Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1883-09-14
The TrustwOrthiness Of Early TradI.
tiOn.

tiOn,
Is memory capable of preserving through
successive generations the facts of history or
whatever else peoples are interested in know
ing? At first one is apt TO say mo" remem.
bering how seldom two people can agree in
their recollection of even the brietest 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 strengthens
when systematically depended on, while
when little is left to it it weakens It is
small fact, but not without Significance 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-English kings
American colonists and Presidents, far ex.
ceeding in difficulty those Israeltish histories
which Kuenen thinks cannot be trusted be-
cause only preserved by memory This
shows that it is less a question of the power
of memory than how far memory is looked
on as sacred, and guarded SO as to hand on
its contents unimpaired. As for evidence of
the power of memory, what better can we
desire than the wellknown fact of the trans
mission of Ilisd with its 1867 lines, for
generations, perhaps for centuries before it
was even written? Yet even that is mere
triae compared with the transmission of the
Vedas. The Rig-Veda, with its 1O17 hymns,
is about four times the length of the Iliad
That is only part of the ancient Vedic lit
erature, and the whole was composed and
fixed and handed down by 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 the Rig-Veds. And there is
this curious corroboration of the fidelity
with which this memorizing has been carried
on and handed down that they have kept on
transmitting in the ancient literal form laws
prohibiting practices that have nevertheless
become established. Suttee is now found to
be condemned by the VedRs themselves This
was first pointed out by their European stu.
dents, but has since been admitted by the
native Sanskrit scholars. Nothing could
show more clearly the faithfulness of the ira
ditional memory and transmission. 1t has,
too, this further bearing on the date of the
so-called Mosaic legislation it shows that
the fact of customs existing in a country for
ages unchallenged does not prove laws con.
demning such customs must necessarily be of
later origin. But there is more that is in
structive in the transmission of this Vedic
literature. There has been writing in India
for 2500 years now, yet the custodians of the
Vedic traditions have never trusted to it.
transmission of the sacred books, to disc-
plined memory. They have manuscripts, they
have even printed text but says Max Mul-
ler, 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 a
a teacher, 80 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, re-
peat them for hours, so that the whole house
resounds with the noise and they thus
strengthen their memory to that degree that,
when their apprenticeship is finished you
can open them like book, and find any pas
sage you like, any word, any accent" And
Max Muller shows, from rules given in the
Vedas themselves, that this oral teaching of
them was carried on, exactly as now, at least
as early as 800 B. @.
Very much the same was Il with those Rab.
binioal schools amid which the Talmud grew
up. All that vast literature, exceeding many
times in bulk Homer and the Vedas 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 hard
est to remember, and yet it was carried down
century after century in the memory, and
long after it had been all committed to writ
ing the old memorizing continued in the
schools. Indeed, it has not entirely ceased
even now for my friend Dr. Gotthell, 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 60 on repeating it syllable by
syllable with absolute correctness. BROOKE
HeTJ0rd IN Atlantic for august.