Oral Texts in Indian Mahayana [IIJ 2015]

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi: 10.1163//15728536-05800051

Indo-Iranian Journal 58 (2015) 117–141

brill.com/iij

Oral Texts in IndianMahāyāna*

David DrewesUniversity of Manitoba, Winnipeg

[email protected]

Abstract

This paper reconsiders the idea that Indian Mahāyāna was specially involved with orindebted to the use of writing. Focusing on an analysis of the words ud√grah, √dhṛ,and pari ava√āp, it argues that like the texts of other pre-modern Indian religious tra-ditions,Mahāyāna sūtras were primarily used orally andmnemically, though like epics,purāṇas, and non-Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtras, they were also written and venerated inwritten form.

Keywords

Mahāyāna – early Mahāyāna – Mahāyāna sūtras – orality – writing – cult of the book

In recent decades, several scholars have suggested that writing and writtentexts played a central role in IndianMahāyāna. Gregory Schopen argued in 1975thatMahāyānists “permanently” enshrined sūtramanuscripts at special “culticcenters” that served as “institutional bases” of earlyMahāyāna groups (179–181).Apparently inspired by Schopen, Richard Gombrich argued in 1988 that “therise of the Mahāyāna is due to the use of writing” in the sense that it enabledMahāyānists to preserve new texts outside of traditional oral transmissionlineages.1 Taking Schopen’s work in a different direction, Donald Lopez hassuggested that

* Anearly draft of this paperwas presented at theAnnual Conference on SouthAsia inMadisonin 2003. I would like to thank Jens-Uwe Hartmann for reading a late draft. All translations aremy own unless noted.

1 Gombrich 1988, 21. Schopen 1975 is the only Mahāyāna source Gombrich cites.

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Mahāyāna sūtras differ from the earlier works … in their self-conscious-ness and frequent exaltation of their status as books, as physical objects,with many works being devoted almost entirely to descriptions of bene-fits to be gained by reciting, copying, and worshipping them .… Like theVedas, the form may have been more important than the content, butunlike the Vedas it was not the verbal form so much as the physical formthatwas thekey .…The repeatedpresenceof thephrase sapṛthivīpradeśaścaityabhūto bhavet…suggest[s] thatwhat these earlymovementswantedwas not somuch new teachings as new centers for worship .…While writ-ing might be condemned as derivative and displaced from the animationof speech (and, in this sense, dead), these dead letters could be … valuedprecisely because they were dead.2

Several other scholars have argued that the use of writing played a key role inthe development of Mahāyāna thought.3 Although Schopen has now appar-ently givenuphis theory of institutional book shrines, he continues tomaintainthat writing and book worship were valued more highly than oral practices, oreven “understanding,” in many Mahāyāna groups and that book worship waspeculiar to Mahāyāna.4 With so much attention being given to writing and

2 Lopez 1996, 44–45; cf. 1995, 41–42.3 E.g., McMahan 1998, 2002; Harrison 2003; Shimoda 2009.4 Schopen 2010. Though he calls my work “muddled” and “naive,” Schopen now argues in

support of my main contention that his book worship passages refer to using texts forprotective purposes in the home, writing that “when Mahāyāna literary sources refer inany detail to the location of books, those books are typically in domestic houses” and that“nowhere in these texts is there any suggestionof…depositing [them] anywhere but at home”(Schopen 2010, 49, 53; cf. Drewes 2007, 117, 119n21, 121–122, 133–134n45; Schopen 2009, 196–198).He nevertheless continues to argue in support of his old claim that the word “caityabhūta”means “a shrine tout court” (2010, 48), which was the basis for his overall argument for theexistence of institutional shrines. It is unclear what significance he nowbelieves themeaningof the term to have. Because the word is used to refer to places where the text is memorizedand recited, but not kept in book form, it seems unlikely that it could refer to book shrinesin the home. Even if it did, since Mahāyāna sūtras elsewhere make clear reference to suchshrines, it would not tell us anything we do not already know (Drewes 2007, 117; Schopen2010, 49). Schopen also claims that “the cult of the book [Mahāyāna sūtras] articulate ispreoccupied with keeping the book …. Nowhere in these texts is there any suggestion ofparting with it” (2010, 52–53), but there are many references to giving books away. The fifthchapter of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, for instance, repeatedly extolls the merit to be gained fromgiving away written copies of the text (Wogihara 1932–1935, 285–324; cf. Falk and Karashima2013).

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books, the continuing importance of mnemic and oral practices in Mahāyānahas generally been overlooked. Most of the confusion on this issue is the resultof an old, widespread misunderstanding of the textual practices indicated bythree verbs—ud√grah, √dhṛ, and pari ava√āp (or pari√āp)—which are threeof the fourmost commonwords thatMahāyāna sūtras use to refer to and advo-cate textual practice, and indeed, to advocate religious practice of any sort.5Looking more closely at how these words are used in Buddhist texts has thepotential to clarify our understanding.

Limiting our discussion to cases in which these three verbs are applied totexts, over the past more than a century and a half scholars have translatedthem in a variety of ways. In his 1844 Introduction à l’histoire du buddhismeindien, for example, Eugène Burnouf translates them as “apprendre,” “retenir,”and “comprendre.” In his translation of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, he translatesthem variously as “recevoir,” “saisir,” and “comprendre parfaitement”; “saisir,”“comprendre,” and “posséder”; and “recevoir,” “garder,” and “comprendre.” Hen-drikKern translates themas “grasp,” “keep,” and “fully penetrate”; “grasp”, “keep,”and “comprehend”; and “receive,” “keep,” and “fathom” in his translation of thesame text.MaxMüller translates themas “learn,” “remember,” and “understand”in his translation of the Vajracchedikā and as “learn,” “retain,” and “grasp” in histranslation of the larger Sukhāvatīvyūha. In his translation of the Vajracchedikāand part of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, Max Walleser translates ud√grah as “lernen,”“herausgreifen,” “erfassen,” and “ergreifen”; √dhṛ as “behalten,” and “festzuhal-ten”; and pari ava√āp as “völlig verstehen,” “völlig durchdringen,” and “völligerreichen.” D.T. Suzuki translates them as “hold forth,” “retain,” and “realise”in his translation of the Laṅkāvatāra. K. Régamey translates them as “learn,”“bear in mind,” and “master” in his translation of three chapters from theSamādhirāja Sūtra. Étienne Lamotte translates themas “prendre,” “retenir,” and“pénétrer à fond” in his translations of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa and Śūraṃga-masamādhi sūtras. In his Le traité, he also translates ud√grah as “apprendre”and “saisir”; √dhṛ as “mémoriser”; and pari ava√āp as “pénétrer” and “étudier.”In his translation of the Kāśyapaparivarta, FriedrichWeller translates ud√grahas “aufgreifen” or “lernen”;√dhṛ as “imGedächtnisse bewahren”; and pari√āp as“erlangen.” EdwardConze generally translates themas “take up,” “bear inmind,”and “master.” Following Conze, except in his translation of √dhṛ, Schopen has

5 The fourth word is the causative of √vac, which means to recite, typically from memory but,in Mahāyāna texts, alternately from a book. I treat pari ava√āp and pari√āp as alternateforms of the same verb. Mahāyāna texts preserved in Sanskrit generally use pari ava√āp,but sometimes use pari√āp in identical contexts; Pāli texts consistently use pari√āp; Sanskritāgama texts use both forms.

