Chaos

"This article discusses the composition and transmission of early Buddhist texts with specific reference to sutras.

"After briefly summarizing the main reasons why it is likely that these oral compositions were designed to be memorized and transmitted verbatim, 

"I will 
  1. Discuss the main types of changes that these texts underwent in the course of their transmission and the reasons such changes occurred, then 
  2. Attempt to give an account of the challenge that change, particularly intentional change, posed to the oral transmission of fixed, memorized texts.
"'Group recitation requires that the wording of the text and the arrangement of the textual units within a collection be fixed; otherwise you would have complete chaos'."

 

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