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Four hundred years without writing.

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How did Buddhist scriptures survive?

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You've probably played the game of 'Telephone' as a child.

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Ten people line up.

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A message passes from the first person to the last.

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The content becomes unrecognizable.

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Now imagine this:

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Scale up the game ten thousand times.

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Not ten people,

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but tens of thousands.

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Not one sentence,

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but millions of words.

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Not for one afternoon,

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but for four hundred years.

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This was the real situation for Buddhist scriptures.

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The Buddha never wrote down a single word.

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He taught for forty-five years,

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and it all lived in his disciples' memories.

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In the last episode, we discussed how,

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right after the Buddha passed away,

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Mahakasyapa convened 500 Arhats for the First Council.

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Ananda recited the Sutta Pitaka,

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Upali recited the Vinaya Pitaka,

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and 500 people verified it line by line

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to reach a consensus.

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But take note:

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nothing was written down at that council.

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The original meaning of 'Council' is 'communal chanting.'

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The entire process was oral from start to finish.

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Five hundred people synchronized their memories speech;

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then, they carried the unified version

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away in their minds.

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This is why what happened next is so astonishing.

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After that first council,

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another four hundred years passed

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before the scriptures were first committed to writing.

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Four hundred years—

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roughly the time from the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty to today.

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During this period,

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all Buddhist scriptures

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survived solely through the mouths and ears of people.

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Hello,

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everyone.

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I'm Wang Lijie.

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Today, we're discussing

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a nearly overlooked period in Buddhist history.

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A history without heroes,

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without sectarian wars,

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and without dramatic conflict.

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Yet, it might be more critical than any sectarian dispute.

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Because if anything went majorly wrong during these 400 years,

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all the scriptures we read today

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would be untrustworthy.

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So, did something go wrong?

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To answer that,

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we first need to understand one thing:

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passing knowledge through memory

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was not a Buddhist invention in ancient India.

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Buddhism learned this practice.

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A thousand years before the Buddha was born,

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the core scriptures of Brahmanism,

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the Vedas,

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were already maintained through pure oral tradition.

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No writing,

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no bamboo slips,

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no palm leaves.

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Everything relied on the human brain.

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And the precision of this maintenance

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was unbelievably high.

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How extreme was the Brahmins' memorization training?

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They invented a technique called 'Patha' (recitation styles).

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For a passage of scripture,

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you don't just memorize it forward.

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You must memorize it backward,

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cross-referenced,

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and in staggered patterns.

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For example,

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if the original text is 1-2-3-4-5,

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you first recite it forward:

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'1-2-3-4-5.'

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Then recite it backward.

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Five, four, three, two, one.

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Then recite it in overlapping pairs.

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One, two.

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Two, one.

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One, two.

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Two, three.

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Three, two.

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Two, three.

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Three, four.

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Four, three.

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Three, four.

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Four, five.

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Five, four.

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Four, five.

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Does it sound like you're doing math?

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Exactly.

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This isn't just about memory.

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It's a mathematical redundancy check.

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Like today's data storage,

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you don't just store one copy.

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You store multiple copies,

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each in a different sequence.

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If an error occurs anywhere,

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it's caught through cross-validation.

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A Brahmin student

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spends four to seven years,

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ten hours a day,

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memorizing a single Veda.

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Not just the gist;

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not a single syllable can be wrong,

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not even the intonation can change.

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In 2003,

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UNESCO declared the Vedic oral tradition

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as Intangible Cultural Heritage.

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The reason:

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It's one of history's most precise memory systems.

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For 3,000 years,

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the Vedic texts have remained virtually unchanged.

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The Buddhist Sangha

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grew out of this culture of memory.

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Many early monks

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were Brahmins before ordaining.

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The memory training they received from childhood

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was brought directly into Buddhism.

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You could say

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Buddhist oral tradition

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stands on the shoulders of Brahmin memory techniques.

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But Buddhism faced a unique challenge.

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The Vedas are metrical poetry

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with strict rhythm and syllable rules.

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The rhythm itself is a validation tool.

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If you sing a syllable wrong,

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the tune is off,

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and you'll hear it yourself.

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But the Buddha spoke in prose.

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He wasn't reciting poetry;

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he was holding conversations.

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His words had no fixed meter,

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no rhyme,

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and the volume was much larger.

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The Buddha spoke for 45 years.

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The resulting Pali Canon,

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in word count alone, exceeds the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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How do you manage such volume?