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long translated them as “take up,” “preserve,” and “master.”6 Other recent schol-ars have translated the terms in similar ways.

Along with translating them in so many different ways, most of the waysscholars have translated these words are fundamentally ambiguous, yielding awide array of possible meanings. For ud√grah, for instance, “saisir” or “grasp”could refer to either holding a written copy of a text in one’s hands or under-standing its ideas; “accept” could mean accepting the text as authentic orreceiving a written copy as a gift; “hold forth” presumably refers to preachingor public advocacy; “take up” could refer to taking the text up as an object ofstudy or to picking up awritten copywith one’s hands; “herausgreifen” suggestspicking the text out of a group; and “learn” or “apprendre” might suggest mem-orization, but could also refer to learning a text’s ideas. For √dhṛ, translationslike “keep,” “garder,” and “preserve” suggest keeping a written copy of the text;“retenir” refers to memorization; and “retain” can apply to written or oral texts.“Im Gedächtnisse bewahren” and “bear in mind,” taken literally, could meanto store the text in one’s memory, but in idiomatic usage suggest keeping thetext in the back of one’s mind. “Remember” could refer to memorization, butcan also suggest keeping something in the back of one’s mind. For pari ava√āp,“comprendre parfaitement,” “völlig verstehen,” “fully penetrate,” etc., suggestunderstanding a text’smeaning; “master” is wholly unclear; “posséder” suggestsowning a text in written form; and “grasp” could again refer to understandingthe text or holding a written copy of it in one’s hands.

In his 1977 review of Conze’s Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, Schopen criti-cizes Conze’s standard translation of √dhṛ as “bear in mind.” He cites a handfulof passages from Mahāyāna sūtras in which √dhṛ occurs immediately afterwriting the text or making it into a book in lists of sūtra-oriented activitiesand suggests that since the term “expresses an action undertaken towards awritten text,” Conze’s translation “here and in very many other places in thistranslation and in his other published translations is not acceptable.” He sug-gests “preserve” as a better translation, and translates √dhṛ in this way in hisown work.7 Rendering ud√grah in a passage from the Samādhirāja Sūtra as“receive,” Andrew Skilton comments that his “translation takes account of the

6 Burnouf 1844, 467; 1852, 111, 137, 282; Kern 1884, 175, 215, 440; Müller 1894b; 1894a, 69, cf. 68;Walleser 1914; Suzuki 1932, 223, 224; Régamey 1938, 68–69, 85; Lamotte 1962, §11.8, etc.; 1965,126, 227, etc.; 1944–1980, 4:1856, 1863–1864, 2047, 5:2306; Weller 1965, 159. For Schopen, see,e.g., 2010, 43. Here I primarily record only translations of passages in which all three wordsare used together.

7 Schopen 1977, 142. Schopen attributes his translation of √dhṛ as “preserve” to Lalou 1957, butshe does not suggest this.



ubiquitous use of this termand cognate forms in a standard sequence of actionsassociated with the commitment of teachings to posterity. Thus, udgrah regu-larly occurs after śru and before a causative form of dhṛ, suggesting a naturalaction that comes between ‘hearing’ and ‘memorizing,’ and involves ‘acquir-ing’ or ‘taking up.’ I suggest that the natural process at this point is one of‘receiving’ or ‘accepting’ ” (1999, 356n90). In a previous publication I translatedud√grah,√dhṛ, and pari ava√āp as “memorize,” “retain inmemory,” and “learn,”and briefly suggested in a note that Schopen and others had misunderstoodthem (2007, 113n16). In a recent article, Schopen characterizesmyviewas “naivein the extreme.” Discussing a passage in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā that uses ud√grah,√dhṛ, pari ava√āp, and other words, he comments that “as even a quick glanceat any Sanskrit dictionary will show, and actual usage will prove, almost everyone of the verbs in this list has a wide range of possible meanings, and can be,and are used, in regard to either or both an oral or written text.” Commentingspecifically on the verb √dhṛ, he writes, “Sanskrit dhārayati … means first ofall ‘to hold, carry, keep, preserve’ a material object, and only by extension—and perhaps abuse—‘to bear or keep in memory.’ The latter would seem torequire, strictly speaking, the additional presence ofmanasā, ‘with themind.’ ”8In a recent article, James Apple quotes Schopen’s assertion that √dhṛ primarilyrefers to material objects and suggests that ud√grah and √dhṛ refer to carryingor grasping a written copy of a sūtra in one’s hands.9 While Skilton’s reasoningcomes close, none of these scholars quite hits the mark. While Schopen maybe correct that standard dictionaries provide support for his views, they arenot always completely reliable, and actual usage, which we shall now consider,does not.

The verbs ud√grah, √dhṛ, and pari ava√āp/pari√āp are not only used inMahāyāna sūtras, but pre- and non-Mahāyāna texts as well, where scholarshave long understood them to refer to memorization.10 In many cases con-text makes their meaning fairly clear. In the LomasakaṅgiyabhaddekarattaSutta of the Pāli Majjhima Nikāya, for instance, a god approaches the monkLomasakaṅgiya and asks him if he √dhṛ-s the full text of the BhaddekarattaSutta, a sutta that occurs independently in the same collection. Themonk saysthat he does not and the god tells him that he once heard the Buddha speak the

8 Schopen 2010, 56n29, 59n67.9 Apple 2014, 32. In the same article, Apple also treats the same two terms as referring to oral

practices (36). Apple suggests thatMahāyānawent frombeing a primarily oral tradition toone focusedonwritten texts, but this seemsunlikely. Applemistranslates ormisrepresentsseveral of the main passages he cites.

10 For consistency, I use the Sanskrit forms of these verbs even when referring to Pāli texts.

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whole sutta in the Tāvatiṃsa heaven, but that he only √dhṛ-s the verse portionof the text, which he recites to the monk. He praises the sutta and advises themonk to ud√grah, pari√āp, and √dhṛ the full text. The monk then goes to theBuddha and asks him to teach him the text. The Buddha tells him to pay atten-tion and recites the sutta.11 Here√dhṛ seems clearly to refer to retaining the textinmemory, while ud√grah and pari√āp refer to activities one is to undertake ifone does not retain a text in memory but wishes to do so.

