When did the gods become literate? Was: Are the gods literate?

[N. Ganesan]

A few sources on literacy, south & mahayana, ..
i) Lokesh Chandra, oDDiyANa: A new interpretation
L. Sternbach fel. vol., part I, Lucknow, 1979
(identifies Kanchi as oDDiyANa and many leads on southern buddhism).
ii) Buddhism in Tamil Nadu: Collected papers,
Inst. of Asian studies, 1998
(new discoveries, results from an intl. conference)
iii) G. Schopen, Bones, stones and Buddhist monks, 1997
iv) D. K. Dohanian, The Mahayana Buddhist sculpture of Ceylon,
NY: Garland publishing, 1977
v) J. C. Holt, Buddha in the crown: Avalokitezvara in the Buddhist
tradition of Sri Lanka, OUP, 1991
vi) David McMahan, Orality, writing and authority in south asian
buddhism: visionary literature and the struggle for legitimacy in the
mahayana, History of Religions, 1998, 37, 3, p. 249-274
vii) P. G. Patel, Lingusitic and cognitive aspects of the
orality-literacy complex in ancient India, Language & Communication,
1996, 16, 4, p. 315-330
viii) I. Mahadevan, From Orality to Literacy: The case of the Tamil
society, Studies in History, 11, 2, p. 173-188 (1995) Sage
Publications (N. Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London).
(A seminal essay, compares the tamil situation with that prevailing
in telugu/kannada regions).

Regards,
N. Ganesan


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