Role of oral traditions in preserving spiritual culture, The Monk’s Podcast 116 with Bhakti Rasamrita Swami

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Hare Krishna. Bhakti Samaj Maharaj. Thank you very much for joining the Mom’s Podcast once again.
We are longing to have you. Hare Krishna. Chaitanya Chahar and Prabhu.
It’s a pleasure to be back again with you. It’s been a long time. Yes, Maharaj.
Today, I thought we could discuss on a topic which I feel is not highlighted sufficiently. That is, the importance of the oral tradition in preserving and propagating spiritual culture. So, the background, I’ll tell you why I thought about this.
Many devotees have told me that during this COVID time, they had some time for lockdown or whatever. They had time to study scriptures. But they said somehow we don’t have taste for studying.
We study for some time and then we get bored. Or we just can’t connect with it. But in comparison to that, hearing, a lot of devotees are hearing.
So then, a couple of devotees… I had done an Isha Upanishad and lecture of instruction as a part of my Bhakti Shastri, where an online course that I had done, I had divided Prabhupada’s purport into paragraphs. And each paragraph, I had made one slide and explained that. So I said, so I told them that, you know, you can try this out.
And many devotees told me that this was very helpful. And they said that, actually, if we are reading something and hearing something together, then the understanding becomes much, much more. Just reading alone doesn’t… It is not so easy to understand things.
So then I was just thinking and reading in general about religious history. So overall, it seems that the books were not available till a few hundred years ago. And whether it is in India or whether it is in, say, in Europe, where there was a biblical tradition, it was mostly reading.
It was mostly hearing. So spiritual knowledge was propagated primarily through hearing. And so I also appreciate Prabhupada’s farsightedness in ensuring that there was a Bhagavatam class every single day.
Even when he mentioned that, even in his purport, Nityam Bhagavata Sevaya. So Prabhupada himself did emphasise the oral tradition. Although, say, we may not talk about it, we enact it in a sense in our class, in our movement.
But sometimes discussing about its relevance and its context can help us appreciate it more. Yeah, yeah. I think the reason, and we see that in our Krishna conscious tradition also, apart from the larger Vedic tradition, and also the global tradition, actually, because in the different cultures and philosophies of the world, there has been a primacy that has been accorded to sound.
And in the beginning, there was the word, right? That’s what the Bible also says. In the Vedas also, it is Shabda. In everything, the creation of the Panchatantra, of the Mahabhutas and all that, starts with Shabda, sound.
It all comes from sound originally. The Tanmatras and then the Mahabhutas. So sound is the origin of everything.
And the Omkara came, the vibration of the flute of Krishna, the Omkara, the vibration of the Vedic syllables. Yes. It’s all based on sound vibration.
So because sound is considered divine, right? In the Vedic understanding. In general, sound is considered divine. And the alphabets are imperishable.
Therefore, the Sanskrit word for alphabets is Akshara. A and Akshara, right? Akshara means that which is destroyed and A is not. So because the syllables are essentially indestructible, and sound inherently has a divine nature, all the more when it is the glorification of the Supreme Lord.
So in the devotional paramparas, also a lot of importance is given to oral transmission. Process of actually hearing, right? Yes. So when we say the syllables are imperishable, what does it exactly mean? At one level, we know that there is the spiritual wisdom that is there, that is eternal.
But what does syllables itself being imperishable mean? Is it because with respect to language, there are three things. There is the written script in which the languages are written. Then there is the phonetics, the way we articulate those.
And then there is the underlying concept. So the concept, the verbal articulation, the audio articulation, and then the written description of that. So are we saying that when we say aksharas are imperishable, what does it mean exactly? Because it comes directly from the Supreme Lord.
So sound therefore being, is a transcendental energy. So the word, for example, the first akshara, the first swara, vowel is a. Oh, yes. A is there everywhere.
It’s all over. In any language, the word a has to be there. A has to be there.
So the overall, shall we say, the quality of the sound is imperishable. Sound cannot be destroyed. And also imperishable in the sense that it is through sound that the imperishable knowledge or transcendence is embodied and communicated.
And also because it is non-different from the source of the sound. The non-difference applies specifically to sounds related with Krishna, isn’t it? And that’s what we often say differentiates between ordinary syllables or ordinary sound and sounds related, the holy name. Yes.
You know, it’s a question of perception. And the consciousness of the perceiver. Like, for example, Prabhupada says that there is actually no difference between spiritual and material when one is at a certain plane of consciousness.
But when one is not at that plane of consciousness, then there is a distinction that needs to be made between the spiritual and the material. So when one is in a certain plane of consciousness, which is of pure devotion, then everything that one speaks will have some transcendental import. Okay.
And so the messages about Krishna are also transcendental sound vibrations. So maybe explaining the holy name in some language may not be Sanskrit, it could be any language, but that’s still considered transcendental sound vibration, right? So, because it is glorification of the Supreme Lord, it’s considered transcendental. So what will distinguish sound from being material or spiritual is not only its ontological, shall we say, identity, but also the intention behind which those sounds are being uttered.
The consciousness of the person who is vibrating those sounds. Yes. So that means there is at some level an intrinsic divinity to sound, but there is also something like a contextual manifestation of that divinity, depending on who is speaking and in what consciousness.
So the holy name at one level is non-different from Krishna, but at the same time, depending on who is chanting the holy name, that non-difference will be pursued to different degrees based on the consciousness. Like Krishna says, So, so depending on our consciousness, Krishna reveals himself. So can we put it that way then? That means, Akshara, so at one level, the syllables are all, at one level, sound itself, as you said, is a transcendental energy.
So the syllables that convey sound, they are also transcendental. But another level, depending on how they are used and for what purpose they are used, that transcendence will be manifested. Yes.
Similarly to music, you know, the notes of music, like Saraygamapada Nisar Prabhupada makes a mention of that, that the original reason for the swaras to be generated is for the glorification of the Supreme Lord. The same swaras, by swaras I mean here the Saraygamapada, the notes. So when they are employed for materialistic purposes, then they lose their divinity.
But when these ragas are employed, they are originally meant for that. So in that sense, you can say these swaras or these notes are divine. But because they are used for something that is not divine, then they also acquire the character of non-divinity.
So essentially, it’s the consciousness of the person involved that really makes the distinction between divinity and non-divinity and perishability, imperishability, you know, all these ideas. So there is a certain objectivity to the reality of the world, but there is a strong element of subjectivity there also. Okay.
Because depending on one’s subjective frame of mind or consciousness, then one sees something as separate from Krishna, right? Prabhupada defined materialistic consciousness as that which sees things separate from Krishna. So that would apply to the sounds, the syllables of sound of the alphabet. It would apply to the notes of music.
It could apply to everything, essentially. Okay. So now you are mentioning this in connection with the oral tradition.
So what you are saying is that the oral tradition’s importance is universal because the oral tradition is the medium by which that divine sound is transmitted from speaker to the audience. Was that the connection broadly? Yes, yes. The reason the oral tradition has remained such a strong influence in not just the Vedic tradition but the global tradition is, as I said earlier, the primacy that has been accorded to sound, sound vibration.
Now one could say that that’s because we didn’t have paper. You know, so there was no paper to put things down. Well, you know, that’s a kind of a modern understanding.
If you look at the quality of the philosophy and the texts in the Vedic scriptures, it’s hard to imagine that the sages of the past were not capable enough of devising some means of putting things down in writing. Yes. It’s hard to imagine that they were so backward that they didn’t have some form of material on which to write.
Okay. So even if they didn’t have paper as we know it today, but there were palm leaves and even otherwise they could have devised some, you know, tangible substances on which they could write. But I think the point is that they considered that an inferior means of transmission of knowledge.
They considered the oral transmission to be superior for various reasons. So therefore, despite the fact that they had the intelligence and capability to devise the writing materials like paper and ink and whatever else, they prefer to maintain the oral tradition because of its power, because of its sanctity, because of its utility. Right.
Because of its divinity. That’s beautifully put. Okay.
So what you are meaning to say is that there is, so, in the past we know that people’s consciousness was more evolved and in Kali Yuga we have the understanding of the degradation of human capacities. So, writing was considered to be at one level not only unnecessary, but also in one sense you said undesirable, in the sense that inferior because now we will talk about Shruti Dhar. Is it that everybody was Shruti Dhar or the Brahmanas were Shruti Dhar? Of course, we have the reading in the Bhagavatam and Satyuga, almost everybody was of a Brahminical kind of disposition, even if they were not in Brahminical occupations.
