III

Oral Tradition versus Written Tradition

Perhaps the greatest gulf between modern cultures and pre-Christian belief systems is the way information is passed from generation to generation, and from teacher to student.  As already hinted at in the discussion of epics and music, ancient cultures passed on their most important information orally.  Modern culture and spirituality centers on the written word, which at first seems more solid and permanent, but also robs people of the need to memorize vast amount of information and make connections with it.  The pitfalls of the lack of a balanced approach to learning creates a bias in favor of more recent culture and knowledge, since the great majority of written work was produced in the twentieth century.  Even if oral tradition continues to be passed down, it is no longer taken as seriously as the written word.  The gulf between the two ways of learning also has its impact on those who are interested in ancient spirituality, since the way information is taken in changes the way it is understood.

Though it is certainly debatable, the Vedas are likely the greatest achievement in oral tradition surviving, primarily because they prove that the ancient form of learning can accurately preserve a complex body of work.  Epics like the Mahabharata and the Táin were intentionally changed to suit context as they were retold, as already discussed.  The Vedas, due to their central importance to Indian spirituality, had to retain their form exactly, and successfully survived the millennia because they continued to be relevant.  To this day, the oral tradition of the Vedas continues, showing us that whatever the claims of written tradition are, the ancient way can be just as permanent and accurate. 

The problem is that once something is no longer relevant, it is forgotten.  Of course, books can be lost in the same way as the material they were written on disintegrates, but the effect is not so absolutely immediate.  Those who study the ancient world will face the trouble of lost oral traditions constantly.  It may seem like some civilizations simply did not have epics or complex philosophies, but the fact of the matter is that they probably had ideas that would put most modern storytellers and religions to shame.  These have simply been lost to time.  But this was not necessarily due to writing.  Rather, the ancient civilizations were not interested in spreading their knowledge or to proselytize others.  If by some cataclysm all members of their society died, then the knowledge simply had no purpose.  As long as their people continued, the knowledge would remain. 

Certainly, even in civilizations where writing is more favored, teachers have always taught orally.  Whether it was Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, or Christ, their students were the ones to write, often because they disagreed with another student’s remembrances of the master’s words.  And of course, if Plato had not recorded (and sometimes embellished) the words of Socrates, think what it would do to our understanding of Greek Philosophy.  Think about how much was lost simply because students actually remembered rather than wrote down, but then again consider how many books have been lost in the burnings of countless libraries, and ultimately the loss might be equal either way.

There is a standing question about why some civilizations had more interest in writing than others.  The standard explanation for the Greeks is that the alphabet simply made writing easier to learn, and therefore made the written medium efficient.  This explanation cannot even remotely be applied to the complex script of the Chinese, though, yet their written work is as or more extensive.  In the case of the Chinese, wars between kingdoms might have demanded claims to legitimacy, which the copious histories and records would have provided.  Chinese writing is also quite an art, perhaps increasing its popularity.  In general, very particular circumstances determined the popularity of writing among some civilizations, not any superiority that they naturally claimed for themselves.  Every culture believes its own ways are best.  Modern writing-based societies have grafted their own values onto history, immediately seeing advancement where writing was and backwardness where it was not.

The emphasis on writing in Europe was primarily a Christian invention.  More than the Greeks or early Romans, the Christians made writing important to European spirituality by first proselytizing broadly, then creating a doctrine and canon that would be kept in a great book.  They were the first to keep their beliefs in a book, giving that form of tradition a sacred quality it lacked before.  Until Christianity, writing had simply been record keeping, even if it recorded a great epic.  Since the book was read in Latin, not in the native tongue, it was endowed with even more mystery and divinity, since it was accessible to only a select few.  Latin was a relatively uncommon language, the common tongue of Europe at the time being Greek.  The reason for the reading of the Bible in Latin is clear – Europe was filled with oral tradition, and if the holy book was read in either the native tongue or Greek, it would be memorized.  The power and mystic quality of the priesthood would be lost.  Ultimately, if the early church had truly wanted to spread the word of God as far and wide as possible, it would have been hard pressed to find a more efficient way than to have listeners memorize it.  By the time Protestants reversed this by having the Bible read in the native tongue, it was too late – people had long been removed from a sense that oral tradition was important and did not derive as much benefit from it as the early converts would have.

When studying texts that captured something originally transmitted orally – like the epics or the Vedas – it is important to remember the way it was meant to be experienced.  Texts cannot reproduce the intonations, emotions, or even the feeling of the sounds as it was recited.  Reading a translation produces even more problems, depending on the mood, biases, and vocabulary of the translator.  The difference between reading a text of orally transmitted material and hearing it being passed down is equivalent to that between the singing of a song and reading a lyric sheet – the two experiences cannot be equated.  The importance and beauty of the Vedas may not be clear to people who read them today – and too often people consider such workd important simply because of their age.  The same is true of the bulk of the Iliad and all those passages people tend to skip over – the lists of names and minor fights that were stirringly recited from the mouth of the storyteller.  This is the most basic issue in understanding teachings passed down through the centuries.  Thankfully, college lectures are somewhat similar, maintaining a minimal connection between people and old traditions.  Unfortunately, the goal for students in such lectures is to take as complete a set of notes as possible, and students often skip lectures regularly as textbooks replace professors.  The goal of oral tradition is to remember the teachings, so that they are fresh in the mind and can be readily applied to daily life.

