condemning such customs
must necessarily he of later origin.
But there is more that is instructive in the
Vedic literature. There has been writing
in India for 250O years now, yet the
custodians of the Vedc traditions have
never trusted to it. They trust for the
perfect pcrpetuaton and transmission of
the sacred books. to disciplined memory.
They have manuscripts, they have even Il
printed text but,says Max Muller, "they do
not learn their sacred lore from them"
They learn it AS their ancestors learnt it
thousands of years ago, from the lips of q
teacher, so that the Vedic succession shall
never be broken" For eight years in
their youth they are entirely occupied in
learning this. "They learn a few lines
every day, repeat them for hours, so that
the whole house resounds with the noise; 1;
and they thus strengthen their memory to
that degree that, when their apprentice
ship is finished, you can open them like a
book. and find any passage you like, any
word any accent" And Max Muller
shows, from rules given in Vedas them
selves, that thlso raj teaching OF them was
carried on, exactly as now, at least as
early as 500 B. G.
Very much the same was it with those
Rabbnical schools amid which the Tai
mud grew up. All that vast literature,
exceeding many times in bulk Homer and
the Bible all together, was, at any rate
until its later periods, the growth of oral
tradition. 1t was prose tradition, too,
which is the hardest to remember, and
yet it was carried down century after
century in the memory, and long after it
had been all committed TO writing the old
memorzing continued in the schools.
Indeed, it has not entirely ceased even
now, for my friend DR.. Gothell, of New
York, tells me that he has in his study a
man who thus knows the entire Talmud
by heart. and can take it up at any word
that is given him and 90 on repeating it
syllable by syllable with absolute correct
ness.--Brook Herford in Atlantic for
AuluSt.