How Buddhist Texts Were Prepared and Preserved?
The Buddha and other teachers didn’t write down their teachings; instead, they spoke and discussed them with people. Men and women, and maybe even kids, would attend these talks and talk about what they heard. During the Buddha’s time, his teachings weren’t written down. After he passed away around the fifth or fourth century BCE, his followers gathered at a council in Vesali to put together his teachings. They organized them into three groups called Tipitaka, which means “three baskets.” These included rules for monks, teachings of the Buddha, and philosophical discussions.
As Buddhism spread to new places like Sri Lanka, other texts were written about its history, including stories about the Buddha’s life. Some of the oldest texts are in a language called Pali, while later ones are in Sanskrit. When Buddhism reached East Asia, travelers like Fa Xian and Xuan Zang went all the way to India to find texts, which they then brought back to their own countries and translated.
Indian Buddhist teachers also traveled far and wide, spreading the Buddha’s teachings and carrying texts with them. These texts were kept safe in monasteries across Asia for many years. Nowadays, scholars translate them into different languages like Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan.
Chapter 4 Sacrifices and Debates| Class 12 History Notes
In this article, we will look into the topic of “Sacrifices and Debates” from Chapter 4 of the NCERT Class 12 History book. These notes are specially curated by an expert team at w3wiki for all the students.
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