In a passage in the Pāli Āṭānāṭiya Sutta, Vessavaṇa (Skt.: Vaiśravaṇa, Kubera),lord of yakṣas, offers to teach the Buddha a protective text, saying, “Let theBhagavan ud√grah the Āṭānāṭiya protective text for the sake of the defense,protection, non-injury, and dwelling in comfort of monks, nuns, laymen, andlaywomen.” The Buddha gives his consent, Vessavaṇa recites a series of versesand departs, and the Buddha later repeats the verses to hismonks and instructsthem to ud√grah, pari√āp, and √dhṛ them (uggaṇhātha bhikkhave āṭānāṭiyaṃrakkhaṃ, pariyāpuṇātha bhikkhave āṭānāṭiyaṃ rakkhaṃ, dhāretha bhikkhaveāṭānāṭiyaṃ rakkhaṃ).12 Here ud√grah is used alone and together with theother two words in clear reference to memorization.

The Ñātika Sutta of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, interestingly, is a sutta that theBuddha is said tohave spoken tonoone,while hewasdwelling alone in solitude(rahogato paṭisallīno). He speaks briefly on the topic of paticcasamuppāda andit turns out that a monk is standing nearby. The Buddha asks him if he heardthe sutta, themonk says that he did, and the Buddha instructs him to ud√grah,pari√āp, and √dhṛ it. Since the idea is apparently that the sutta would havebeen lost to posterity if the monk did not memorize it, the three words seemclearly to refer to memorization here as well.13

Although these passages leave the meaning of pari√āp somewhat unclear,others indicate that it also refers to memorization. In the Doṇapāka Sutta ofthe Saṃyutta Nikāya, for instance, the Buddha speaks a verse advocating mod-erate eating to King Pasenadi and Pasenadi tells his attendant to pari√āp itand recite it to him whenever he eats (imaṃ gātham pariyāpuṇitvā mamabhattābhihāre bhāsa). In the Mahāsāla Sutta, from the same collection, the

11 Trenckner and Chalmers 1888–1899, 3:199–202; cf. Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi 1995, 1050–1052.12 Rhys Davids and Carpenter 1890–1911, 3:194–206; cf. Walshe 1987, 471–478. For Sanskrit

versions of this sūtra, which use pari ava√āp instead of pari√āp, see, e.g., Sander 2007.13 Feer 1884–1898, 2:74–75; cf. Bodhi 2000, 582–583. For some other nikāya/āgama suttas

in which all three verbs are used together to refer to textual practices, see Trencknerand Chalmers 1888–1899, 2:124–125, 3:192; Feer 1884–1898, 4:90–91; Morris and Hardy1885–1900, 4:166; Waldschmidt 1950–1951, §§19.7, 40.60; Bongard-Levin et al. 1996, §§ii.11,25, 32 (with √grah in place of ud√grah).



Buddha speaks some verses to a brahman and instructs him to pari√āp themand recite them later to his sons and others (imā gāthāyo pariyāpuṇitvā sa-bhāyaṃ mahājanakāye sannipatite puttesu ca sannisinnesu bhāsassu).14 In theAlagaddūpamaSuttaof theMajjhimaNikāya, theBuddha criticizesmonkswhopari√āp the nine divisions of dhamma but fail to investigate their meaning(te taṃ dhammaṃ pariyāpuṇitvā tesaṃ dhammānaṃ paññāya atthaṃ na upa-parikkhanti).15 This interestingly suggests that the word did not imply under-standing the meaning of texts. In the Mahāvagga the Buddha permits monksto travel during the rains retreat in order to pari√āp suttas from upāsakasor upāsikās if it is necessary to prevent the suttas from being lost. A pas-sage in the Cullavagga states that a nun followed her teacher for seven yearspari√āp-ing vinaya, but because she had poor memory she forgot whatevershe learned (muṭṭhassatiniyā gahito gahito mussati). In the Suttavibhaṅga theBuddha makes a rule against nuns pari√āp-ing non-Buddhist teachings (tira-cchānavijjā) and the text specifies that if a nun pari√āps “by phrase” (padena)she incurs an offence for every phrase, and if she does so “byword” (akkharāya)she incurs an offence for every word.16

Moving to post-canonical texts, the Milindapañha says that when the greatNāgasena was a boy he went to study with a brahman teacher who told himto ud√grah the Vedas (uggaṇhāhi mantāni) and Nāgasena memorized anddeveloped the ability to recite all three after hearing them only once (nāgase-nassa dārakassa eken’eva uddesena tayo vedā hadayangatā vācuggatā … ahe-suṃ). When he later begins to study Buddhist teachings his teacher thinks,“This Nāgasena is intelligent, he can pari√āp the Abhidhamma very easily” andNāgasena memorizes the Abhidhamma Piṭaka after hearing a single recitationas well (eken’eva sajjhāyena paguṇaṃ katvā). Later he goes to Pāṭaliputra tostudywith another teacher andpari√āp-s the remainder of theTipiṭaka in threemonths. Afterwards, his teacher informs him that although he now √dhṛ-s theTipiṭaka he is not yet liberated and Nāgasena attains arahantship that samenight.17 Here the verbs ud√grah and pari√āp clearly refer tomemorization and

14 Feer 1884–1898, 1: 81–82, 175–177; cf. Bodhi 2000, 176–177, 271–272.15 Trenckner and Chalmers 1888–1899, 1:133; cf. Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi 1995, 227. For pari√āp

applied to the nine divisions of dhamma, see also Morris and Hardy 1885–1900, 2:103, 108,185–187, 3:86–87, 177, 361–362.

16 Oldenberg 1879–1883, 1:140–141, 2:261, 4:305; cf. Horner 1938–1966, 4:188–189, 5:362, 3:337–338. On the last of these three passages, see also von Hinüber 1989, 38. An interestingfragment apparently from the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya gives several examples of recitingby phrase (Karashima 2002, 216–221).

17 Trenckner 1880, 10, 12, 18; cf. Horner 1963–1964, 1:14, 17–18, 24.

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√dhṛ refers to something that one does to texts after one hasmemorized them,which can only be retaining them in memory.

