Sacred scripture lives and evolves, is never fixed

Re:Sacred scripture lives and evolves, is never fixed by carapace on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @12:33PM (#21704467)

> The earliest of these hymns had been disclosed to seven great rishis (“seers”) in the remote past and transmitted with impeccable accuracy by their descendants. In seven priestly families, each generation had memorized the hymns of their inspired ancestor and passed them on orally to their children. Even today, when their ancient Sanskrit is well-nigh incomprehensible, these hymns are still recited with the precise tonal accents and inflections of the original, together with ritually prescribed gestures of the arms and fingers.

Purely from an information-transmission POV this feat is fascinating. Does anyone know where more information can be found about this?

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Re:Sacred scripture lives and evolves, is never fixed by svat on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @08:13PM (#21709050)

I don't know much, and sorry for a terse repl (If I try to write out proper sentences and look up references this may take me more time):

- You can search for comments by modern scholars about it; e.g. search for [witzel "tape recorder"] on the web / in Google Books to find some quotations of a memorable analogy.

- You should find some material online in connection with "The Tradition of Vedic Chanting" being part of UNESCO's "intangible cultural heritage" lists / "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity". I believe there were some documentaries produced. haven't looked closely but these sites look related: https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/tradition-of-vedic-chanting-000... / http://vedicheritage.gov.in/vedic-chanting-unesco/

- There's some good information on the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vedic_chant&oldid... e.g. for every string of the form "abcd..." one learns not just "abcd..." but also "ab bc cd..." and "abbaab bccbbc cddccd..." and some learn even more dizzying schemes.

- There are some documentaries on these schools, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FxYydNlrFk (there are a few more longer ones).

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Re:Sacred scripture lives and evolves, is never fixed by carapace on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @08:54PM (#21709279)

Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.

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Re:Sacred scripture lives and evolves, is never fixed by dawg- on Thursday December 05, 2019 @09:23AM (#21712442)

They are generally more well-known so you might have heard of them already, but you might be interested in reading up on the tradition of the Griots in west Africa. Similarly to this example, it's oral tradition as a "family business" that is passed down through generations

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Re:Sacred scripture lives and evolves, is never fixed by carapace on Friday December 06, 2019 @11:39AM (#21723419)

Cheers! I hadn't heard of them.

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