But is it in that sense that it was considered inferior? Well, see overall as we know from the Bhagavatam and from the other scriptures, that memory, intelligence, strength and all the desirable qualities diminish with the four yugas, right? Yes. In Kali Yuga today our memory power is extremely diminished, as indeed is our strength, our intelligence and everything else. So, go back in time, we see that there was a progressive increase in the level of the capacity for memorising, the capacity for analysing, perceiving things, the power of the senses even.
So, in Satya Yuga, for example, the first of the four yugas, practically everybody must have been like that. So, that’s one thing, that’s the intrinsic nature of the human being in that phase of time, in that yuga. But apart from that, I think also what has happened is that the oral tradition has been an extremely sophisticated, complex, organised, comprehensive, codified, structured kind of a system in which things could be passed down and the person who was hearing would hear carefully and repeat.
And there were certain methods by which, let’s say mnemonic methods. In mnemonics, you know, things that are techniques, right? So, incorporated into the oral transmission were codes and mnemonic methods by which they could memorise things. And there were various levels of such memorisation depending on the level of evolution of the student.
And to the extent that there were even mnemonics that eventually an advanced student could reproduce something, you know, forwards and backwards and backwards and forwards. Okay, to that degree, the thing was evolved. And also there were checks and balances that were introduced into the system so that, you know, in case you made a mistake somewhere, then there was a check that if you chanted it another way, you would get caught there.
So, in the sense that that mistake would be revealed there. So, this was from many angles, there were checks. So, you chanted it in this way, you use this mnemonic method, you use that method, and they all checked each other.
So, apart from the fact that people were intrinsically very evolved, and they had an innate higher capacity for memorising and understanding, also the fact that the system of transmission and memorisation was so developed, contributed to this. Plus the emphasis that, you know, sound is divine, Veda, Veda is knowledge, that all knowledge is ultimately divine. So, this kind of a philosophical understanding of the world.
So, all these factors put together, I think, have created this very, very sustainable system of transmission of knowledge. In fact, I am told, I don’t know the details, but I’m told that UNESCO, you know, the United Nations for Education, Social, Cultural something organisation, right? Yeah, so they have accorded heritage status to the Vedic chants, the process of oral transmission of Vedic chants, like the Samveda, Yajurveda, etc. Because these chants have remained unchanged for 1000 years or more, according to them.
Actually, we know that it’s much longer. Yeah. Even from the empirical point of view, they say it is 1000 years, but even that is enormously long.
So, you know, to continue the fidelity of transmission without changing a single syllable or a single intonation for 1000 years without a piece of paper, without any recording system, except in the brain, that was something quite astonishing. Yes, I have. I also read about this, that the precision of that replication is amazing.
In one sense, it stays in the memory of people and they are very systematically trained to pronounce everything very precisely. Yes. So, with respect to this, I had read about something which is a slight difference between Shruti and Smriti, that this preservation of the sound vibrations was especially done for the Shrutis, for the Rig Veda and other such Vedic literature primarily.
And the Smritis, because they were recollections, there is of course a tradition of memorising Ramayana, not so much the Sanskrit Ramayana, but as more of the local renditions of the Ramayana, vernacular ones and reciting, but that is more in terms of musical recitation. But the Shrutis seem to, because there is a greater level of unchangeability associated with them, so the sound of Shrutis is considered to be, we could say, more essential to preserve. Is there any similar differentiation that is there within our tradition? I know Jiyu Goswami says that, for us the Bhagavatam is also like a Shruti, but broadly speaking, Smriti seems to be a little more malleable in its manifestation.
So, what I had heard was that in Smriti, the meaning is more important than the letter. So, sometimes there, that’s why, in say, Chakravarti Padani’s commentary says, in some versions this verse is like this, in some versions this verse is like this, but overall the meaning remains the same. From what I understand, the difference between Shruti and Smriti, apart from the immediately superficial and correct understanding that one is, Shruti is that which is heard, and Smriti is that which is remembered after having been heard.
You’re correct when you say that the Shrutis were more, or rather the Puranas and the Smritis were more malleable. In what sense? Essentially, the Shrutis, like the four Vedas, and to a large degree the Upanishads also, were structured in a certain type of, composed in a certain type of language, which was the older type of Sanskrit, which placed a lot of emphasis on Swara, which is the intonation. The pronunciation, the intonation.
One of the six Vedangas is Shiksha, right? Shiksha means phonetics. Jyotisha is astrology, and then Nirukti is etymology, and Vyakarana is grammar, etc. So, in this way, the Shiksha was phonetics, about how to pronounce the things exactly.
So, there is a lot of rigidity in the Shrutis about this, especially the four Vedas. So, you have to pronounce things in a certain way. You have to chant things in a certain way.
So, for example, there is Akshara Shuddhi. Akshara Shuddhi means that you have to pronounce the words correctly. So, you can’t pronounce them wrongly.
Then the whole thing changes. The second would be Matra Shuddhi. Matra is the duration for which you hold the vowels.
There is a short vowel, the long vowel. Right? So, if you change the emphasis, if you say it for a slightly longer period, it’s a long vowel. Right? So, when we pronounce it in the modern day age, not only do we make mistakes in Akshara, Akshara Ashuddhi there is, we don’t pronounce properly the different alphabets, but we also don’t have Matra Shuddhi.
So, for example, you know, we may say Lord Narayan. Yes. It’s Lord Narayan.
Right? Yeah. Or one thing I used to commonly hear devotees saying is Bhakti Churu Swami. Whereas it is Bhakti Charu Swami.
Right? Okay. So, the Matra, the length of the vowels, the duration for which you hold is very important. And the third is the Swara Shuddhi.
Swara is the intonation, the pitch and how you, you know, recite it and how you place emphasis on certain things. So, regarding this Akshara Shuddhi, Matra Shuddhi, Swara Shuddhi, a lot of emphasis is given in the Shuddhi. So, you have to pronounce things exactly like that.
You have to intonate, intone the verses exactly like that. The duration of holding the chants have to be also exactly like that. And if you don’t do that, then the Mantra, the power of the Mantra is lost.
Right? We hear so many times Srila Prabhupada saying that we don’t have Brahmanas like they used to earlier because they can’t chant the Mantras like that. And therefore the Mantras, you know, they don’t work like that anymore because we don’t have all these three factors. As far as the Vedic Mantras are concerned.
So, that emphasis… If I keep sipping something, just to keep my throat, I have to keep sipping something if you don’t mind. Please, please. So, I was just… Are there any correlates to these three ideas of say Akshara, Matra and Swara in English? Because at one level there are similarities in languages, at another level there are differences also.
So, we of course have pronunciation. Now in English there are rhymes and there are poems which are written and there are songs which are sung. Sometimes poems can be read as text, sometimes they can be sung as songs.
Overall I noticed that the level of sophistication with respect to rules of grammar as well as rules of articulation, expression, they are much more intricate in Sanskrit. Yes. But is there anything similar with respect to the Akshara, Matra and Swara? Yeah, these are actually principles that would apply to all languages.
Right? Let’s say Akshara means… Akshara Shuddhi refers to the fidelity of pronunciation. Also, in English we may pronounce the alphabets differently, the words differently. Isn’t it? So, if we don’t pronounce an alphabet properly, like for example, we pronounce V-S-B or something like that.
Yeah. For example, we pronounce M-Y-M or something like that. Yes, yes.
Then you come to Matra Shuddhi when you’re talking about the vowels. So, we may not understand, we may not know the exact which is a long vowel, which is a short vowel. Yeah, for example, that could be an example.
Sorry? The and the. Yeah. When the E is sometimes louder, sometimes with less emphasis.
Or would that come in Swara? Yeah, Swara would be… It’s not so much… In English, there’s not so much of dependency, but the intonation does matter. For example, you tell me, you know, let’s say, were you happy when this happened? And I can say, was I happy when this happened? You know, so I emphasise or I emphasise a certain thing or you say the word I, you emphasise the I or you emphasise a certain word and there’s a certain intonation in which you chant. So the basic principles of these three are found in all languages.