The Papañcasūdanī commentary on the LomasakaṅgiyabhaddekarattaSutta states, “Having sat down, listening silently, is what is meant by ‘oneud√grah-s’; rehearsing the recitation with the voice is what is meant by ‘onepari√āp-s’; reciting for others is what is meant by ‘one √dhṛ-s’ ” (tuṇhībhūtonisīditvā suṇanto uggaṇhāti nāma. vācāya sajjhāyaṃ karonto pariyāpuṇātināma. aññesaṃ vācento dhāreti nāma).18 In its commentary on the ÑātikaSutta, the Sāratthappakāsinī explains somewhat more clearly that “listening,silently learning by heart, is what is meant by ‘one ud√grah-s’; joining onephrase to the last, making it familiar with the voice, is what is meant by ‘onepari√āp-s’; making it learned by heart, obtained in memory, in both ways [i.e.,silently and vocally], is what is meant by ‘one √dhṛ-s’ ” (sutvā tuṇhībhūto vapaguṇaṃ karonto uggaṇhāti nāma. padānupadaṃ ghaṭetvā, vācāya paricitaṃkaronto pariyāpuṇāti nāma: ubhayatthāpi paguṇaṃ ādhārappattaṃ karontodhāreti nāma).19 Both passages distinguish between the meaning of ud√grahand pari√āp, suggesting that the former refers to memorization throughlistening and the latter to developing the ability to recite, but this is likelyan attempt to avoid depicting the suttas as redundant, which is a standardconcern in commentarial literature. Elsewhere the same two aṭṭhakathās sim-ply equate the two terms. The Papañcasūdanī glosses pari√āp in the Ala-gaddūpama Sutta as “ ‘they pari√āp’ means they ud√grah” (pariyāpuṇantī tiuggaṇhanti).20 It comments similarly on a passage in the AriyapariyesanāSutta in which the Buddha states that he quickly pari√āp-ed Āḷāra Kālāma’sdhamma, “ ‘I pari√āp-ed’ means, just hearing [it], I ud√grah-ed [it]” (pariyā-puṇin ti sutvā va uggaṇhiṃ).21 The Sāratthappakāsinī comments on the Mahā-sāla Sutta, “ ‘Having pari√āp-ed’ means having ud√grah-ed or having devel-oped the ability to recite” (pariyāpuṇitvā ti, uggaṇhitvā vā vāc’ uggataṃ vā kat-vā).22

Other commentarial passages confirm that √dhṛ applied to texts refers tomemorizing or retaining them inmemory. In a passage in the DhammadāyadaSutta in the Majjhima Nikāya, monks ask Sāriputta to explain a statement of

18 Woods, Kosambi, and Horner 1922–1938, 5:8.19 Woodward 1929–1937, 2:75. For “ādhārappattaṃ,” the ṭīkā has “ādhāraṃ cittasantānappa-

ttaṃ appamuṭṭhaṃ gatattā ādhārappattaṃ nāma” (Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana cd-rom, Saṃyu-tta Nikāya Ṭīkā, 2:76).

20 Woods, Kosambi, and Horner 1922–1938, 2:106.21 Trenckner and Chalmers 1888–1899, 1:164; Woods, Kosambi, and Horner 1922–1938, 2:171.22 Woodward 1929–1937, 1:262.



the Buddha’s and tell him that they will √dhṛ what he says; the Papañcasūdanīcomments, “ ‘They will √dhṛ’ means they will ud√grah, they will pari√āp”(dhāressantī ti uggahessanti, pariyāpuṇissanti). The same text comments ona passage in the Caṅkī Sutta that advocates √dhṛ-ing the dhamma, “[The suttasays] ‘he √dhṛ-s’: having learned by heart he √dhṛ-s” (dhāretī ti paguṇaṃ katvādhāreti).23 The Manorathapūraṇī comments on a statement in the AṅguttaraNikāya in which the Buddha laments that few beings who hear the dharma√dhṛ it, “ ‘They√dhṛ’ means they do not forget” (dhārentī ti na pammussanti).24

Though the three verbs are ubiquitous in Mahāyāna sūtras, they almostalways occur in lists of textual practices that provide little or no context, whichmay be why they have so often been misunderstood. There are neverthelesssome passages that make it clear that Mahāyāna sūtras use them in much thesame way as non-Mahāyāna texts. In the third chapter of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā,for instance, a group of hostile, non-Buddhist renunciants approaches the Bud-dha’s assembly and Śakra thinks, “Letme call to call tomindwith [my]memory,rehearse the recitation, and set forth as much of the small amount of this Pra-jñāpāramitā as I have ud√grah-ed in the presence of the Bhagavan so thatthese renunciants of other sects will not approach the Bhagavan” (yannv ahaṃyāvanmātromayā bhagavato ’ntikād asyāḥ prajñāpāramitāyāḥ pradeśa udgṛhī-tas tāvanmātraṃsmṛtyā samanvāhareyaṃsvādhyāyeyaṃpravartayeyaṃyathāete ’nyatīrthyāḥ parivrājakā bhagavantaṃ na upasaṃkrāmeyuḥ).25 Śakra thendoes so and the hostile renunciants depart with no trouble. Both the con-text and the passage’s specific reference to Śakra’s calling to mind what hehas ud√grah-ed “with memory” (smṛti) indicate that ud√grah here refers tomemorization. In the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, the Buddha states that in thedistant past he and Ānanda gave rise to the desire to attain Buddhahood atthe exact same moment, but while the Buddha then devoted himself to thepractice of vīrya, Ānanda devoted himself to great learning (bāhuśrutya). TheBuddha then predicts Ānanda’s future attainment of Buddhahood, whereuponĀnanda immediately remembers (anu√smṛ) the teachings of a vast numberof Buddhas whose teachings he memorized in past lives. Ānanda then statesin verse that, since the Buddha has caused him to remember, he remem-bers giving rise to the desire for Buddhahood as if it happened yesterday and√dhṛ-s those Buddhas’ teachings.26 In a passage in the Pratyutpanna, the Bud-

23 Trenckner and Chalmers 1888–1899, 1:14, 2:173; Woods, Kosambi, and Horner 1922–1938,1:100, 3:426.

24 Morris and Hardy 1885–1900, 1:36; Walleser and Kopp 1924–1956, 2:38.25 Wogihara 1932–1935, 240–241.26 Kern and Nanjio 1908, 218–219; cf. Kern 1884, 208–209;mDo sde, Ja, 81b–82a. All references

