[Buddha-l] Brahmi Script

[Dan Lusthaus]

Tim is absolutely correct that the Vedas were not committed to writing until 
sometime around the 9th-10th c CE (Witzel gives "early second millennium CE" 
as when they were first written down). Chinese pilgrim monks in the 7th-8th 
c reported that the Vedas were still being transmitted orally and not 
committed to writing, but memorized. I believe there are some Hindu 
materials discussing the debates among Hindus when the decision to finally 
begin committing the Vedas to writing occurred.

Of course, if you are a new-agey blond woman for whom imagination trumps 
facts, then you can have a website that says: " The four Vedas, the sacred 
books of the Hindus, were codified and committed to writing possibly as 
early as 6000 years ago-maybe earlier. The dates are under dispute."
http://www.soulfulliving.com/honoryoursoul.htm
Hey, you might even sell a book or two to idiots who are more uninformed 
than you are. (About Vastu-sastra, a modern Hindu invention, India's answer 
to fengshui.). On the other hand, the information -- cloned all over the 
web -- taken from Griffiths' work on the Vedas suggesting that the Vedas 
were not committed to writing before 300 BCE is woefully obsolete 
speculation. That doesn't prevent its unchecked proliferation online.

As for Buddha attending a university in Gandhara or somewhere around the 
Indus, I don't think Buddha traveled much further west in India than 
Savatthi.

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhistworld/mapbud.htm

The most westward that the early legends (not Nikayas, etc.) place Buddha is 
Sankasya (P: Sankassa), but that association is mythological -- his foot 
touched down there after preaching Abhidhamma (!) in the Tavatimsa heaven.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankassa

Lance, or someone else, are you aware of Buddha having made it further west?

Nevermind that there were no "universities" anywhere in the world during his 
lifetime, and that -- according to Buddhist legend -- he was not allowed to 
leave home unescorted until the age of 29, what we seem to have is some 
modern attempts at mythmaking.

Dan