Literatur ohne Schrift? - Der Sonderfall Indien und die Rolle des Buddhismus

In India, the literary tradition goes back to the second millennium BCE. Indigenous scripts, however, appear only in the third century BCE. Is it possible to preserve extensive and very complex texts through an exclusively oral transmission during such a long time? This question continues to prove highly controversial. However, the rather special relation between oral transmission and writing is a distinctive feature of ancient Indian civilization. Apparently the Buddhists can be counted among the first who undertook steps towards a change of media. This is suggested by Indian manuscripts that were unearthed about twenty years ago in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are by far the oldest ever found, and they preserve Buddhist texts.

Product details

• Authors: Jens-Uwe Hartmann
• Publisher: V&R unipress
• Languages: German
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.12.2015
• EAN: 9783847105350
• ISBN: 978-3-8471-0535-0
• No. of pages: 51
• Dimensions: 123 mm x 210 mm x 5 mm
• Weight: 70 g
• Illustrations: mit 11 Abbildungen
• Series: Fakultätsvorträge der philologisch-kulturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Wien; Fakultätsvorträge der Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät d.Uni Wien
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies