Division of Social Studies Events

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Communities of Reciters in Ancient India

Richard Davis

Tuesday, December 3, 2024
1:30 pm

Olin Humanities, Room 305
How is it that we have the 1008 hymns of the Rg Veda, as they were recited around 1000 BCE? How is it that we know what the Buddha said, who lived around 500 BCE, when his words were not written down for some 400 years? Why do we have the massive 100,000 verse Sanskrit epic Mahabharata? In early India, specialist communities organized themselves to carry out the labor of memorizing and transmitting important works of cultural and religious memory, orally, over many centuries. These communities included Vedic Brahmins, Buddhist monks and nuns, and epic bards. This talk will explore the social organization of oral textual transmission in ancient India, and how this relates to writing a narrative history of Indian religious cultures.Sponsored by: Interdisciplinary Study of Religions Program.

For more information, call 845-758-7662, or e-mail [email protected].