But it’s just that in Sanskrit, it is far more sophisticated. And I’m also not a Sanskrit expert, by the way, so I want to make that disclaimer. But overall, the sophistication and comprehensiveness is something unparalleled in the Sanskrit language.
Okay. So the point I was making is that in the Shruti, there is a very great emphasis on the Akshara Shuddhi, the Matra Shuddhi and the Swara Shuddhi. While in the Smriti Shastras, also there is some degree of emphasis, definitely.
I mean, but it’s not of the kind that is required for the Shrutis. So what you said earlier about how there is some malleability or some flexibility in the Smriti Shastras is correct. For example, sorry, what Narada Muni tells Vyasadeva about how one may not be make mistakes in the pronunciation, et cetera.
You remember from first Khento? Yes. I think Prabhupada also there that Prabhupada also emphasises that further that there is a Yes. Yes.
So because it is the glorification of the Supreme Lord, therefore, even if there is some discrepancy in the pronunciation or in the Matra, the Swara, the Akshara, you know, it’s it doesn’t really matter so much because the genuine mood of devotion to the Supreme Lord supersedes these other three. Okay. So but in the Vedas and the four Vedas, especially, a lot of emphasis was given on these three and if you made even a slight error, then the whole endeavour was considered spoiled.
And sometimes it would even have a reverse effect. Like we see in that pastime in the Bhagavatam where Tvashta. Yes.
Tvashta, right? Yeah. Tvashta. He gave away the offerings of sacrifice to the Asuras and Indra and the Devas were very happy and Indra, I think, asked him to leave and then Tvashta was unhappy and then he performed a sacrifice in in which he said, Indra Shatru Vardhasva.
Yes. Yes. So, but because he pronounced it wrong, it had the opposite effect.
Now the word Indra Shatru can have two meanings. It can have meaning as the enemy of Indra. Shatru means enemy or it can mean Indra who is the enemy.
Yes. Right? So, and the difference between the two emerges on the Swaras. So, if your Swara, if your Swara Shuddhi is not there then even though you intend to say one thing you may end up meaning the other thing or saying the other thing with the opposite meaning.
Right? So, Tvashta intended to say may the enemy of Indra flourish. Yes. But because his Swara was wrong so it ended up saying may Indra the enemy flourish.
Correct? Yes. So, we find this in the Bhagavatam, right? This pastime of Tvashta. Yes, correct.
So, we see this how important it is in the you know, the Shuddhis. Whereas in the Bhagavatam it’s not really that important. Although we should try to you know, pronounce correctly and all that.
Prabhupada did place a lot of emphasis on this. Yes. Of course, we know that ultimately Bhavagrahi Janardhana that Krishna ultimately looks at the devotion in our heart and that supersedes anything else.
However, when there is devotion we do try to do these other things properly also. So, Prabhupada took a lot of pain to ensure that the devotees chanted correctly. In one Bhagavatam class in somewhere I think it was Tokyo.
Prabhupada let the entire class just be the recitation repeated recitation of the verse of the Bhagavatam that was up on the board. So, he made everybody recite the verse one by one by one and he corrected them. Yes.
In the Nilamruthis mentioned that everybody like some devotees were spaced out but everybody had to start focussing because reciting those verses was not that easy for them. Yeah. Prabhupada did emphasise and yeah.
And there is a quite a special potency in those verses in the sense that say if you consider say the Gopi Gita if we recite the Sanskrit in contrast if we read or recite the English translation no matter how beautiful the translation may be it is still there is there is some potency which can be very which can be very tangibly experienced almost. Yes. Yes.
And Srila Prabhupada gave the analogy of the of the thunder cloud you know of the clapping of thunder and he said that when there is the sound of thunder people all over the world get the message and there is one reaction in the heart and that is fear. So similarly when the scriptural verses are chanted even if we don’t understand the meaning it purifies the heart because that sound vibration is transcendentally potent. So it has the capacity to purify the heart regardless of whether we understand the meaning or not.
Naturally if we understand the meaning and chant it with devotion then it is all the more potent. But the point is that even if one doesn’t understand that sound vibration is is so strong that it can purify the heart. So at one level when we are talking here about the oral tradition we emphasise the meaning but that doesn’t mean we completely downplay or dismiss the we could say the the means or the the literal aspect of the pronunciation and the language and and the words.
So there is at one level ritual specialisation in itself is important. Now by ritual specialisation I mean the proper pronunciation of mantras and other things. So we don’t want to overemphasise it by the same time we can’t completely dismiss it also.
Absolutely. Correct. Correct.
You see sometimes devotees may dismiss it on the grounds that devotion is more important than anything else. So it is true indeed that devotion is more important than anything else. But if there is devotion then one would like to do everything one does very carefully without negligence to the best of one’s ability one will really try hard to do that activity as well as possible.
Right. For example if one is cooking for the deities now one would try because one is devoted one would try to learn to cook as well as possible and not make any mistakes and try to see that the Bhoga that is cooked is as delicious as possible and just you know up to the standard. So one cannot justify negligence or carelessness or lack of effort on the grounds that one is devoted.
Well I am devoted to Krishna but you know I won’t be careful when I am cooking then there’s no devotion there right. At least a sincere effort must be there. So similarly where there is devotion because the recitation of the Bhagavatam or the Bhagavad Gita is a very important service to the Lord so one must try to do that as well as possible but for cultural reasons or for any other reasons if there are very severe obstacles that come in the way of our proper pronunciation then it’s all right.
You know Krishna sees the devotion fine so that’s fine but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put in the effort. That’s the point. We should try to learn correctly how the words are pronounced and then if you’re not able to do it despite our best efforts then it’s all right.
So here the overall theme with respect to the so the oral tradition at one level it says like Prabhupada had the recitation of the verses as a part of the Bhagavatam class but simultaneously there is also additionally there is the class and I mean if you want to speak something more on the say the technicalities of the Sanskrit language and that aspect of the that aspect of the oral tradition you could continue that or can we shift to the to the like the message being conveyed to the oral tradition? Sure. Sure. Okay.
So if say in if we consider from the recent historical perspective at least from as far as modern historical memory goes so there has been an increase in translation in writing and reading and publishing that way. But at the same time there are several researches which seem to indicate that there is a there is a special import or a special potency in having text read aloud and being heard. So for example across the world there is this tradition of parents reading out stories to their children.
Sometimes parents tell stories but if there are some classic books whether it is in India and it’s a Ramayan or other books on the west there might be western classics fairy tales or whatever but parents would read out the stories to their children. And now also in today’s world although books are available audio books have also become very big in recent times and so so at one level although the written text is being propagated and is widely available but still many people naturally default towards the of the audio so broadly I think there are three factors. One is with respect to the audio there is a connect with the person like say like a say mother reading out a story to a child there’s a personal connection that comes when there’s being read aloud and it’s being heard.
Second is the accessibility is much more in the sense if you have to sit and read a book it takes more effort but having audio book means we can hear while doing other things also but apart from that in general for most people it’s not the accessibility in terms of the being able to do it with the times but also in general human for human beings hearing is relatively more accessible than reading and studying. So we can say some extent that hearing audio books is not exactly the same as the traditional oral as the past oral tradition but there are similar trends which we see in today’s world also. Yes that is because intrinsically the process of hearing is so powerful.
It is not without reason that the Bhagavatam and actually all the scriptures the Shruti as well as the Smriti emphasise so much on the process of hearing. As I mentioned in the beginning of our discussion that it’s not because there was a want of written methods or materials that the emphasis was placed so much on hearing. You know the emphasis was placed on hearing because inherently the process of hearing was so powerful and that has to do with the nature of sound transcendental sound.
Right. So Prabhupada called it submissive oral reception. Yes.
A you R A L submissive oral reception. So the tradition is oral transmission O R A L by mouth and submissively receiving it orally A U R A L L Y orally. So the process you thought of it just now or it’s very striking.
It’s oral tradition received orally. Yeah. Therefore actually speaking you know this is called Karna Parampara.
Oh Karna Parampara. Okay. This whole tradition of you know passing down oral traditions are generally called Karna Parampara.
Karna means ear. And also we see the Brahma in the third canto which means that one should see with one’s ears. Transcendence has to be perceived by the ears before it can be perceived through the eyes.
So it is hearing through the ears that gives eligibility to see through the eyes. Yes. So intrinsically the process of hearing has its potency.
