🔗collection of articles on oral tradition

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*  With vitakka, but without vicāra: samādhi in 3 ways, the 4th type of samādhi they don't talk about but is used often in oral tradition

AN 6.43 and KN Thag 15.2: unintentional oral transmission error.

AN 6.29 oral tradition, importance of memory, Buddha says you're foolish if you don't know the 6 topics from this sutta

when clause two is not exactly opposite of clause one, strange ambiguities arise: 

AN 6.34 You don't have to be Buddhist, and "You May Already Be a (stream) Winner!"

 

Forum discussion

oral tradition sutva (hearing/learning), Ajahn Brahm and B. Sujato (vitakka of 'no thinking') would destroy the oral tradition

Re: Early Buddhism and the oral tradition

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Post by frank k » Mon May 17, 2021 8:11 am

Bundokji wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 11:46 am"Evaṃ me suttaṃ",

it's sutam, not suttam.
sutam is releated to sota (ear) having heard (sutva).
typical usage: sotam sadda sutva (with the ear, sounds I heard).

A very interesting thing about the word sutva and related words like sutam, in relation to the oral tradition.
Sometimes translators render sutva as "heard", other times "learned."

It's because in an oral tradition, the functions of hearing and learning are inseparable, along with memorizing, reciting, vitakka and vicara (verbal thinking and evaluation of the material you heard and learned).
Without vitakka and vicara (as verbal thinking), the oral tradition wouldn't work. It would be like dumb birds with great memory who can mimic and recall all kinds of speech and music, but have no idea what they're parroting.

Similarly, Ajahn Brahma and B. Sujato's vitakka and vicara in first jhana of just placing the mind with no verbal thinking, destroys the oral tradition and reduces jhana and meditation to dumb birds just mimicking sounds.