The state of modern memory and the way it hinders people cannot be overstated.  Consider how writing is relied on to preserve knowledge, and how people are actually encouraged by this not to memorize what they are supposed to learn.  Even worse is the archiving people do through diaries and all the other substitutes for memories.  Failing to remember ideas presented by others is one thing, needing devices to record one’s own life is quite another.  People are encouraged not to remember.  The prevalent image in the culture of education is the student cramming the night before a test.  There is no expectation that a person can remember the main points of straightforward course material for the few months that make up a semester.  What, then, is the point of trying to teach people in such a culture?  Needless to say, this cultural attitude leads to a diminishment in the importance of teachers, and people have a distorted view that a good teacher is one that entertains. 

How can the modern era’s catchword – progress – is propelled in this situation.  Inevitably, this will lead to stagnation, since the system cannot be sustained if its rudiments are forgotten.  There may always be geniuses, but to sustain a system, especially in a democracy where decisions are made by the majority, the greatest number of people as possible must have the mental tools to understand a complex situation.  Perspective requires memory.  What good are brilliant minds if no one understands what they are saying, or what the implications of their words are?  For that matter, what about spiritual masters?  In this world of mass media in which any person with sufficient charisma can get his name known, it is increasingly difficult to tell who truly believe in what they are teaching, and if some are merely selling a product.  It is easier to take advantage of a person without memory or perspective, not to mention high school knowledge of math, science, and history.  If knowledge is power, it makes sense that those with power would seek to limit the education of others.

Perspective requires the ability to contain a wide range of ideas in the mind and understand how those ideas interact with each other, and the everyday world.  A lack of this created a skewed view of history, with a bias toward just a few days ago.  This is very convenient for politicians, who only need to address those issue that they remind people of.  It also creates a bias against spirituality, at least those forms of spirituality that were not formed in the last few years, or refreshed in the minds of people every Sunday.  The irony is that we, today, need sharp memories even more than those living two thousand years ago did, partly because writing has allowed for the widespread sharing of information.  There is more knowledge to sort out and process.  The problem is, for the sole reason that there is too much information for anyone to digest in their lifetime, most people give up on their curiosity and take too much for granted, including their dissatisfaction.

The goal of those who are aware of this dynamic, then, should not be to stop writing.  Rather, people should cultivate their memory to compliment reading or writing.  Avoiding the laziness that comes with externalizing memory will be rewarded later in life, since the more often knowledge is recalled and connected to other information, the better it will be retained.  The greater the information a person had at his or her disposal at any given moment, the more informed a decision that person can make to deal with a situation or a spiritual crisis.  Some might argue otherwise, but I cannot help but feel that they are simply overwhelmed by the useless information.  It is necessary to make a conscious decision about what to remember, and those things should all be valuable tools, not the television guide.  Practical knowledge can give a person confidence in the face of adversity and stress.  There is perhaps nothing so stressful as moving very fast and getting nowhere, which is the basic condition of most of the population in the modern world, as long as we can dismiss the notion that collecting material wealth qualifies as getting somewhere. 

It is incorrect to say that short memories and lack of perspective in the modern era is all caused by our use of written tradition instead of oral tradition, but the fact that we have mostly abandoned the latter has definitely played a significant part.  And if some steps are taken to reverse the current trends – for instance, if the culture encourages students to believe that they actually have to listen to teachers and remember what is said instead of cramming the night before – then I believe you will see those students become, on average, more patient and less stressed.  If an individual in regular life learns to listen and process information, a similar effect should be expected. 

The actual trend is in the opposite direction.  In the past forty years, the world has become increasingly visual, and read less.  Visual culture is useful for advertisers but little else, since the sources of visual tradition – television in particular – rarely convey deep understanding.  It is suited to the impatient, hectic, and stressful modern age, but not appropriate for instilling patience or relieving stress.  Compared to the way people today learn, and have tradition passed down to them, reading and writing would be a great improvement.  Writing is actually fading away steadily, and reading has declined to the point children have to be coaxed to pick up a book.  So, the criticism of written tradition’s domination has to be taken in context – and the current context is that we are in the midst of another shift in the way tradition is passed down, making an examination of the last shift even more important.

Whatever the modern day issues, the gap in the two traditions will unfailingly affect the way people understand ancient belief systems.  It is a cultural element that is rarely considered, especially in relationship to spirituality and the type of spiritual practices that develop.  To our benefit, we have the opportunity to use a mixed system, putting the best of both systems to work.  It would be a shame to ignore this opportunity, and even worse to loose touch with both traditions in the face of visual communication.