Now I’m not trying to downplay the importance of reading in the modern day because we don’t have that kind of capacity for retention of what we hear. So indeed reading is very useful and I believe that all devotees must read you know as much as they can. And reading is in a sense a form of hearing as well because the author is speaking.
However, actually physically sitting down in the association of devotees and hearing some devotees speak from the Shastras is actually the best thing to do. The kind of vibrations there and so on. The atmosphere you know the overall impact is very significant.
And even if somebody doesn’t know how to read and write. Of course nowadays in the modern world there are very few people who are actually illiterate. But even if one doesn’t know how to read and write the hearing processes is available to everyone regardless.
That’s that’s striking. So what it overall means is that in terms of breadth we can say that for most people the oral tradition is going to play a very vital role. So I thought of this now if we consider the modern history of language they do say that writing has its own utility in terms of providing a more structured form of communication and thought.
So writing also has its value and we could say at least in today’s world when we have the cognitive capacities that we currently have that maybe the oral tradition can provide greater breadth and the written tradition can provide more depth because when we read a book we put in much more effort in writing than in speaking. So there can be a much deeper understanding when we study the books but at the same time we need both breadth and depth. So probably a larger number of people would be open to the audio aspect because nowadays with say YouTube and podcasts like we are having a lot of people are hearing and even spiritual message if we can we are already reaching out but there is a huge scope for reaching out to that and at the same time a systematic study where one reads a book and reflects on the thoughts in the book that has its own own place which cannot be denied.
Yeah I mean what you say is true from a practical point of view for people in this age but I think it’s important for us to note that the written tradition is important for us not so much because of some inherent value to the process of writing itself. There is something obviously there but it’s because of our inherent deficiencies. It’s because we are not able to retain information simply by hearing within our head.
So therefore the need for the written tradition has arisen right. So it is not the written tradition is in and of itself very significant. It becomes significant because we are unable to sustain the oral tradition in our heads to memorise it.
Otherwise everything that you say that can be done in the written tradition can be done and was done in the oral tradition. But the people who have such fine intellect and things could be just given in a succinct form and it could be understood without need for elaborate explanation. Now because of our deficiencies we can’t remember things so it has to be put down and things have to be explained and put in a certain way.
So therefore while certainly the practical utility of the written word is enormous for us and it would be foolish to deny its importance now so we should utilise it. But philosophically I think we can appreciate that essentially the whole written tradition evolved because of the deficiencies of the people of Kali Yuga which is why Vyasadeva actually put dictated the Mahabharata to Ganesha and then you know the whole written thing tradition started from there on. Yes Narayansh.
Right. Definitely. So I was just if we talk about let’s say as devotees appreciating or accessing the oral tradition more now because of the pandemic we don’t have people being able to devotees also being able to assemble at one place for a class but we have classes through zoom and online connecting with everyone connecting people from all over the world so would the same principle apply that earlier you talked about something like intrinsic potency and then there is a contextual manifestation of the potency so if it is possible coming for a physical class where there is it’s oral tradition but a physical class if it is possible it’s always better because it’s not just the sound but it’s also the atmosphere around it but if that is not possible then there is attending virtually also is is beneficial so in the in the academic ordinary academic sense also there is some concern about how say children if they are learning virtually how much do they actually learn and how much they get distracted while that learning so now that is at one level an ordinary at a mundane level there is a concern but what about spiritual sound and its manifestation in the say with respect to the oral tradition when we are doing it not physically but say virtually digitally I think it has a lot of value and it would be very beneficial to avail of its you know this facility that’s made available to us why not it’s an opportunity to utilise the same sound vibration it’s just that the medium has slightly changed instead of you know sitting and physically hearing over the internet of course as you have also mentioned there is nothing like actually physically in that assembly and hearing that’s the best but that is not possible for some reason than hearing via the internet reading the books you know all these things are very valuable okay you know just coming back to the earlier point about written tradition and how the need for the written tradition has arisen because of our inadequacy in memorising things I just remember a small anecdote you know one time I was going somewhere for some Ayurvedic treatment to some place and because I was going to be there for a month I had carried quite a few books with me so when I was unpacking there was somebody whom I knew who came in with some scholar a Brahmana scholar and he saw so many books there so he said oh you’re carrying so many books so I said yeah because I’m going to be here so I thought that I’ll you know read them so he just he said smiling he said you know there’s no need to carry so many books it should all be here he gestured to the it should all be here I went to have a book so you know that’s the idea this was in Udupi somewhere many years ago you know way back so I still remember that I also came across a proverb you know long ago about something like this which is which is which is which is which is which is which is which is which is wealth has the the has gone or a has is hands yes so knowledge that has been trat has has book available has gone into hands with right time when you need it, na sa vidya, na tad dhanam.
That vidya or that dhana, that knowledge, that wealth cannot come to your aid when you actually need it. Because then even for the wealth, it’s gone away to somebody else’s hands. So you can’t avail of it.
And if that book is not with you, then you can’t avail of that knowledge. So if the knowledge is here in the head, then it’s there with you all the time. You’re not dependent on anything outside of yourself.
So this is essentially the process of Vedic education. There was a lot of emphasis given to memorising. Of course, nowadays, modern educationists look askance at emphasis on education, on memorisation, which they say rote learning.
And they have creative ways of education. And they try to improve the analytical skills of students and all that. Basically, I’m all for that.
I’m all for improving the analytical skills of students and for devising creative means for students to learn things, children especially. But I disagree with the modern educational philosophy that seems to minimise or trivialise the importance of memorisation. And when you dismiss that as rote learning, if there’s only rote learning and nothing else, yes, there is some deficiency there.
But even that rote learning at a very young age, then it has its benefits. Because once you, let’s say you memorise the Bhagavad Gita and, you know, Bhagavata at a young age when your power of memorisation is very strong, and you memorise these things very nicely, and side by side you’ve been given the samskaras also, you’ve been given the proper devotion, you’ve been given the proper physical sensory engagements also by which you can translate that into an experience, not only rote learning. Then what you have memorised actually flowers from within.
And with time, as one moves ahead and gains knowledge from the outside world, including from the scriptures, and that internal memorised knowledge now actually starts transforming itself into realised knowledge. And it kind of comes forth, you know. And then when you grow up, and you actually start understanding the meanings, it’s so easy to pick up.
And it’s flash, you get the whole thing, the realisation. And also the process of memorisation, it kind of must be stimulating some things there, some finer parts of the memory and the intelligence and so on. And that enables one’s intelligence to become finer.
Because according to Bhagavatam and the Upanishads as well, memory is one of the components of intelligence. Yes. In fact, this is a beautiful point, Maharaj, about the importance of memorisation that, if you consider the Dhyayato Vishay and Puṁsā, also Krishna says, smṛti brahmaśād buddhi nāśo.
So, in one sense, recollection, memory is the foundation of intelligence. So, our intelligence can’t really function significantly without having memory within it, without having something within the memory. So, while rote memorisation is, like you said, if it is complemented with something else, even if children are not able to comprehend intellectually at that time, but if it is made into a pleasant experience, then that is stimulating, that is rejuvenating.
And at an older level, I think the problem with memorising comes when it’s only done that much and nothing more is done. With respect to even in ordinary sense, when children remember, memorise the alphabet, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, or the tables, the idea of speaking aloud and repeating, it has a special potency. And that is the way to memorise, when you speak aloud and repeat.
Now, I don’t mean to say that a person who is gifted with photographic memory is necessarily very intelligent. That may not be the case. That is true, definitely.
I mean, but memory does have a role to play in intelligence. And when, as you said, complemented with the other things, it can flower out into learning, into making a person who’s truly learned, truly scholarly. So, we could say that memory is not the sole sign of intelligence, but it is a vital resource for intelligence.
A component. Okay, yeah, component. Yeah, that’s a better way of putting it.
Yeah. And it seems overall that if there is memorisation in the early, in the childhood or early times, then that is not just, it creates impression, like you said, it manifests from within eventually, it blossoms. So, there are samskaras that are also created by the effort for effort of memorisation.
And I think Prabhupada says in one of his letters that children like challenges. If things are presented in a way that is exciting or stimulating for them, then what may seem difficult also becomes exciting. And memorisation is, I found that like when you’re quoting that verse, Pustakesha Chaya Vidya, actually memorised verses or memorised, we could say thoughts, they become very accessible to us.
