Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.s1.t5.3

c8.s1.t5.3

oral communication; written he has not. Writing itself was in all probability not unknown in his day, but certainly book-writing was unheard of. Brief written communications, brief written notifications, appear to have been common in India even at that time: books were not written, but learned by rote and taught from memory. Those extensive treatises, such as were addressed by the apostles in the form of letters to the early Christian Churches, and which cast so rich a light on the history of those Churches and circles of thought, are wholly wanting in Buddhist literature.