The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1884-02-22
WONDERS or MEMORY.


IL ENAtkACSS VA A4NAAS A%AAAt
is the memory capable of preserving
through successive generations tho ia1ts
of history, or whatever else peoples are
continuously interested in knowing9 AT
first one is apt to say 'No," remember
ing how scldon 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, on 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 sacred
ness, are long series of historical
names, dates, and events,-English
kings, American ~colonists and pres
idents.-far exceeding in difficulty those
Isralitish histories which Keunen
thinks cannot be trusted because only
preserved by memory. This shows
that it is less q question OF the powe- o.
memory than how far memory
9 Stocked 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
mission of the laid, with its 1857
lines, for generations, perpaps for cen.
turtles, before it was even written? Yet
even that is a mere trihe compared
with the transmission of the Vedas.
The Rig-Veda, with its 1017 hymn, is
about four times the length of the Iliad
That is only a part of the ancient Vedic
literature. and the whole was
composed and fixed, and handed
down by memorv,-only, as Max Null
Ter says. by memory kept under the
strictest discipline There is still q class
Of priests in India who have to know by
heart the whole of the Kig-Veda. And
there is this curious confederation of
the fidelity with which this mem0rizing
has been carried on and handed down:
that they have kept On transmitting |
the ancient literal form Laws prohibiting
practices that have nevertheless become
established. Suffice 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
Their bearing on the date of the So-called
Mosaic legislation: it shows thst the fRct
of customs existing in a 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, yet the cust0dians
| Of the Vedic traditions have never trust
! ed to it. They trust, for the perfect
perpetuation and transmission of the
sacred books, &c disciplined memory.
They have manuscripts, they have even
q printed text, but, says Max Muller,
stthey do not learn their sacred lore from
them. They learn ii, as their ancestors
learnt it thousands of years CO., from
the lips of q teacher, SO that the Vedic
succession should never be BROKEN
For eight gears 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
mousse WITH the uOlS6i anu
they thus strengthen their memory to
that degree that, when.their apprentice
ship is finished, yon can open them like
a book, and fad 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 4g9 b. Q.
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 HoHer and the vedas and the
Bible all together, was, at any rate un-
til it's later periods, the growth of oral
tradition. IL 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 rae that he has had IN bis
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 correctness.