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dha tells the story of a past life of Dīpaṃkara Buddha in which he *√dhṛ-ed(bzung) everything he heard from a Buddha named *Kṣemarāja and otherBuddhas for 80,000 years and thereby became “possessed of inconceivablygreat learning [mang du thos pa, *bāhuśrutya].”27 In the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa,Maitreya promises to provide people with memory (smṛti) by which they willfind pleasure in, ud√grah, pari ava√āp,√dhṛ, set forth, andwrite sūtras like theVimalakīrti and teach them to others (smṛtiṃ ca eṣām upasaṃhariṣyāmo yayāsmṛtyā imān evaṃrūpān sūtrāntān rocayiṣyanti udgrahīṣyanti paryavāpsyantidhārayiṣyanti pravarttayiṣyanti likhiṣyanti pareṣāṃcavistareṇadeśayiṣyanti).28In the Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra, the kalyāṇamitra Sāgaramegha states that a Buddharevealed a text called the Samantanetra [Sūtra] to him by touching his headand that although he ud√grah-s and saṃ√dhṛ-s it, it would take as much inkas there is water in the ocean and a pile of pens as large as Mount Sumeruto write it (taṃ ca ahaṃ samantanetraṃ dharmaparyāyam udgṛhṇāmi saṃ-dhārayāmi … yasya likhyamānasya mahāsamudrāpskandhapramāṇā ca maṣiḥsumeruparvatarājamātrakalamasaṃcayaḥkṣayaṃvrajet). In the same text, thekalyāṇamitra Veṣṭhila states that he “remembers, saṃ√dhṛ-s, and, by means ofmemory, ud√grah-s” the teaching of a vast number of Buddhas (eṣāṃ dharma-deśanāṃ smarāmi saṃdhārayāmi smṛtyā ca udgṛhṇāmi).29 In two passages inthe the Akṣobhyavyūha, theBuddha says that bodhisattvaswill not forget teach-ings that they *ud√grah, *√dhṛ, *√vāc, and *pari ava√āp in Abhirati in futurelives (dKon brtsegs, Kha, 18a, 36b).

Mahāyāna sūtras sometimes use the word √dhṛ in specific reference tobooks, as Schopen has pointed out. Schopen cites a passage in the Sukhā-vatīvyūha, for instance, that says that “even having merely made it planted in abook, well-written, [the text] should be √dhṛ-ed” (antaśaḥ pustakagatāvaropi-tam api kṛtvā sulikhito dhārayitavyaḥ).30 Schopen deduces from such passagesand standard dictionary definitions that √dhṛ originally and primarily appliesto texts in written form, requiring “manasā” (with themind) to extend its senseto texts in mnemic form.31 From the preceding discussion it should be clear

to Tibetan texts are to the tbrc Derge editions unless noted (bKa’ ’gyur sDe dge par ma2003, bsTan ’gyur sDe dge par ma 2003).

27 Harrison 1990/1978, §15c.28 Vimalakīrtinirdeśa 2004, §12.20; cf. Lamotte 1962, §12.20.29 Suzuki and Idzumi 1934–1936, 65–66, 207.30 Schopen 1977, 142; Ashikaga 1965, 63.31 Schopen 2010, 59n67. The usage of √dhṛ with manasā is all but unknown in Mahāyāna

sūtras. Schopen’s suggestionmay be based on the St. Petersburg dictionary (Böhtlingk andRoth 1855–1875, s.v.).



that, historically, the extension went in the opposite direction. In Buddhisttexts, when applied to texts,√dhṛ originally referred to retaining them inmem-ory and only later came to be applied to texts in written form. Even with thedevelopment of this new usage, however, theword continued to refer primarilytomemorization. Early Mahāyāna sūtras seem likely to have used √dhṛ to referto written texts in only a single, highly circumscribed context: lists of sūtra-oriented activities in which the word √dhṛ occurs twice, first in its originaland standard meaning and then in an extended sense. A lengthy list repeatedeight times in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, for example, begins by advocating listening to,ud√grah-ing, √dhṛ-ing, reciting, and pari ava√āp-ing the Prajñāpāramitā andthen also advocates √dhṛ-ing it “even having merely put it in a book” (antaśaḥpustakagatām api kṛtvā).32 These passages first use √dhṛ without qualificationimmediately after ud√grah and before pari ava√āp, clearly referring to retain-ing the text in memory, and then use it again with the qualification “pustaka-gatām … kṛtvā,” extending the verb’s basic sense of retention to written texts.A passage in the somewhat later Ratnaketuparivarta Sūtra makes the distinc-tion between the original and the extended sense of the word especially clear,abridging a full list of sūtra-oriented activities to “√dhṛ [and so on] up to √dhṛeven after havingmade it written in a book” (dhārayaṃti yāvat pustakalikhitamapi kṛtvā dhārayan[ti]) (Kurumiya 1978, 149). Looking at Sanskrit and Tibetanversions of the texts translated into Chinese in the second century, I have foundonly one case in which√dhṛ is used to refer to books outside of a “double√dhṛ”list of this sort, a passage in the Tibetan translation of the Kāśyapaparivartanot found in either the Sanskrit version of the text or any of its Chinese trans-lations.33 Though other Mahāyāna sūtras use the term to refer to written textsoutside of such lists, they donot seem todo sowithout explicitly indicating thatthey are referring to physical texts. Rather than requiring “manasā” to refer topreserving texts in memory, √dhṛ requires explicit mention of written texts inorder to refer to books, and this usage is relatively uncommon.

Moving to Mahāyāna śāstra literature, the Bodhisattvabhūmi states that “abodhisattva … guards intelligence, innate knowledge by means of which hequickly ud√grah-s teachings. He guards memory, by means of which he √dhṛ-steachings [he has] ud√grah-ed” (bodhisattvaḥ … medhāṃ rakṣati yena saha-

32 Wogihara 1932–1935, 217–231.33 dKon brtsegs, Cha, 151b. For other “double √dhṛ” passages, see, e.g., Ashikaga 1965, 63 (the

passage Schopen quotes is part of a longer double √dhṛ passage); Harrison 1978/1990,§13b; Harrison 1992, §15j; mDo sde, Tsha, 265b (Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodanā); Yamada1968, 2:417; Vimalakīrtinirdeśa 2004/Lamotte 1962, §11.8–9; Rahder 1931–1932, 2:82; Dutt1966, 282; cf. Kern and Nanjio 1908, 395/Kern 1884, 370.