Otherwise, if you say we want to remember Krishna or remember the philosophy, how exactly do we remember the philosophy? If we have crystallised it in the form of a verse, and that verse is memorised, then say contemplate, if you want to remember Krishna’s form, if we have a verse and we can recite the verse and then meditating on Krishna’s form becomes much easier. Otherwise, to spontaneously simply close our eyes and try to visualise Krishna’s form is not that easy. So, both from a childhood perspective of creating impressions as well as an adult perspective of cultivating devotional absorption, wherever it is possible, memorisation is quite empowering.
Yes, and especially if it is made an enjoyable exercise, and along with that, there are different stories, because telling stories is a very important part of the oral tradition. I think that’s something we may also need to discuss at some point in our discussion today. That the storytelling traditions are very strong all over the world, right? Even in the Vedic tradition.
So, even for children at a very, very young age, telling stories is very, very important. So, telling stories, pastimes, explaining things, so that even when they’re in the stage of memorising everything, they also learn to analyse things, learn to see things in a certain devotional and spiritual light. Then overall, there is a comprehensive intellectual, spiritual development of that child.
Yes, Maharaj. I think this point what you made of storytelling, it is multiple levels. At one level, there are directly spiritual stories, but there are other stories also which teach some uplifting values.
Like in our tradition, there is Shruti Pratyaksha Aitiyeyam, Anumaneshwar Chatursthayam, Pramaneshwar Namastha Vikalpadasa Virajyateyam. In the Uddhav Gita, it is said that Aiti here, the Itihas is also, there he uses it in the sense of, not necessarily the Itihas of Ramayana and Mahabharata, but the general historical tradition. So, we humans broadly are, you can say, storytelling or story-hearing creatures.
That’s what captivates the mind much more than, say, simply raw data or you could say concepts alone. There are information, there are concepts, or you could say principles. There is something which is more, information we could say is more concrete, concepts are a little more abstract, and both are important.
But information and concepts, if they are woven together in a narrative, then the capacity for assimilation, for reception, for satisfaction, all of it gets multiplied substantially. Yes, yes. I would say that if you look at oral tradition as a whole and try to see what categories would come under it, I would say, because since you raised this point, we are talking about stories, so it comes to mind that we can categorise it broadly into two categories.
One is a more structured part, and the other is something that is more free-flowing. Still, there is some rigour associated with it in terms of the transmission and everything, but the first part, I would say, where things are more structured, more rigid, more codified, is essentially the scriptures. Again, in the Vedic scriptures, you could have two categories.
You could have one which is a Shruti, where, as we discussed earlier, things are very rigidly codified. We talked about the importance of the Aksharas, the Matras, and the Svaras. So, that’s one part, the Shruti.
Then, in that, another subcategory is the Smritis, like the Itihasas and the Puranas, where there is a structure there. It’s considered non-different from the Shruti. At the same time, there is some little flexibility that is there.
The Puranas and Itihasas are also considered equal to the Vedas because, as Jiva Goswami says in the Tattva Sandarbha, that the Puranas are so called because they make the meaning of the Vedas complete or Puranas. Puranas indicate completing. So, he gives the example that lead cannot make a gold ornament complete.
You need gold to make the gold ornament complete. So, similarly, if the Puranas, they make the meaning of the Vedas complete or Puranas, that means there must be equality between the Puranas and the Vedas, that means between the Smritis and the Shrutis. So, you can’t say that the Puranas, we don’t consider that as valid pramana for evidence and so on.
You have to consider that also on an equal footing. At the same time, there is a distinction also between the Puranas on one hand and the Shruti Shastras on the other hand, which is that we briefly discussed that earlier, that the strong codification and the emphasis on Swaras etc. that is found in the Shrutis is not so much there in the Puranas.
But both these categories, we put it under the first category of the oral tradition because there is a structure. It’s called a Shastra. It’s called a scripture.
And incidentally, when we’re speaking of Puranas or Smritis, there is a distinction between the Puranas and Itihasas also, although they may, the content is very similar. But the Puranas refer to incidents that happened in along bygone eras, generally. Whereas, Itihasas are those that are composed contemporaneously, that means at the same time.
For example, Vyasadeva compiled Ramayana when Rama was still ruling. Valmiki rather. Valmiki composed the Ramayana after Rama returned from Lanka after killing Ravana.
Similarly, Vyasadeva compiled the Mahabharata, you know, almost at the same time. So they’ve got Itihasas as it happened. And the Puranas, apart from the Purana angle, there’s also very old.
So there are histories of long bygone eras. So anyway, these are subtle distinctions that are part of the oral tradition. Hmm.
So that’s one category, the structured category of the oral tradition. The other tradition is what I would call the creative, artistic, free-flowing, cultural tradition. Okay.
For example, in India, we have the Ramlilas that happened in North India. You have the Jatras that happened in Bengal, or you have the Yaksha Gana in Karnataka. You know, in every language, every state in India, you will find some such folk tradition, you know, that perpetuates certain themes that have come down in the oral tradition for many, many years.
But that obviously is very flexible. You know, you can have a lot of dramatic and creative licence there. You can do many things.
Whereas you can’t do the same with the first category of the scriptures, you have to abide by those scriptures to the letter, to the word. So therefore, in the second category, the tradition of storytelling, etc, is there. And there’s obviously an overlap between the two, the two categories.
Because even in the first category of scriptures, there are so many stories. And it is these stories that essentially have been taken into the folklore. Okay.
But part of the folklore is also the word Aitihiya that you mentioned. And that’s one of the 10 Pramanas that Jiva goes from, he mentions in the Tattva Sandarbha. And Jiva Goswami defines Aitihiya as tradition received, knowledge received from in tradition from unknown sources.
Oh, okay. Which we loosely speaking called folklore. Oh, you know, for example, we are all familiar with the stories, pastimes of Krishna and Vrindavan that are part of traditional Braj folklore, right? They may not appear in the Bhagavatam or any of the Puranas or Upanishads, but they’re just some pastimes that have been transmitted down in oral, in the oral tradition for so many generations.
Would this be the same as Loka Pramana, what he talks, what Goswami talks about in Bhaktasamudra Sindhu? Yes, yes, it could be equated with Loka Pramana. Yes. Okay.
So, Aitihiya. However, the important thing that Jiva Goswami says in the Tattva Sandarbha and Bhaktivinoda Thakura also mentions that very strongly in the Jaiva Dharma is that the other nine Pramanas, Pratyaksha, Anuvana, Aitihiya, etc., all of them, they are not independently sources of evidence. Their value is in how much they are able to conform to the conclusions of the Shabda Pramana.
So, that Pramana, which is in pursuance of the agreement with and conformity with the Shabda Pramana, that is the first category. Yes, all the scriptures, Shuddhi and Smriti, that we can understand as authentic. Yes.
But if there is some folklore which is deviating from the Shabda Pramana from the first category, then we would not accept that. Yes. So, now here, when you are talking about creative licences that are there, to some extent, they are essential for making any art form.
So, at one level, there is literature in terms of, there are scriptures, they are, we could say, a kind of, a type of literature. But then there are art forms, whether there is a drama or there is dance or even there is a narrative form of story. So, things have to be made, if you are going to make a drama, then things have to be made attractive from a, not just attractive, but they have to be proper according to dramatic perspective also.
So, for example, if you are going to do any pastime of Krishna, if you do a drama, it’s very difficult to stick only to the dialogues that are there in scripture and make the full drama. There has to be, if you want to have some more of elucidation of character, then we will have to fill in some, this character said this, this character said that. So, the oral tradition, in one sense, has a greater amount of vitality to it.
Because when people speak, when we write, there is a little more formality in the language. When we speak, there is a little more informality and greater connectivity. So, if we consider the vernacular renditions of the epics, like you mentioned about the Ram Leela, there have been vernacular renditions of the Ramayana in various parts of India and even I would say Southeast Asia at large.
So, and they have kept the Ramayana alive. At the same time, there are concerns that come up that in the original retellings, there are some things which are there in the epics, some things are there in the original source, some things not in the original source. So, are there some, in one sense, in the written tradition, we could have a significant level of conformity.
But once we go into the oral tradition, ensuring conformity becomes a little more difficult. So, what would be the boundaries of the creative licence that we could consider while maintaining fidelity in the oral tradition? As I mentioned, that is conformity of the essential conclusions and facts with the Shabda Pramana, the first category. For example, of the many Ramayans, we can accept, there are many things in the other editions of the Ramayans, which may not be there in Valmiki’s Ramayana.
