in the seventh century after
Christ, visited India, learned Sanskrit, and spent about twenty years
in different monasteries--a man who had no theories of his own about
oral tradition, but who, on the contrary, as coming from China, was
quite familiar with the idea of a written, nay, of a printed
literature: and yet what does he say? "The Vedas are not written on
paper, but handed down from mouth to mouth."

Now, I do not quite agree here with I-tsing. At all events, we must
not conclude from what he says that there existed no Sanskrit MSS. at
all at his time. We know they existed. We know that in the first
century of our era Sanskrit MSS. were carried from India to China,
and translated there. Most likely therefore there were MSS. of the
Veda also in existence. But I-tsing, for all that, was right in
supposing that these MSS. were not allowed to be used by students, and
that they had always to learn the Veda by heart and from the mouth of
a properly qualified teacher. The very fact that in the later
law-books severe punishments are threatened against persons who copy
the Veda or learn it from a MSS., shows that MSS. existed, and that
their existence interfered seriously with the ancient privileges of
the Brahmans, as the only legitimate teachers of their sacred
scriptures.

If now, after having heard this account of I-tsing, we go back for
about another thousand years, we shall feel less skeptical in
accepting the evidence which we find in the so-called Prati_s_akhyas,
that is, collections of rules which, so far as we know at present, go
back to the fifth century before our era, and which tell us almost
exactly the same as what we can see in India at the present moment,
namely that the education of children of the three twice-born castes,
the Brahma_n_as, Kshatriyas, and Vai_s_yas, consisted in their passing
at least eight years in the house of a Guru, and learning by heart the
ancient Vedic hymns.

The art of teaching had even at that early time been reduced to a
perfect system, and at that time certainly there is not the slightest
trace of anything, such as a book, or skin, or parchment, a sheet of
paper, pen or ink, being known even by name to the people of India;
while every expression connected with what we should call literature,
points to a literature (we cannot help using that word) existing in
memory only, and being handed down with the most scrupulous care by
means of oral tradition.

I had to enter into