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jena jñānena dharmān laghulaghv eva udgṛhṇāti| smṛtiṃ rakṣati yayā smṛtyāudgṛhītān dharmān dhārayati|).34 Haribhadra comments in his Abhisamayā-laṃkārālokā, “From listening to the [sūtra], one ud√grah-s; from paying atten-tion, one√dhṛ-s… fromgrasping [ormemorizing] the text and themeaning [orthe meaning of the text], one pari ava√āp-s” (saṃgrahaśravaṇād udgrahīṣyati.manasikaraṇād dhārayiṣyati .… granthārthagrahaṇāt paryavāpsyati).35 Ratnā-karaśānti comments in his Sāratamā (or Sāratarā or Sārottamā), “ ‘One shouldud√grah’ means one should recite repeatedly; ‘one should √dhṛ’ means oneshould establish in [one’s] heart; … ‘one should pari ava√āp’ means one shouldunderstand in every way” (udgṛṇhīyād āvartayet| dhārayediti hṛdaye sthāpayet… paryavāpnuyād iti sarvathā avagacchet|).36 In his Vajracchedikāṭīkā, Kamala-śīla comments, “ ‘Having ud√grah-ed’ [refers to] the text; ‘theywill√dhṛ’ meansthey will not forget; … ‘they will pari ava√āp’ [refers to] the meaning” (len pazhes bya bani tshig go|| ’dzin pa zhes bya banimi brjed pa’o||… kun chubpar byedces bya ba ni don to|). In the same text he also comments, “ ‘Having ud√grah-ed’ means rehearsing the recitation; ‘one should √dhṛ’ refers to the text; … ‘oneshould pari ava√āp’ means grasping [ormemorizing] themeaning” (blangsnaszhes bya ba ni kha ton du bklags pa’o|| ’dzin tam zhes bya ba ni tshig go|| … kunchub par byed pa zhes bya ba ni don ’dzin). Elsewhere he again glosses ud√grahas “rehearsing the recitation” (kha ton tu byas pa, *svādhyāya).37 The Akṣaya-matinirdeśaṭīkā states, “ ‘They ud√grah’ means they grasp [or memorize] bothword and meaning with the mind; ‘they √dhṛ’ means, having thus ud√grah-ed [the text], they do not forget it; never forgetting, they √dhṛ; … ‘they pariava√āp’means anyonewhoud√grah-s,√dhṛ-s, and recites [the text] completesthe undertaking” (’dzin pa ni yi ge dang don gnyis sems kyis blangs pa’o, ’changbani de ltar bzungnas brjed par bya bama yin gyi, dus thams cad dumi brjed par’chang ba’o, … kun chub par byed pa ni gzung ba dang ’chang ba dang klog pa dedag gang yang rung mgo ’jug tu phyin par byed pa’o).38 These passages explain

34 Dutt 1966, 195; cf., e.g., 6, 56.35 Wogihara 1932–1935, 194; cf. Shes phyin, Cha, 104b–105a and Sparham 2006–2012, 2:141.

I take the word saṃgraha to refer to the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, which Haribhadra saw as acondensed version of the Śatasāhasrikā (Wogihara 1932–1935, 11–12/Sparham 2006–2012,1:182). The word manasikaraṇa here probably refers specifically to the act of memoriza-tion. See, e.g.,Wogihara 1932–1935, 137–138/Sparham 2006–2012, 2:82–83 andAnālayo 2011,2:868.

36 Jaini 1979, 47; cf. Shes phyin, Tha, 76a–b.37 Shes phyin, Ma, 227a, 233b, 265b; cf. Tenzin 1994, 142/298, 156/317, 223/411.38 Braarvig 1993, 2:580n2. I here follow the Narthang reading which omits a redundant “’dzin

pa” in the gloss of “kun chub par byed pa.”



ud√grah and √dhṛ in much the same way as the Pāli aṭṭhakathās. Ud√grahrefers to memorization that results from either listening to a text or practicingits recitation and √dhṛ refers to retaining a text one has memorized in mem-ory. Unlike Pāli texts, however, the Mahāyāna commentaries suggest that pariava√āp involves understanding a text’s meaning, or even simply completingone’s study of a text.

Altogether, when used in Buddhist sūtras to refer to texts, with the exceptionof some late interpretations of pari ava√āp and the relatively few, easily recog-nizable cases in which the sense of √dhṛ is extended to written texts, all threewords seem to refer, or be understood to refer, to memorization consistentlythrough the whole history of the tradition. Applied to texts, ud√grah alwaysmeans “memorize.” √Dhṛ means “retain in memory” by default and in the vastmajority of its occurrences, and only refers to written texts if this is specificallyindicated. In early texts pari ava√āp clearly refers to memorization and seemsto be used as a simple synonym of ud√grah. In the past I have translated it as“learn,” which captures some of the ambiguity introduced by later commen-taries, but it likely retained its original sense of “memorize” in early Mahāyānasūtras.

Once we understand the meaning of these three words, Mahāyāna sūtrasimmediately begin to look very different. Far from having moved away fromoral practices, it would seem that, as Étienne Lamotte suggested years ago,“la mémorisation de la Loi gagne encore en importance dans le Mahāyāna.”39Indeed, it turns out that Mahāyāna sūtras advocate memorization more fre-quently and enthusiastically than they do any other form of religious prac-tice and more frequently and enthusiastically than does any other genre ofBuddhist text. Some sūtras do so almost constantly. The Sanskrit text of theAṣṭasāhasrikā, e.g., recommends or refers to textual practices using all threewords together, bymy count, 148 times, and refers to thememorization of textsusing one or two of the words an additional fourteen times. Using the pagina-tion of a modern printed book—P.L. Vaidya’s version of the text is 261 pages—this comes to an average of nearly once every page and a half, and significantlyoutnumbers the sūtra’s references to writing and written texts. Though fewsūtras advocate textual practices so frequently, most of even the late SanskritandTibetan versions of the sūtras translated intoChinese in the secondcenturyuse these words to advocatememorization at least several times. None of themadvocates writing or worshipping books more frequently. This general patternapplies to Mahāyāna sūtras of all periods.40

39 Lamotte 1944–1980, 4:1854; cf. von Hinüber 1989, 28n55.40 I can only note three sūtras that advocatewritingmore frequently thanmnemic practices,

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Alongwithmentioning and advocatingmemorizationmore frequently thanwritten practices, Mahāyāna sūtras often explicitly depict writing and bookworship as less significant than memorization. A passage in the Vimalakīr-tinirdeśa Sūtra, for instance, states that those “who will ud√grah this dharma-discourse, or even merely make it written in a book, recite it [etc.]” (ya imaṃdharmmaparyāyam udgrahīṣyanti antaśaḥ pustakalikhitam api kariṣyanti vā-cayiṣyanti) will thereby accomplish the worship of past, present, and futureBuddhas. Mahāyāna sūtras often praise minor sūtra-oriented activities, speci-fying them as things done “antaśas” (merely) or “antaśas… api” (evenmerely),in order to dramatize the benefits that can be gained frommore involved activ-ities. Another passage from the Vimalakīrti, for example, promises tremendousbenefits to those “who … will merely hear this dharma-discourse, how muchmore [to those] who, having heard it, will become firmly devoted to it, seekit, ud√grah, √dhṛ, recite, pari ava√āp it [etc.]” (ya … iman dharmaparyāyamantaśaḥ śroṣyanti kaḥ punar vādo ye śrutvā adhimokṣyante pratyeṣyanti udgra-hīṣyanti dhārayiṣyanti vācayiṣyanti paryavāpsyanti …).41 A passage from theSaṃghāṭa Sūtra states similarly that one “who will listen to even merely a[single] verse from this Saṃghāṭa dharma-discourse” will make more meritthan one who would worship a vast number of Buddhas and then continues“how much more one who will listen to the full text” (yaś ca trayodaśagaṃgā-nadībālikāsamāṃs tathāgatān arhataḥ samyaksaṃbuddhānpūjayati, yaś cetaḥsaṃghāṭād dharmaparyāyād antaśaś catuṣpādikām api gāthāṃ śroṣyati, ayaṃtato bahutaraṃ puṇyaskandhaṃ prasaviṣyati. kaḥ punar vādo yaḥ sakalasa-māptaṃ śroṣyati) (Canevascini 1993, 38). The fact that the Vimalakīrti usesthe phrase “antaśas … api” to distinguish making the text into a book fromud√grah-ing and other sūtra oriented activities clearly indicates that its au-thors saw it as a less significant activity. Similar passages that apply “antaśas”or “antaśas … api” to writing, making sūtras into books, or worshipping booksin distinction tomnemic and other sūtra-oriented activities are common. Theyoccur, for example, no less than forty-five times in the Sanskrit text of theAṣṭasāhasrikā, in otherwell-knownMahāyāna sūtras such as the Pratyutpanna,larger Sukhāvatīvyūha, Drumakinnararāja, Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka, and Ratnake-tuparivarta, as well as in less well-known texts such as the Niṣṭhāgatabhaga-vajjñāna, Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā, Kṣemaṅkaraparipṛcchā, Tathāgatasaṅgīti,

