The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization

by Martin Puchner

Finally wielding the technology, Buddhist scribes produced texts that captured as vividly as possible the life of the Buddha. Often they showed the Buddha in dialogue with students or adversaries, explaining rules for conduct and observations about the world. All the accounts of the Buddha we have today are based on texts written hundreds of years after his death, texts that would ultimately acquire the status of sacred scripture. (And once Buddhist scripture had been established, poets imagined the life of the Buddha; the biography of the Buddha I sketched is based on an early such account by the poet Ashvaghosha, who lived in the early second century C.E.) The Buddha’s charisma, his effect on his listeners, his every word and deed were the product of a new type of literature, teachers’ literature, which captured the appeal of a charismatic master who was long dead but whose life and teachings had finally intersected with writing technologies. CONFUCIUS FIFTH CENTURY B.C.E., NORTHERN CHINA Around the year 500 B.C.E., news of an unusual teacher was spreading in the East, in the region where Mount Tai rises boldly from the northern plains of China. Forests had been cut down to create large fields, and over these fields the north wind raged. Below the imposing peak, leaders of rival states and clans made sacrifices to ensure victory in their constant internal wars. Even though the state was supposed to