Chain letters in pre-modern India

[Swaminathan Madhuresan]

 While the oldest missionary religion Buddhism may have liked
 to spread the Word and lay Jains pay big money to publish Jain
 books, the evidence from "Hindu" sects is NOT to spread the
 word.

 Vedas are not taught to everyone, tamil maRai 'secret' = veda.
 Zvelebil's Poets of the Powers book teaches how secretive
 are tamil Siddha tradition. Joseph Campbell has said
 "You ask. I teach." is the way of India, and voluntarily,
 spreading religious knowledge/lore was not the norm.
 Preachings for the purposes of conversion was very rare in India.

--- Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK> wrote:
> I happened to be reading the Sankastanasanastotra the other day, in the
> Brhatstotraratnakara, and I came across the following final statement
> (Velthuis coding):
>
> a.stabhyo braahma.nebhya"sca likhitvaa ya.h samarpayet |
> tasya vidyaa bhavetsarvaa ga.ne"sasya prasaadata.h || 8||
>
> "Someone who writes this and sends it to eight Brahmanas will gain all the
> sciences, by the grace of Ganesa."
>
> I have no idea about the date of this Ganesa stotra.  But this must be a
> fairly early example of an attempt to start a chain letter.  Is there any
> evidence that it worked?  Are there other examples?
>
> Some MSS of this text attribute it to the Padmapurana.  But there seems to
> be a version with only five verses, which doesn't include the exhortation
> in v.8 of the BSR version.  So there may be added question of when verse 8
> got pasted on to the end of the stotra.
>
> The http://www.silcom.com/~barnowl/clevo/start.htm site says that evidence
> of chain letters before 1910 is sparse.
>
> --
> Dominik Wujastyk
> Founder, INDOLOGY list.


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