Kimball enterprise. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1883, 1883-08-03
WONDERS OF MEMORY.
The Trustworthiness of Early Tradi.

OE
The Trustworthiness of Early Tradi.
Is the memory capable of preserving
through successive generations the iacts
OF history, or whatever else peoples are
continuously interested in knowing? AT
first one is apt to say 'No," remember
ing 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 memery differs in different
people, and how it may be cultivated,
and especially how it strengthens when
Systematically depended, OH while when
little is left to it it weakens. 1t is a
small fact, but not without significance,
that among the first things which chill.
dren are set to fix in their memories,
apart from any idea of sacr ed
ness, are long series of historical
names, dates, and events, English
kings, American colonists and pres
idents.-far exceeding in difficulty those
lsr@litish histories which Keunen
thinks cannot be trusted because only
preserved by memory. This shows
that it is less 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 the evidence of the power Of
memory, what better can we desire
than the well-known fact of the trans-
mission of the laid, with its 1857
lines, for generations, perpaps for cen.
turies, before it was even written? Yet
even that is a mere trihe compared
with the transmission of the Vedas,
The Rig-Veda, with its 1Ol7 hymn, is
about four times the length of the Iliad
That is only part of the ancient Vedic
literature, and the whole was
composed and fixed, and handed
down by memory,-only, as Max Mul-
Ter says. by "memorv kent under the
strictest discipline" There is still class
of priests in India who have to know by
heart the whole of the Rig-Veda. 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 Vedas themselves.
This was first pointed out by their Eu-
ropean students. but has since been adj
mitted by the native sanskrit scholars.
Nothing could show more clearly the
faithfulness of the traditional memory
and transmission. 1t has, too, this fur
ther 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 that laws
condemning such customs must neces-
sarily be OF later origin. But there is
more that is instructive in the transmits
sion Of this Vedic literature. There has
been writing in India for twenty-five
hundred years now, vet the custodians
Of the Vedic traditions have never trust
ed to it. They trust, for the perfect
perpetuation and transmission of the
sacred books, to disciplined memory.
They have manuscripts, they have even
q printed text, but, says Max Muller,
ss.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 teacher, so that the Vedic
succession should never be broken"
For eight years in their youth they are
entirely occupied in learning this.
They learn few lines every day, re-.
peat them for hours, so that the whole
ASooS ASoouAoS W1Il VuC uUlScS duu
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, and accent" And Max Null
ler 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 400 B. c.
Very much the same was it with those
Rabbinical schools amid which the Tai
mud gradually grew up. All of that vast
literature, exceeding many times in
bulk Homer and the Vedas and the
Bible all together, was, at any rate un.
til it's 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 memorizing continued in the schools.
Indeed, it has not entirely ceased even
now, for my friend DR.. Gottheil, of New
York, tells me that he has had in his
study man who thus knows the entire
Talmud by heart, and can take it UP at
any word that is given him, and go on
repeating it syllable by syllable, with
absolute correctness.