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The answer is division of labor.

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The Sangha developed a professional system

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known as the "Chanter" system,

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or Bhanaka in Pali.

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Different monks

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were specialized in memorizing different scriptures.

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Some groups memorized the Digha Nikaya,

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others the Majjhima Nikaya,

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others the Samyutta Nikaya,

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others the Anguttara Nikaya.

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Some specialized in Jataka tales,

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and others in the Dhammapada.

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Every group of Chanters

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was a living database node.

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Every reciter was a living node in a vast database.

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They stayed in different monasteries,

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across different regions,

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and even different countries,

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each maintaining the specific portion of the scriptures they were responsible for.

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Moreover, this system featured a sophisticated design.

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Have you ever read a Buddhist sutra?

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Every sutra begins with the same four characters:

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'Thus have I heard.'

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This was the standard format used by Ananda during the First Council.

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It means,

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'The following content,

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I personally heard the Buddha speak.'

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Then it immediately specifies the location:

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'At one time, the Buddha was at [Place X],'

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followed by the audience:

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'together with a [number] of monks.'

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This fixed opening format

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might look like mere bureaucracy,

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but it is actually a metadata tag.

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It locks in three core pieces of information: time, place, and audience.

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This allows future generations to at least roughly determine the context of the teaching.

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Think about it.

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With four hundred years of oral transmission,

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without this formatted header information,

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who would eventually remember where or to whom a teaching was given?

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These words aren't just for ritual;

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this is information engineering.

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Does this architecture look familiar to you?

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Today, when we talk about distributed storage

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or distributed databases,

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this is the same principle.

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Data is not kept in one place,

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but is scattered across multiple nodes.

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If any single node fails,

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the system doesn't crash,

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and nodes can cross-verify each other.

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What was the verification mechanism for the Buddhist Sangha?

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It was periodic group recitation.

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During major Dharma assemblies,

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and during the annual Vassa—the three months of the Indian rainy season—

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monks would not travel;

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they would gather in one place to practice together.

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One person would recite,

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while the others listened.

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If someone missed a single word,

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those around them would correct it immediately.

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This was human error-correcting code.

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Furthermore,

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the structure of the sutras themselves

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was designed for easy memorization.

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Have you ever felt that sutras are incredibly wordy?

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The same passage

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is repeated over and over again.

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After explaining how eye-consciousness works,

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it repeats for ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind consciousness.

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The exact same content is repeated five more times,

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with only a single word changed.

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That's not wordiness;

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that's mnemonic technology.

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Repetition is the oldest and most reliable memory aid.

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When a fixed sentence pattern appears repeatedly,

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your brain automatically encodes it as a pattern.

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You don't need to memorize it word-for-word;

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you just memorize the pattern

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and fill in the variables.

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It's like a template function in programming:

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write it once,

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call it infinitely.

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Then there is the numerical numbering.

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The Buddha loved using numbers to organize knowledge:

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The Four Noble Truths,

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The Eightfold Path,

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The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination,

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The Five Aggregates,

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The Six Sense Bases,

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The Thirty-Seven Factors of Enlightenment.

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Why are there always specific numbers?

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Because numbers are the best memory anchors.

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If you know there are eight parts to the path,

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by the time you reach the sixth, you know there are two left.

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Numbers themselves act as check codes.

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Thus, the repetition and numbering in Buddhist scriptures

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are not literary choices,

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but engineering necessities.

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From the start, these texts were not meant to be read;

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they were meant to be recited.

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Now,

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no matter how well-designed the system was,

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there is one question you cannot avoid.

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Over four hundred years,

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passed down through countless generations,

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did the message get distorted along the way?

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To this question,

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modern scholars have given a very interesting answer.

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As you know, Buddhism branched into different schools during its spread.

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One branch is called Theravada.

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Their scriptures were preserved in Pali,

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known today as the Pali Canon.

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They circulated mainly in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

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Another branch is called Sarvastivada.

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Their scriptures were later translated into Chinese

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and preserved in the Chinese Tripitaka,

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known as the Agamas.

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These two lineages

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diverged around the time of King Ashoka,

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roughly the 3rd century BCE.

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From then on,

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one stayed in South Asia,

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while the other reached East Asia via Central Asia.

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Different languages,

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different regions,

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and different monastic communities

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developed independently for nearly five hundred years.

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Then, scholars did something remarkable.

