[Buddha-l] Back to the core values? -- and origins

[Bob Zeuschner]

Thanks Chris.
I've heard stories of the memorizing abilities of people in an oral 
culture, but you're the first person I've known who actually knew such 
people (however, with contemporary monks I assume they are memorizing 
texts that they read and not just words that they heard?).
It is a shame that we don't have tripitaka collections for all (or any) 
of the other early schools; then we could see if there were genuine 
variations in their "memories of the words of the founder" and how many 
variations there were (if any).
Bob

Christopher Fynn wrote:
> 
> There are still apparently a few monks who memorize the whole Tripitaka ...
> <http://www.nibbana.com/tipitaka/tipilist.htm>
> 
> I've also met a couple of Tibetan lamas who have memorized hundreds
> of large volumes (each consisting of many texts). One of these Tibetan
> monks also read the whole Encyclopedia Britannica & the Bible and seems to
> remember large parts of these many years later after only one reading.
> 
> - Chris