the Kāraṇḍavyūha, Jñānālokālāṃkāra, and Aparimitāyus (Yamada 1968, Jñānālokālāṃ-kāra 2004, Konow 1916,Walleser 1916). The first two of these nevermention book worship,the Aparimitāyusmentions it only twice, and all three also advocate memorization.

41 Vimalakīrtinirdeśa 2004, §§11.8, 12.4.



etc.42 I have not found any cases where mnemic practices are depicted as lesssignificant than ones involving written texts.

Along with the fact that Mahāyāna sūtras now turn out to be heavy advo-cates of mnemic and oral practices, and to regard writing and book worship asless important, there are good reasons to suspect that non-Mahāyāna textswerewritten from an earlier date than is often thought, and clear evidence that theywere venerated fromancient times. The idea that Buddhist textswere first writ-ten down in the first century bce has beenwidely current since the nineteenthcentury, but has never been much more than a guess. Its only basis is a shortpassage, two verses long, found in both the fourth or fifth-century Dīpavaṃsaand laterMahāvaṃsa, that states that theTipiṭaka and commentarieswere firstwritten down at this time.43 Several leading scholars have suggested over theyears that this passage has little or no historical value.44 Even if the passage isa record of fact, however, it fairly clearly does not even intend to record thefirst time writing was ever used for Buddhist texts, but the first creation of acomplete set of written scriptures in Sri Lanka. There would thus seem to benothing to suggest that Buddhists could not have begun to write down indi-vidual texts or groups of texts even a long time before this. Though the earliestBuddhist texts do not mention the use of writing for Buddhist texts, since weknow that Indians possessed a written script since at least the time of Aśoka,Buddhists could have begun to write their texts as early as the second, or eventhird century. The likelihoodof this is strengthenedby the fact thatwenowpos-sess actual Buddhist manuscripts that date to the first or even second centurybce, and the fact that these, of course, are unlikely to be the very first Buddhistmanuscripts ever made.45 Schopen suggests that book worship was specificto Mahāyāna on the grounds that “there is no hint in [the MūlasarvāstivādaVinaya] or in related texts like the Avadānaśataka or Divyāvadāna of the bookas a sacred object” (2010, 52). As several scholars have pointed out, however,a very large amount of non-Mahāyāna textual material, dating to as early asthe second century ce, has been found interred in stūpas, centuries before wehaveanyarchaeological evidence for the venerationofMahāyāna texts (Drewes

42 See Harrison 1990/1978, §§13b, 24d; Ashikaga 1965, 63, 64; Harrison 1992, §15j; Yamada1968, 2:417; Kurumiya 1978, 149, 151, 155–156; mDo sde, Ga, 275b (Niṣṭhāgata); mDo sde,Pa, 327a (Gaganagañja); mDo sde, Ba, 171a (Kṣemaṅkara); mDo sde, Dza, 246a (Tathā-gatasaṅgīti).

43 Oldenberg 1879, 103/211; Geiger 1908, 277.44 See, e.g., Turnour 1836, liv, cix; Weller 1928, 163–164; Brough 1962, 218; de Jong 1989, 242;

Norman 1989, 36; 1993a, 280; 1993b, 248 and n. 34; Cox 1992, 175n8.45 See Falk 2011, 19; Allon and Salomon 2010, 10–11n39; Salomon 2014, 10.

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2007, 127–133). Though canonical sūtras seem never to advocate book worshipthemselves, Sanskrit manuscripts of the non-Mahāyāna Nagaropama Sūtra,which has a parallel in the Pāli Saṃyutta Nikāya, contain a rare appendix thatadvocates worshipping (√pūj) the text, a practice that Daniel Boucher suggestswas probably “in place before the composition of the appendix.”46

All of this, I would suggest, makes it possible to move beyond much ofwhat has been suggested about the importance of writing for the Mahāyāna.Straightaway we can dismiss suggestions such as Lopez’s that “unlike the Vedasit was not the verbal form so much as the written form that was key” andDaniel Veidlinger’s that “Mahāyāna texts reserve their highest praise for theDharma-bearing written word.”47 Like the Vedas, and the texts of apparentlyall pre-modern Indian traditions, Mahāyāna sūtras reserve their highest praisefor oral/mnemic textual practices. It would nowalso seem thatGombrich’s the-ory is unlikely to be correct. Between the tremendous emphasis thatMahāyānasūtras place on memorization and the central role that they attribute todharmabhāṇakas, which I have discussed elsewhere (2011), Mahāyānists surelycould have preserved their texts without writing.48 Though most Mahāyāna

46 Bongard-Levin et al. 1996, §ii.9, 23.47 Veidlinger 2006, 406. There would thus seem to be no reason to imagine that “Mahāyāna

attitudes towards writing” were responsible for the introduction of book worship intoTheravāda countries, as Veidlinger suggests (442). Veidlinger’s argument that books wereregarded with less reverence in Northern Thailand than elsewhere is also rather strained.Cf. Schopen 2010, 52.