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They compared the Pali Nikayas with the Chinese Agamas,

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side by side, page by page.

277
00:09:04,106 --> 00:09:05,351
The results were stunning.

278
00:09:05,826 --> 00:09:07,666
Regarding core doctrines,

279
00:09:07,667 --> 00:09:09,072
the two systems are almost identical.

280
00:09:09,586 --> 00:09:10,131
The Four Noble Truths,

281
00:09:10,466 --> 00:09:10,971
the Eightfold Path,

282
00:09:11,427 --> 00:09:12,351
the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination,

283
00:09:12,386 --> 00:09:12,772
the Five Aggregates,

284
00:09:13,226 --> 00:09:14,312
the Law of Dependent Origination—

285
00:09:14,626 --> 00:09:16,032
all these core elements

286
00:09:16,307 --> 00:09:17,751
match across both versions.

287
00:09:18,027 --> 00:09:19,432
They aren't just "roughly similar";

288
00:09:19,667 --> 00:09:22,471
they are highly consistent in structure and key doctrinal points.

289
00:09:22,907 --> 00:09:23,692
What does this mean?

290
00:09:24,267 --> 00:09:25,751
It means that before the split,

291
00:09:25,866 --> 00:09:29,152
these core teachings were already firmly established.

292
00:09:29,947 --> 00:09:30,751
Even after the split,

293
00:09:30,787 --> 00:09:33,666
following independent paths for centuries,

294
00:09:33,667 --> 00:09:35,432
 the essentials remained unchanged.

295
00:09:35,706 --> 00:09:36,052
Of course,

296
00:09:36,386 --> 00:09:37,751
there are differences in details.

297
00:09:37,947 --> 00:09:39,991
The order of some scriptures varies,

298
00:09:40,147 --> 00:09:42,072
certain story details differ,

299
00:09:42,187 --> 00:09:44,711
and some explanatory passages vary in length.

300
00:09:44,826 --> 00:09:46,292
But the framework of core doctrine

301
00:09:46,547 --> 00:09:47,631
is strikingly consistent.

302
00:09:47,866 --> 00:09:50,826
Oral tradition, when it comes to preserving core teachings,

303
00:09:50,826 --> 00:09:51,951
is surprisingly reliable.

304
00:09:52,147 --> 00:09:53,412
However, the parts that did get distorted

305
00:09:53,586 --> 00:09:54,831
are also worth noting.

306
00:09:55,106 --> 00:09:57,611
What is most easily lost in oral tradition?

307
00:09:57,907 --> 00:09:58,792
Context.

308
00:09:59,106 --> 00:10:01,025
The Buddha spoke to specific people

309
00:10:01,027 --> 00:10:03,312
within specific scenarios.

310
00:10:03,386 --> 00:10:06,072
What he said to a mother who had just lost her child

311
00:10:06,147 --> 00:10:08,672
and what he said to a proud Brahmin scholar

312
00:10:08,826 --> 00:10:09,851
might be similar in content,

313
00:10:10,106 --> 00:10:11,912
but the context was completely different.

314
00:10:11,986 --> 00:10:14,511
Oral tradition can preserve the words,

315
00:10:14,746 --> 00:10:17,879
but the information regarding "why he said this

316
00:10:17,879 --> 00:10:19,025
to that person at that moment"

317
00:10:19,027 --> 00:10:20,272
gradually wore away.

318
00:10:20,506 --> 00:10:23,591
This is why we often see a situation in later generations

319
00:10:24,067 --> 00:10:26,385
where two sects quote the same scripture

320
00:10:26,386 --> 00:10:28,272
to reach completely opposite conclusions.

321
00:10:28,706 --> 00:10:29,731
It's not that the texts were wrong;

322
00:10:30,067 --> 00:10:31,312
it's that the context was lost.

323
00:10:31,746 --> 00:10:34,912
It's like a brilliant doctor leaving behind a room full of prescriptions.

324
00:10:35,267 --> 00:10:37,111
The prescriptions themselves are well-preserved,

325
00:10:37,346 --> 00:10:40,032
but the information about "who they were for" is gone.

326
00:10:40,346 --> 00:10:42,432
When different people get the same prescription,

327
00:10:42,506 --> 00:10:44,312
it produces completely different results.

328
00:10:44,626 --> 00:10:45,631
The medicine isn't wrong;

329
00:10:46,067 --> 00:10:48,552
the problem is you don't know who it was prescribed for.