So, Valmiki’s Ramayana is the Moola Ramayana, is the original Ramayana. So, there may be other things, for example, in Kamba Ramayana or in Tulasidas Ramcharitmanas, etc., which may not be there in Valmiki’s Ramayana. But we may still be willing to accept it wholeheartedly, if there is no essential dissonance with what Valmiki says.
However, if there’s some fundamental deviation, then we would not accept that part. Let’s say, if there is some impersonalism that is thrown in into the philosophical discussion, or some pastime, which depicts Ram or Sita in a way that Valmiki doesn’t and is, shall we say, a little offensive, then we wouldn’t consider that bona fide. And even when devotees in ISKCON do dramas, we do give a lot of scope for dramatic licence.
Let’s say, the favourite drama that devotees have is about Jaggai Madhai, you know. And they always bring in some humour and Jaggai Madhai being intoxicated. And, you know, they make people laugh by the way they act.
And so, that’s just part of it. Yes. Okay.
But essentially, the facts and the conclusions must not be, or rather must be in accordance with Valmiki, or with the concerned Shastra. Yes, with the Moola, whatever it is. So, both these categories of the oral tradition are important, actually.
Because the other tradition also keeps it alive in the minds of the common person. So, it keeps, there is a vitality to the tradition that is imparted by the cultural part of the oral tradition. So, culture is a very important vehicle for preserving the oral tradition.
So, through dance, through drama, through music, through literature. Yes, it is preserved. I was also reading about Western intellectual history recently that how did things, how did the West move towards atheism from theism? If you see in the 16th, 17th, 18th century, even the prominent scientists were all theists.
So, the conventional narrative is that as rationality started increasing, religion was rejected as irrational. The triumph of rationality led to the decline of religion. But we see still that religion, but that narrative is challenged by the fact that there is a significant amount of resilience in religion.
That there are many rational people who consciously turn toward, rational means scientifically educated people who also turn toward religion. So, what the current historians are saying is that, or at least that’s one prominent theory that is coming up, that actually religion and spirituality are transmitted through the culture. And while scientific rationality spread, along with that many other things happened, like industrialisation happened, and the traditional family structure as well as the traditional societal structures that transmitted religion, they got destabilised.
So, when there is a joint family, then there is relatively many more channels through which stories can be told to children and religious culture can be transmitted. Because in one sense, if there is a community, then there are many sources for the oral tradition to be continued. But as families became fragmented from joint families to nuclear families, from nuclear families to even single parents, then the resources available for the oral transmission of religion and spirituality, they went down.
So, it is not so much, so if atheism has increased and religion has decreased, that is not so much because of the spread of rationality as it is because of the decline of the supportive structures for the spread of religion or for the preservation of religion also. So, I think one of the significant supportive structures would also be the oral tradition. So, not only if there are smaller families, not only the parents don’t have time to spend with their children so much, but even parents don’t have time to take their children to temples or church, this was more in a Christian context, to churches.
So, the oral tradition is quite important, that’s been noted even by historians now. Yeah, it is extremely true that the crumbling of the family structure has also drastically and adversely affected the transmission of oral traditions, undoubtedly. And I would say that the reason for that is not so much rationality because that’s a debatable question about what constitutes rationality.
I would say it is materialism. The onset of strong materialism, intellectually phrased in very powerful ways and which found expression in technology, that materialism has contributed to the decline of traditional systems overall. So, not that there aren’t any bad things in the tradition, the wrong things have also been passed down unfortunately.
So, we need to separate the wheat from the chaff. So, along with the bad things, the good things have also been thrown out. So, because of the lack of the family structure, now the earlier tradition of the grandparents, you know, sitting in the house, with the children, telling them the stories, making them sit on the lap and, you know, all of that is gone now.
They’re more than nuclear families and broken families. So, that whole system is gone. And even in the schools now, everything has become so secularised, right, that you can’t tell any stories anymore of this sort, at least.
You can only carefully tell the secular stories, but you can’t tell any of the scriptural stories. So, overall, I think it is materialism that is the culprit. Okay.
Yes. So, in one sense, materialism is telling its own stories. So, if you consider advertisements, in one sense, they are fairy tales of materialism.
People may dismiss, some modern sceptical people may say that in the past people believed fairy tales involving all kinds of unbelievable entities. But today also much of advertisement is not really grounded in fact. It’s creating a fiction associated with certain product and it’s very sophisticatedly created fiction.
So, precisely materialism, as you said, two things, presented intellectually and then propagated technologically. Those two things, and we could also say that the whole culture has also become materialistic. So, it is also very widespread at a cultural level.
In fact, not only at a cultural level, it’s glamorised at a culture, not just present, but not just prevalent, but also glamorised. So, I think that would be a difference between say one or two generations before and say the generations that are coming now. In the past, at least there was some deference toward some higher values.
So, toward tradition, even if there might not be personal dedicated following, but at least, okay, this is something which is good, this is something to be venerated. But even that is getting lost now. Yes.
So, nothing remains sacrosanct. Yes. Materialism, what it does is it creates a ground for intellectual rejection of the sacred space.
And it facilitates the irreverential attitude. True. I think one famous atheist, he said that, he is talking about the theory of evolution, he said evolution made it possible to become an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
So, in one sense, we could say science and technology and they can be used as tools for justifying one’s own ideology, in this case, the ideology of materialism. So, yes, Maharaj. Just going back to our earlier point about the oral tradition.
So, what are the ways and what do you think are the ways in today’s scenario, we can play our part in both preserving and propagating the oral tradition? Any thoughts? Or if you have any other, I thought this could be like more of a, we could go toward a conclusion, or if you have any other thoughts, we can discuss those also. Yeah, I think the first thing for us is to realise why the oral tradition is important. I do not mean to say that we should discredit or stop the written tradition, because that’s going to be there for the rest of this age till the next Satyug comes, and that’s going to be a long time away.
But what I am saying is that there is need for us to appreciate the importance of the oral tradition vis-a-vis the written tradition. For example, one of the problems with the written tradition is that the written evidence can get destroyed by fire, by floods, or whatever. They are from physical, tangible things.
And even if you have more sophisticated methods of information storage, like cloud storage and all that, ultimately, it’s all dependent on technology and the network. And so, if that collapses, then all your knowledge is lost. You know, everything is lost, whereas knowledge that is in the head, and that’s passed on from student to student, and is kept in the head, is not dependent on anything external, like some materials, some tangible objects, or some technology, or anything of the sort.
So, it’s actually the safest way to perpetuate and preserve knowledge. Although now, as I said then, fine, we’ll preserve things in written form in whatever way the written form manifests with technology. But this is one important thing.
Another aspect of the written tradition is that, of the oral tradition rather, is that not everything can be conveyed in writing. For example, Swaras, you know, just coming back to that, the intonation, you have to actually teach somebody by speaking. That person has to hear and repeat it.
The Karna Parampara has to happen. If you just simply have a book that speaks about how the Swaras have to be intoned and so on, then can’t learn it like that. So, the oral tradition contains those elements of learning and education which cannot be transmitted in the written format.
You know, so these are some important things. And the third thing is that the importance of transcendental sound vibration. The next point is that, you know, it has a potency and that is why the sages of yore preferred this method to transmit the knowledge.
And because of the checks and balances there, you know, it was preserved. In fact, it was preserved more like that than in the written format. See, for example, in the last several centuries, what has happened with many of our scriptures, whether it’s Mahabharata or whether it is Manu Samhita, the much reviled Manu Samhita, you know, actually more than half of the Manu Samhita, it consists of interpolated verses.
Interpolated means more than half, yes. Many verses have been added, you know, at some point. Similarly, there are many verses in the Mahabharata that have added and this is because of the written version.
Because the checks and balances in the written version are difficult to maintain and identify over a period of time. Whereas in the oral tradition, the mnemonic methods were so sophisticated and everything was transmitted down through a chain of self-realised ages. So, there was intellectual and spiritual integrity there.
There was intellectual capability there also. So, there was fidelity of transmission. You know, therefore, Shushruma Dheeranam Vichachakshire.