48 There is a persistent tendency inWestern scholarship to imagine the oral composition andtransmission of long texts to be impossible. Discussing purāṇic literature, for example,Schopen suggests that “given the enormous size of the texts involved … it is unlikelythat the versions we know were ever transmitted in toto orally” (2010, 40). Ludo Rocher’scomments on this issue are instructive: “I was in awe, as I had been in awe before and as Ihave been in awe since, whenever I was faced with the extraordinary capacity of Indiansnot only tomemorize endless Sanskrit texts, but also to keep thatmemory securely storedand be able to call it up without the slightest effort whenever recitation is called for. Iam also not the only Western Sanskritist to have been in awe before the phenomenon.Friedrich Max Müller noted: ‘We can form no opinion of the power of memory in a stateof society so different from ours as the Indian Parishads are from our universities. Featsof memory, such as we hear of now and then, show that our notions of the limits ofthat faculty are quite arbitrary. Our own memory has been systematically underminedfor many generations.’ More succinctly …Heinrich Lüders described some Indian panditsas ‘nothing but walking, living text books’ ” (1994, 2–3). Georges Dreyfus similarly reportsthat modern Tibetan monks can memorize ten to twenty pages of text per day and thatsome memorize thousands of pages in total (2003, 85, 91, and personal communication).It is also important to keep in mind that, as Donald Lopez points out, though I believe he



sūtras undoubtedly would eventually have been lost without writing, this is aseparate issue, and something that is also true of nikāya/āgama sūtras. Writingwas not necessary for the Mahāyāna to emerge.

The various attempts that have been made to link aspects of Mahāyānathought or textual imagery to the use of writing are too numerous to discussindividually, but they too now seem dubious, mainly because it is no longerclear that Mahāyāna sūtras were written compositions in the first place. Sinceoral and mnemic practices seem to have remained central in Mahāyāna, thereis a significant likelihood thatMahāyāna sūtras were typically composed orally.Indeed, it is not clear that many early Mahāyāna authors would even haveknown how to read or write. Until modern times it was common for Indianscholars not to learn to do so. It is also interesting to note that Mahāyānasūtras seem generally to be unaware of the practice of reading silently tooneself. The standard word that is translated as reading, the causative of √vac,really just means to speak a text aloud, either from memory or a written text.Even if all Mahāyāna sūtras were composed in writing, however, and we couldsomehow know this, since the effect of writing on consciousness, especially inIndia, is really no less mysterious than Mahāyāna thought itself, it would bedifficult to link Mahāyāna thought or imagery to it in any more than a vague,speculative manner. To link specific Mahāyāna ideas or tendencies to writingin a meaningful way, one would like, for example, to be able to specify whatadditional factors led writing to cause the tendencies in question to develop inthe Mahāyāna, but not in other “written” Buddhist traditions—and questionslike this would take us back to the proverbial square one.

There also seems to be little basis for continuing to imagine that Mahāyānawas responsible for the emergence of book worship, mainly because our ear-liest evidence for Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyana book veneration comes fromaround the same time, with the non-Mahāyāna evidence actually being a bitolder. The Senior Manuscripts, which contain a significant number of non-Mahāyāna sūtras, were found in a pot with an inscription stating that it wasplaced in a stūpa in year twelve of the Kaniṣka era, or roughly 140ce.49 The

dismisses the fact too hastily, “Mahāyāna sūtras have many of the qualities of the Nikāyas(redundancy, stock phrases, reliance on lists)—the very features that lead [scholars] tojudge theNikāyas to be oral” (1996, 44; cf. 1995, 41).MorizWinternitz observedmore than acentury ago that the characteristic of repetition found inPāli texts “is exaggerated to such adegree in the longer Prajñā-pāramitās that it would be quite possible to write downmorethan one half of a gigantic work like the Śatasāhasrikā-Prajñā-Pāramitā from memory”(1927, 2:322).

49 On the Senior Manuscripts, see most recently Allon 2014.

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earliest textual evidence we have for Mahāyāna book worship is found in theMahāyāna sūtras translated by Lokakṣema, the earliest of which apparentlydate to 179ce, and the earliest archaeological evidence does not appear untilcenturies later. In addition, ritual deposits of non-Mahāyāna textual materialoccur with dramatically greater frequency in all historical periods (Drewes2007, 127–133). Apart from this, however, scholarship over the past severaldecadeshas increasingly come to the consensus thatMahāyānawasnot institu-tionally distinct from the nikāyas, and several scholars have drawn attention tothe fact that Chinese pilgrims andMahāyāna sūtras themselvesmake referenceto Mahāyānists and non-Mahāyānists living in the same monasteries.50 It isthus far from clear that Mahāyānists formed a tradition or traditions that weresufficiently distinct for them to be likely to develop textual practices of theirown. Here it is interesting to note that, as Mark Allon and Richard Salomonpoint out, all of the most ancient Mahāyāna sūtra manuscripts that have beendiscovered in recent years have been part of larger collections in which mostof the manuscripts contain non-Mahāyāna texts.51 What we seem to see inthe myriad Mahāyāna sūtra passages that advocate sūtra-oriented practices isnot the emergence of new, specifically Mahāyāna, textual practices, but a dra-matically strengthened emphasis on textual practice in general. This shift canperhapsbe attributed to the likelihood that, as I have suggested elsewhere, earlyMahāyāna was at root a textual movement or trend focused primarily on therevelation, use, and transmission of Mahāyāna sūtras.

Generally speaking, as several scholars have already argued, the categories of“written” and “oral” traditions have little or no utility when applied to India. Adistinct category, such as the “literate orality” proposed by Velcheru NarayanaRao (1993, 95), is needed to make proper sense of them. Attempting to char-acterize the complex interplay between oral and written practices in purāṇictradition, Narayana Rao writes:

There are many instances, even as late as the nineteenth century, ofscholars who could not ‘write.’ They composed the texts mentally andrecited themorally, and then the scribewrote themdown. But the Purāṇascholar who did not write was not illiterate .… These are scholars who areoral in performing the Purāṇas, and probably even in composing someof them, but who are very proud of their … ability to possess a writtentext of what they perform orally. Therefore we meet with an interesting

50 For references, see Drewes 2010, 57–58.51 Salomon 2014, 11; Allon and Salomon 2010, 13.



contradiction. The texts say theywere oral .… But outside the text you cansee that every Paurāṇika values the written tradition by carrying a bookwith him.

This basic dynamic fits quite closely with what we see inMahāyāna sūtras, andlikely characterized Indian Buddhist traditions in general from the advent ofwriting onwards. As Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann have recently sug-gested, while writing “allowed of many new possibilities,” it “never supersededmemorization and orality in the Buddhist world” (2014, viii). Rather than beingthe compositions of isolated monks “pouring out pamphlets espousing theirviews and values,” as Schopen has suggested (2003, 494–495), or the product ofpeople whowanted to worship deadwords “precisely because they were dead,”these texts emerged from a tradition focused primarily on oral and mnemicpractices, and especially, I would suggest, from the significantly more livelysocial matrix of Buddhist preaching rituals, which I discussed in a previousissue of this journal.52

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