330
00:10:48,866 --> 00:10:50,152
Consider this scenario:

331
00:10:50,706 --> 00:10:53,312
The Buddha tells someone obsessed with asceticism,

332
00:10:53,706 --> 00:10:55,231
"You don't need to torture yourself."

333
00:10:55,746 --> 00:10:57,871
But to someone indulging in pleasure, he says,

334
00:10:58,147 --> 00:11:00,152
"You cannot merely focus on satisfying your desires."

335
00:11:00,547 --> 00:11:02,631
The meaning of these two statements is completely different,

336
00:11:02,746 --> 00:11:04,192
even opposite in direction.

337
00:11:04,746 --> 00:11:06,251
But if you strip away the context

338
00:11:06,626 --> 00:11:07,912
and keep only the words,

339
00:11:08,147 --> 00:11:09,412
future generations reading these two lines

340
00:11:09,706 --> 00:11:10,792
will be confused.

341
00:11:11,067 --> 00:11:13,292
"Does the Buddha want me to enjoy life or not?"

342
00:11:13,986 --> 00:11:15,672
This isn't a fault of the language;

343
00:11:16,067 --> 00:11:18,351
it's simply something written words inherently cannot do.

344
00:11:18,626 --> 00:11:19,932
Have you ever had this experience?

345
00:11:20,466 --> 00:11:22,152
You send a message to a friend,

346
00:11:22,346 --> 00:11:25,511
and they interpret it completely differently from what you meant.

347
00:11:25,826 --> 00:11:27,251
Because text has no tone,

348
00:11:27,626 --> 00:11:28,591
no facial expressions,

349
00:11:28,907 --> 00:11:30,991
and no context of the moment you said it.

350
00:11:31,427 --> 00:11:32,672
Now imagine,

351
00:11:32,907 --> 00:11:35,111
that message wasn't sent to a friend,

352
00:11:35,307 --> 00:11:38,591
but read by a stranger 400 years later.

353
00:11:38,866 --> 00:11:40,052
After 400 years of oral transmission,

354
00:11:40,466 --> 00:11:41,831
what survived was the skeleton.

355
00:11:42,187 --> 00:11:43,105
But the flesh and blood—

356
00:11:43,106 --> 00:11:46,591
the living scenes, expressions, and tones—

357
00:11:46,706 --> 00:11:49,272
were gradually eroded away during the process.

358
00:11:49,389 --> 00:11:50,187
Alright.

359
00:11:50,187 --> 00:11:53,772
So how did the scriptures finally move from speech to paper?

360
00:11:54,346 --> 00:11:56,351
The story takes place in Sri Lanka,

361
00:11:56,626 --> 00:11:58,991
around the 1st century BCE.

362
00:11:59,346 --> 00:12:02,912
The King of Sri Lanka at the time was Vattagamani Abhaya.

363
00:12:03,226 --> 00:12:04,385
During his reign,

364
00:12:04,386 --> 00:12:07,351
Sri Lanka suffered through severe warfare and famine.

365
00:12:07,706 --> 00:12:09,111
Massive numbers of monks died,

366
00:12:09,267 --> 00:12:12,111
and the transmission chains of many chanting sanghas were broken.

367
00:12:12,386 --> 00:12:15,072
The monks suddenly realized a terrifying fact:

368
00:12:15,466 --> 00:12:17,231
If there were another Great Famine,

369
00:12:17,386 --> 00:12:19,672
or if another group of core chanters died,

370
00:12:19,866 --> 00:12:23,351
the Buddha's teachings might disappear from the world entirely.

371
00:12:23,626 --> 00:12:24,532
Not because they were banned,

372
00:12:24,746 --> 00:12:25,912
not because they were burned,

373
00:12:26,106 --> 00:12:28,351
but because everyone who remembered them was dead.

374
00:12:28,626 --> 00:12:29,951
Think about this image:

375
00:12:30,307 --> 00:12:31,312
A chanter

376
00:12:31,346 --> 00:12:34,032
spends 20 years memorizing the entire Digha Nikaya.

377
00:12:34,427 --> 00:12:36,511
He is the living vessel of that scripture.

378
00:12:36,787 --> 00:12:37,672
If he dies,

379
00:12:37,826 --> 00:12:40,111
and hasn't trained a qualified successor,

380
00:12:40,147 --> 00:12:42,471
that scripture vanishes with him.