So, this thing of Shushruma Dheeranam Vichachakshire, I have heard this Shushruma as was explained Vichachakshire by the Dheeranam, by those who were saintly sober people. So, the tradition, the oral tradition was maintained by saintly people who are very evolved. Apart from the checks and balances inherent in the whole structure, the level of integrity and capability and spiritual evolution of the main transmitters of the knowledge ensured that the authenticity of the information transmitted was maintained.
Whereas in the written tradition now, you could always change an edition the next time. And then after 10 years, people will forget what was the original edition and what was there before, because you’re relying on something that’s outside of you. So, that has its problems associated with it.
So, there are factors like this that we can consider. So, to answer your question of what we should do to preserve the oral tradition, I would say the first thing is to appreciate and recognise the importance of the oral tradition vis-a-vis the written tradition for reasons that I just mentioned. Yes, all right.
There is one question just before this. In what way are the checks and balances more in an oral tradition than in the written tradition? Because if you consider from today’s perspective, say, if somebody speaks something in a class, we can always hear what was spoken, what was not spoken, unless we have an audio recording. But somebody has written something in a book, then it can be read, it can be seen in context.
In general, if you consider in court of law, the written word is, say, written, if you consider slander or there is a case for slander, then something which is published, something is put in the written form is considered to be a much graver offence than something which is just spoken. Although, of course, spoken is also serious. So, in my understanding, actually, checking for fidelity would be easier when something is written because it is much more objectively documented.
On the other hand, if somebody spoke something but it is lost in the ether after it is spoken. So, how would the oral tradition, in fact, from what I read from the historians of religion, they said that oral tradition allowed for a greater level of fluidity, whereas it is a written tradition that brought in greater amount of rigidity. Now, of course, the words can be different.
But how does the oral tradition, because if there is, say, one Gurukul or one Matha, from that Matha to Mathadipati to their followers, there could be accurate transmission. But if you want standardisation across a vast terrain, then who is going to actually monitor things if they are not written down? Or are you saying that it does not have to be like a universally standardised, but at least locally, it is easier to maintain fidelity? I am not advocating a rejection of the written tradition. But my reason for not rejecting the written tradition is not because of its inherent strengths.
Those inherent strengths arise only because, as I mentioned earlier, of our deficiencies in this age. And therefore, we think that the written word has more sanctity or more authority than the spoken word. But in the early days, even we say 100 years ago in business also, Prabhupada said one time, the written word once spoken by a trader to another trader, that I’ll buy this much from you at such and such price was always honoured, barring the occasional crook.
But otherwise, it was honoured. So because we have reached a certain time, where, you know, we don’t trust each other anymore, we have lost so many of our qualities. So the written word becomes sacrosanct.
But today, even the written word is not sacrosanct, actually. There are so many court cases that go on despite things being in writing, right? You only put things down in writing, it still happens. People still fight about it and say, I wrote it under duress, or, you know, this happened, or they give some other spin to that thing that they said there at that time, you know.
So the point is that not everything, every word spoken by somebody has to be repeated naturally everywhere. Like Shukadev Goswami spoke a lot of additional words when he spoke to the sages at Naimisharanya, because not only did he speak what Shukadev Goswami spoke, but he also added to that, right? So that Shukamukhadamritadravasamyutam is that it becomes sweeter when Shukadev Goswami passed on the Bhagavatam to the sages of Naimisharanya. Shukadev Goswami and then further Shukadev Goswami to the sages of Naimisharanya.
So from Vyasadev there was a Bhagavatam and Shukadev spoke it, it became sweeter. So the idea is that when there are so when there are such saintly souls who are the main transmitters of such information, then that ensures that the essential facts and conclusions are transmitted. And even if there is something different, it is an elaboration of the same that is consistent with the original body of teachings.
And therefore that elaboration is also considered one with the original teachings. So that is how the oral tradition has also expanded. So the Bhagavatam that we see today is far different from the Bhagavatam spoken by Vyasadev to Narada Muni.
Or rather Vyasadev to Madhvacharya or Narada Muni to Vyasadev like that. So that was the way the fidelity was preserved. Today we have come to the stage where we are forced to rely on a written word because of integrity problems and because of lack of ability to memorise, to remember things.
But then at a practical level, I think we should have both. We should have a blend of both. Certainly we can preserve the written tradition, but we must encourage the oral tradition simultaneously.
And by the way, another problem with the written tradition is that the scripts and the words and the languages and their meanings keep changing with time. For example, the original Sanskrit script, it is very hard to decipher. So it is with the other languages.
Words change, the meanings change, the scripts change. So that is another problem with the written transmission. Wouldn’t that apply to the oral transmission also? Because in one sense, written and the language, when it changes, both its written form changes and the oral form also changes.
No, oral doesn’t change. Oral, you are maintaining the whole like the four Vedas, for example, they remain the same. Exactly the same mantras are being chanted today.
After thousands of years, it is exactly the same mantras. The script for writing those mantras may have changed. But the words have not changed.
Similarly with the Srimad Bhagavatam. Okay, I was talking more from a general language perspective. Because written and in general language, for example, if you consider English or Hindi or Marathi, if you consider Chaitanya Charita Amrit also, the Bengali of Chaitanya Charita Amrit is different from the Bengali that is spoken in Bengal today.
Yes. So, in one sense, in the terms of say, we could say ordinary or vyavaharic level, both the spoken and the written language change. But when we are talking about Shruti, yes, the sound will remain the same.
Yes, I agree. There is a certain interesting feature about books like the Chaitanya Charita Amrita, because they kind of straddle both worlds. They straddle the world of the scripture and the world of the common man.
Interesting. Generally, the scriptures were in a certain level of Sanskrit only. But what, let’s say, Narottam Das Thakur did or Bhaktivinod Thakur did or Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami, Vrindavan Das Thakur, they presented things in a language that was easily understood, understandable to the common person in their dialect, in the vernacular.
So, and there is no problem with that. That is also essential. Right.
But let’s say, 200 years down the line, the Bengali language would have changed even more. Yes. Yes.
So, there is no problem in elaborating on texts in whatever language they may have been, so long as the fidelity is maintained. Yes, that’s true. So, the way the oral tradition can be maintained, in addition to maintaining the written tradition now is, for example, every day, parents should tell or grandparents should tell stories to their children.
They should, from childhood, make them learn different things. Apart from telling stories and encouraging them to think and analyse, they should also encourage their ability to memorise things, so that by the time they’re of a certain age, they’ve memorised the Bhagavad Gita, they’ve memorised many, many verses of the Bhagavata, many essential other things to verses, etc. Things of that sort.
Yes, makes sense. And even modern psychologists, they agree that human beings tap only a very small percentage of the resources of the brain. Yes.
Number one. And number two, that in childhood, the capacity for memorising is enormous. And that a child can learn many languages in childhood.
I forget how many languages exactly that particular research study said, but it was quite a bit. It was not two or three, it was, you know, pretty large number. So, apart from stories and verses, one should also teach them languages in childhood, because they can learn words, vocabulary and everything very quickly.
So, language learning should be a very important part of education. And it’s part of the oral tradition, spoken language. And incidentally, that is how children learn languages.
You know, it’s very interesting as part of the oral tradition, if you study the way we have all learned languages, you know, we learned essentially by hearing. When you’re much older in age, you can certainly learn new languages, but it’s not as easy as when you were a child, you just learned it spontaneously just by hearing. How does an infant or a baby learn languages? The baby doesn’t understand intellectually something, but just by hearing, you know, it learns.
Yes. And then it says it again, and then therefore the whole Shravanam, Kirtanam, Vishnu, Smaranam, you know, the sequence of Shravanam, Kirtanam and Smaranam, it’s not a coincidence that Prahlad Maharaj mentions those three in that sequence. Because Shravanam or hearing comes first.
When you hear, you repeat. So, that was a traditional method of oral transmission. The Guru would speak, the disciple would repeat.
The Guru would speak, the disciple would repeat many times. And by hearing and repeating, hearing and repeating, it would be memorised in different ways. So, the Shravanam, Kirtanam and Smaranam sequence is very important.
That’s beautiful. Shravanam, Kirtanam, Smaranam. This is very directly correlating with the sequence that Prahlad Maharaj describes, but that is also the way we actually assimilate things.
So, you know, one last point maybe about memorisation and remembrance of Krishna. At one level, reading helps us to gain absorption, hearing also helps us to gain absorption. But in general, our ultimate purpose and perfection in bhakti is to remember Krishna.
