On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c7.s3.54

c7.s3.54

² Though often appealed to in proof of the late use of writing for literary purposes (see e. g. Sacred Books of the East, vol. XIII, p. XXXV ff.), this assertion of the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa is, I fear, not worth much more than the contradictory story of the Chinese Buddhists. The Chinese boldly assert that the Canon was written on palm leaves immediately after Buddha’s death (Grundriss, I, 11, p. 89) and that in A. D. 489 a MS. of the Vinaya was extant, which bore 975 dots, marking the number of the readings at the annual Pavāraṇā since the time of Upāli, who is said to have entered the first dot (Jour. R. As. Soc., 1896, p. 436 f.). Like similar, certainly incorrect, stories of the Brahmans and others regarding their scriptures, the tradition of the two Pali chronicles may be taken merely as the product of the well founded belief that the Buddhists, imitating the Brahmans, preserved their scriptures orally for a prolonged period. But even if it is considered to be historical, it refers only to Ceylon not to India.