381
00:12:42,667 --> 00:12:43,912
Gone forever.

382
00:12:44,106 --> 00:12:46,351
Not hidden in a corner waiting to be found,

383
00:12:46,506 --> 00:12:48,912
but completely erased from the universe.

384
00:12:49,386 --> 00:12:50,392
This fear

385
00:12:50,466 --> 00:12:53,392
finally outweighed the monks' faith in oral tradition.

386
00:12:53,706 --> 00:12:54,091
And so,

387
00:12:54,346 --> 00:12:55,711
with the King's support,

388
00:12:55,866 --> 00:12:59,792
monks gathered at a cave temple called Aluvihara.

389
00:12:59,986 --> 00:13:03,392
For the first time, the entire Pali Canon was inscribed on palm leaves.

390
00:13:03,586 --> 00:13:05,552
That cave temple still exists today

391
00:13:05,706 --> 00:13:07,871
in Matale, central Sri Lanka.

392
00:13:07,907 --> 00:13:10,951
It is regarded by locals as one of the holiest Buddhist sites.

393
00:13:11,106 --> 00:13:14,792
This happened roughly between 29 BCE and 17 BCE,

394
00:13:15,027 --> 00:13:16,145
nearly 400 years

395
00:13:16,147 --> 00:13:17,831
after the Buddha's Parinirvana.

396
00:13:18,147 --> 00:13:19,331
The 400-year era of oral tradition

397
00:13:19,547 --> 00:13:20,751
thus came to an end.

398
00:13:20,986 --> 00:13:23,131
But if you think writing it down solved everything,

399
00:13:23,448 --> 00:13:24,249
you'd be wrong.

400
00:13:24,466 --> 00:13:25,466
After it was written down,

401
00:13:25,466 --> 00:13:27,672
Oral tradition did not disappear immediately.

402
00:13:27,947 --> 00:13:29,511
For a considerable period of time,

403
00:13:29,547 --> 00:13:31,991
written manuscripts and oral transmission coexisted.

404
00:13:32,147 --> 00:13:35,111
Monks did not fully trust what was written on palm leaves.

405
00:13:35,506 --> 00:13:36,412
Palm leaves could rot,

406
00:13:36,586 --> 00:13:37,546
be eaten by insects,

407
00:13:37,547 --> 00:13:39,072
or be damaged during transport.

408
00:13:39,427 --> 00:13:40,251
Human memory, however,

409
00:13:40,386 --> 00:13:41,471
though imperfect,

410
00:13:41,547 --> 00:13:43,265
is a living, self-correcting system

411
00:13:43,267 --> 00:13:46,312
as long as the chain of transmission remains unbroken.

412
00:13:46,506 --> 00:13:47,711
Manuscripts are static.

413
00:13:47,826 --> 00:13:48,451
If a mistake is made in copying,

414
00:13:48,586 --> 00:13:49,912
it remains wrong forever.

415
00:13:50,226 --> 00:13:52,272
Living memory versus dead words—

416
00:13:52,307 --> 00:13:53,572
which one is truly more reliable?

417
00:13:54,106 --> 00:13:55,331
Instinctively, you might think

418
00:13:55,506 --> 00:13:56,711
it is written text.

419
00:13:56,947 --> 00:13:57,772
Black and white,

420
00:13:58,027 --> 00:13:59,111
irrefutable proof.

421
00:13:59,386 --> 00:14:00,751
But that is not necessarily true.

422
00:14:01,027 --> 00:14:02,346
The problem with text is

423
00:14:02,346 --> 00:14:04,591
it gives you a false sense of certainty.

424
00:14:04,787 --> 00:14:07,111
When you see a beautifully printed sutra,

425
00:14:07,226 --> 00:14:08,851
you think, "This is exactly what the Buddha said."

426
00:14:09,386 --> 00:14:11,951
But you don't know how many times it was copied,

427
00:14:12,106 --> 00:14:14,072
whether errors were made each time,

428
00:14:14,307 --> 00:14:17,192
or if anyone intentionally added or deleted anything.

429
00:14:17,466 --> 00:14:20,672
Oral tradition has a quality text lacks:

430
00:14:20,866 --> 00:14:21,912
it is alive.

431
00:14:22,147 --> 00:14:24,751
Every recitation is a collective verification.

432
00:14:24,947 --> 00:14:25,772
If one person misses a word,

433
00:14:26,067 --> 00:14:27,312
the group corrects them.

434
00:14:27,547 --> 00:14:28,412
When one generation passes,

435
00:14:28,746 --> 00:14:30,351
the next takes over.

436
00:14:30,626 --> 00:14:31,611
As long as the community exists,

437
00:14:32,027 --> 00:14:33,152
the memory lives on.

438
00:14:33,547 --> 00:14:35,032
Buddhist oral tradition

439
00:14:35,067 --> 00:14:38,951
is essentially a human-based, distributed version control system.

440
00:14:39,226 --> 00:14:40,991
Each reciter is a node;

441
00:14:41,187 --> 00:14:44,192
each collective recitation is a sync and verification;

442
00:14:44,346 --> 00:14:46,792
each council is a version merge.

443
00:14:47,027 --> 00:14:48,032
Textualization,

444
00:14:48,067 --> 00:14:51,672
on the other hand, is like taking a snapshot of a version

445
00:14:51,866 --> 00:14:53,751
and turning it into a static copy.

446
00:14:54,427 --> 00:14:56,991
You get a file that can be preserved long-term,

447
00:14:57,147 --> 00:14:59,231
but you lose that living capacity for error correction.

448
00:14:59,547 --> 00:15:00,652
From mouth to paper,

449
00:15:00,947 --> 00:15:02,591
it wasn't just a technical upgrade;

450
00:15:02,706 --> 00:15:04,751
it was also a loss of information.

451
00:15:05,106 --> 00:15:06,331
However,

452
00:15:06,826 --> 00:15:08,552
without that transition to writing,

453
00:15:08,826 --> 00:15:10,532
could the sutras have survived two thousand years?

454
00:15:11,147 --> 00:15:12,351
Probably not.

455
00:15:12,746 --> 00:15:16,672
India later faced many devastating blows.

456
00:15:17,067 --> 00:15:19,672
Buddhism was nearly wiped out in its homeland.

457
00:15:19,947 --> 00:15:21,652
If they had relied solely on oral tradition,

458
00:15:22,226 --> 00:15:23,552
once the chain of transmission broke,

459
00:15:23,706 --> 00:15:24,711
everything would have been lost.

460
00:15:25,187 --> 00:15:26,912
It was because of manuscripts—

461
00:15:27,027 --> 00:15:31,351
physical carriers that could be copied, transported, and translated—

462
00:15:31,466 --> 00:15:32,971
that the sutras could cross oceans

463
00:15:33,267 --> 00:15:34,265
to reach China,

464
00:15:34,267 --> 00:15:34,971
Japan,

465
00:15:35,506 --> 00:15:37,871
and all of East and Southeast Asia.

466
00:15:38,346 --> 00:15:39,932
Oral tradition and textualization

467
00:15:40,466 --> 00:15:41,711
each have their own costs

468
00:15:41,826 --> 00:15:43,272
and their own merits.

469
00:15:43,667 --> 00:15:44,505
Speaking of which,

470
00:15:44,506 --> 00:15:47,152
I want you to reflect on something.

471
00:15:47,667 --> 00:15:50,072
Think of the most important realizations of your life,

472
00:15:50,106 --> 00:15:53,032
those moments that truly changed how you see the world.

473
00:15:53,547 --> 00:15:55,706
Were they gained through reading words,

474
00:15:55,706 --> 00:15:57,932
or through a face-to-face conversation,

475
00:15:58,307 --> 00:16:00,052
or an unexpected experience?

476
00:16:00,746 --> 00:16:02,072
Likely the latter.

477
00:16:02,267 --> 00:16:04,186
You can write that experience down,

478
00:16:04,187 --> 00:16:05,586
but the written words

479
00:16:05,586 --> 00:16:07,351
are never the experience itself.

480
00:16:07,866 --> 00:16:08,812
People who read your words

481
00:16:09,106 --> 00:16:10,392
receive information;

482
00:16:10,706 --> 00:16:12,426
but you, living that moment,

483
00:16:12,427 --> 00:16:13,672
attained a transformation.

484
00:16:14,027 --> 00:16:16,631
What the Buddha saw beneath the Bodhi tree

485
00:16:16,866 --> 00:16:17,991
was an experience,

486
00:16:18,106 --> 00:16:19,471
not a piece of text.

487
00:16:19,826 --> 00:16:23,672
He spent forty-five years trying to convey it through words;

488
00:16:23,947 --> 00:16:25,251
then he passed,

489
00:16:25,746 --> 00:16:26,871
leaving words behind.