So, to some extent, for remembrance, a certain level of memory is required. It may not be factual memory in terms of facts and figures, but it can be a more personalised memory or a more emotionally centred memory. But in an ultimate sense, when we talk about a devotee being absorbed in the remembrance of Krishna or pure devotee is being completely absorbed in the remembrance of Krishna, that remembrance, it comes primarily through sound like Shruti Ikshita Patha as you quoted earlier.
So, it comes largely through the contemplation on the sound and the relishing of the sound that eventually that absorption comes, isn’t it Maharaj? When we speak of remembering Krishna, we always speak of Krishna in all his various manifestations, right? Yes. What do we mean when we say Krishna? To quote a phrase that Prabhupada quoted, mentioned so many times, his name, fame, form, pastimes, paraphernalia, abode, right? His teachings, everything constitutes Krishna. There are all different manifestations of Krishna.
So, when we want to develop love for Krishna, we develop love for Krishna in all these manifestations. So, relating to these different aspects of Krishna will facilitate love. Now, so, in childhood, when one is taught the Bhagavad Gita verses or the Bhagavatam verses, so certainly that is Krishna himself.
Those verses are not different from Krishna. And side by side, when the children are taught to see and recognise, appreciate and love Krishna in his other manifestations as well, in the holy name, the deity, the pastimes, right? In the form of prasadam and so many other things, then whatever memorisation they do will actually flourish and evolve and blossom into something very meaningful and deep as they grow older. It will become one integrated whole.
Okay. Makes sense. So, ultimately, there are multiple resources that contribute to that cultivation of consciousness.
And the oral tradition is one very valuable part, although it sometimes may be undervalued. But we do not want to absolutise anything. We want to leverage or optimise all the resources that are available for us.
Yes, yes. At the end of the day, our goal of life is to love Krishna, become pure devotees of Krishna. And whatever helps us to do that, we are happy to do that.
Yes, Maharaj. And because the oral tradition has its enormous benefits, we do not want to reject it. We do not want to see it lost.
We will utilise the benefits of the written tradition. But we do not want to lose the benefits of the oral tradition. Yes, Maharaj.
It is beautiful. Should I try to summarise what you spoke or would you like to add some things? No, I think not. You can summarise.
Yeah. I think it was a quite a broad discussion we had today about the importance of the oral tradition. So, we started by talking about how for us to understand scripture, we hear, we read books, we hear classes.
Often hearing and reading both together can lead to deeper assimilation. And in that context, you mentioned how within our tradition, the oral tradition was always a valuable, vital part that even academic historians have noted how for thousands and thousands of years, the recitation of Vedic mantras with an incredible amount of precision, it happened because of this oral tradition. And then we talked about the Akshara itself means imperishable.
So, in that context, we discussed the fact that at one level, all sound is intrinsically a transcendental energy. At another level, depending on the consciousness of the person and the utilisation, for what purpose it is being utilised, the transcendence will become manifested. And then we talked about, especially in the Shruti, we have the Shuddhi of the Akshara, the Swara and Matra.
So, at one level, this is there in all languages, but in Sanskrit, because it is connected with the Lord, so a higher potency is manifested. And so, we also talked about, if we consider the Itihasas and the Puranas, at one level, so there is a rigid or you can say there is a very accurate replication in the Shrutis, but that does not mean the Smritis have to be downplayed. The Smritis are also valuable in their own way and that very striking example of Jiva Goswami, that is the Purana is that which makes Purna, the complete, then it has to have some non-difference from what it is completing.
Lead cannot complete a golden ornament. So, in that sense, there is a certain level of, certain kind of equality within the Smritis and the Shrutis. And the Itihasas, while the Puranas talk about diverse events, even from the past, Purana, as in the past Pura, what happened in the past, as Itihasas is more in one sense contemporary, both Ramayana, both Valmiki and Vyasadeva are parts of the book that they are writing, say as it is happening or as it is recently happened.
And then with respect to the oral tradition, we talked, you talked about how sometimes it is minimised or trivialised as rote memorisation, but memorisation has its own value, especially for children, memorising, if it is made into exciting, challenging, they have extraordinary capacity to memorise things and even learn several languages, as you mentioned later. So, if that, if memorisation is not made like an intellectual burden, but it is made like a cultural experience, then it can lead to, lead to deep impressions which will flower in the future and that knowledge can eventually be assimilated very, very, very easily. So, even for us, as, for us adults, if something is memorised, then it has become more accessible.
You quoted that Subhashita Pustakeshu, that wealth in, wealth which is elsewhere or knowledge in books is not as easily accessible as something which is with us. So, while memory is not the sole sign of intelligence, memory is a vital component of intelligence. And when we talk about memorisation, we do not have to, at one sense, either accurate pronunciation or a lot of extensive memorisation.
These are not essential for devotion. Krishna can manifest independent of these, but that does not mean we dismiss them. To the extent that it is possible, we utilise them.
Just like when we are cooking for Krishna, we try to do the best that we can. Although different people may have different levels of expertise in cooking. Similarly, different people may have different levels of expertise in memorising or pronouncing.
But we should not trivialise it. And then with respect to the role of the written word in today’s world, it is, in today’s world, definitely written word has its value. And that is not, whereas in modern historical context, it is seen as a sign of progress that we started writing down.
But from a Vedic perspective, it is somewhat a sign of decline that we lost the capacity to assimilate and recollect internally. And that is why we need external resources. And the written word is an external resource.
So, this external resource is, because today it is valuable, say the spoken word in the past had a lot of value. People would lay down their life to honour their word. But when that does not happen today, we need written documentation.
And even that people try to circumvent. So, it is a, we could say, both an intellectual and a moral decline that is there in today’s world. And so, we recognise the importance of the written word in today’s world.
But at the same time, the oral tradition is vital. And then you talked about two strands of the oral tradition. One is broadly the Shruti, which is exact replication.
And the other is the cultural, artistic, creative aspect through drama, through poetry, through like the Ram Leela in Varanasi, the Jatras in Orissa. The first category includes Shruti and Smriti. Oh, Shruti and Smriti.
And the second is the more loose, culturally expressed folklore and dance and drama and like that. Yeah, Loka Pramana and Shabda Pramana includes both. So, you mentioned that the other Pramanas, like the Aiti here, that we accept its validity to the extent it is in broad conformity with scripture, with Shabda.
So, there is a lot of room for artistic licence when dramas are being enacted. But at the same time, the essential message has to be preserved. And we talked about how this oral tradition is not just say through temples and sadhus giving classes, but it is in the homes and families, parents and grandparents telling stories.
So, across the world, storytelling has been an important part of transmission of culture. And in our tradition, there are scripture stories and then there are stories which are of values, which are in conformity with scriptures. And so, with respect to fidelity, there is no system, there can be no foolproof system for maintaining fidelity if there is no integrity among people.
But broadly speaking, when there is a higher level of integrity among people, then the oral tradition ensures a greater, it has a greater check balance system. And when Mahabharata and Manu Samhita, they have become interpolated, that is because of that loss of the oral, decline in the oral tradition. And then with respect to preserving in today s world, first we have to appreciate the oral tradition and then we try to continue it in our own ways, in our families, in our social circles, telling stories and encouraging shravanam, kirtanam, smaranam.
So, we hear verses, recite verses, memorise verses, recite, hear the stories, recite the stories and internalise the stories. And in that way, we draw on various resources for increasing our connection with and our absorption in Krishna. So, the oral tradition has been an invaluable resource throughout history and we should not undervalue or lose it in today s world.
And you talk about contemporary ways in which it is happening also, say, like virtually in today s world, through technology, we are having the oral tradition, we are having podcasts and audio books. So, these are also mediums that we as devotees can tap in keeping the karana parampara, as you said. So, oral and oral.
So, the oral tradition is received through oral reception and that is how we can also continue this beautiful tradition. Any concluding points, Maharaj, or anything I left out? That is an excellent summarization, the recapitulation of all the points. I think that is nice.
Thank you, Maharaj, for your time and your association. I look forward to having your online future also sometime. It is wonderful being with you as always, Chaitanya Charan Prabhu, and especially on such a nice topic.
It is a beautiful topic. Yes, Maharaj. And I think very important for all of us.
Thank you. Okay. Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna, Maharaj.