490
00:16:27,267 --> 00:16:29,231
Those words were chanted for four hundred years,

491
00:16:29,386 --> 00:16:31,032
then written onto palm leaves.

492
00:16:31,466 --> 00:16:32,625
With every step of transmission,

493
00:16:32,626 --> 00:16:35,111
one moves further from the original experience under that tree.

494
00:16:35,346 --> 00:16:36,666
Yet, every step of transmission

495
00:16:36,667 --> 00:16:39,871
also gives more people the chance to follow these words

496
00:16:39,947 --> 00:16:41,792
toward their own tree.

497
00:16:42,226 --> 00:16:45,991
This may be the greatest insight from four centuries of oral tradition:

498
00:16:46,386 --> 00:16:48,672
Language is never the truth itself,

499
00:16:48,947 --> 00:16:51,511
but it is the best signpost toward it.

500
00:16:52,346 --> 00:16:53,211
The value of a signpost

501
00:16:53,427 --> 00:16:54,905
lies not in its beauty,

502
00:16:54,907 --> 00:16:57,711
but in the accuracy of its direction.

503
00:16:57,947 --> 00:16:58,412
Up to this point,

504
00:16:58,667 --> 00:17:00,032
we have spent eleven episodes

505
00:17:00,106 --> 00:17:02,392
journeying from Indian thought before the Buddha

506
00:17:02,427 --> 00:17:05,432
to the end of the oral era after his Nirvana.

507
00:17:05,467 --> 00:17:07,185
We witnessed one man's enlightenment,

508
00:17:07,186 --> 00:17:08,872
the establishment of a community,

509
00:17:08,946 --> 00:17:11,231
the tension among his closest disciples,

510
00:17:11,307 --> 00:17:13,511
the power politics of the First Council,

511
00:17:13,666 --> 00:17:16,311
and four hundred years of silent, faithful transmission.

512
00:17:16,787 --> 00:17:19,271
But during those seemingly silent centuries,

513
00:17:19,307 --> 00:17:21,711
something even bigger was quietly unfolding.

514
00:17:22,227 --> 00:17:23,332
The teachings the Buddha left behind

515
00:17:23,586 --> 00:17:24,746
were being interpreted differently

516
00:17:24,747 --> 00:17:25,491
by different people

517
00:17:25,826 --> 00:17:27,231
in different regions.

518
00:17:27,826 --> 00:17:29,491
Initially, those differences were tiny,

519
00:17:29,946 --> 00:17:31,071
small enough to be ignored.

520
00:17:31,787 --> 00:17:33,011
But as time passed,

521
00:17:33,386 --> 00:17:34,551
they grew larger,

522
00:17:34,707 --> 00:17:36,112
becoming impossible to overlook—

523
00:17:36,186 --> 00:17:38,511
massive enough to require renegotiation.

524
00:17:38,987 --> 00:17:39,491
In the next episode,

525
00:17:39,946 --> 00:17:42,071
before we officially enter the age of schisms,

526
00:17:42,106 --> 00:17:43,592
we need to do one thing:

527
00:17:44,067 --> 00:17:44,612
Stop;

528
00:17:44,946 --> 00:17:45,791
look back.

529
00:17:46,307 --> 00:17:47,251
After these eleven episodes,

530
00:17:47,426 --> 00:17:48,652
how far have we actually come?

531
00:17:49,307 --> 00:17:50,392
Early Buddhism—

532
00:17:50,467 --> 00:17:52,751
before all subsequent evolutions occurred—

533
00:17:52,826 --> 00:17:55,132
what were its original "factory settings"?

534
00:17:55,707 --> 00:17:58,432
These aren't just trivial academic questions;

535
00:17:58,826 --> 00:18:02,306
they are your only anchor points for judging

536
00:18:02,307 --> 00:18:03,432
the development of all sects over the next two millennia.

537
00:18:03,747 --> 00:18:05,571
What are your thoughts on today's content?

538
00:18:06,106 --> 00:18:08,506
In your opinion, which is closer to the truth:

539
00:18:08,507 --> 00:18:09,731
oral tradition or written records?

540
00:18:10,267 --> 00:18:11,826
Let's discuss in the comments.

541
00:18:11,826 --> 00:18:12,531
I am Wang Lijie,

542
00:18:12,826 --> 00:18:13,832
see you next time.