Sacred books: how the world’s religions wrote down their scriptures

The Vedas, the oldest Hindu scriptures, were composed in an early form of Sanskrit from around 1500 BCE and passed down by memory alone for many centuries. Priestly families developed elaborate methods of recitation, chanting each verse forwards, backwards and in interwoven patterns, so that not a syllable changed. For Hindus the Vedas are shruti, “what was heard” by ancient seers, and their sound itself is sacred.

The Buddha’s teachings, too, were first remembered and chanted by his monks. The Pali Canon was written down in Sri Lanka in the 1st century BCE, some four centuries after his death.

In South and Southeast Asia, texts were inscribed on strips of dried palm leaf, threaded on a cord between wooden covers. In the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean, the scroll was the standard book: the Torah is still written by hand on a parchment scroll for reading in the synagogue.

Early Christians adopted the codex, pages bound at one edge, the ancestor of the modern book. In Tibet, scriptures were printed or written on long loose leaves, pecha, wrapped in cloth.

Religions understand their scriptures differently. Muslims believe the Qur’an is the very speech of God, revealed in Arabic to Muhammad over twenty-three years; translations are interpretations, and the Arabic text is recited in prayer. For Jews, the Torah was given by God to Moses, and the oral Torah, later written in the Mishnah and Talmud, explains it.

Christians speak of the Bible as inspired: written by human authors under God’s guidance, its centre being the witness to Jesus. Buddhist sutras record the teaching of the Buddha, and in Mahayana other awakened beings. The Sikh Guru Granth Sahib gathers hymns of the Gurus and of Hindu and Muslim saints, the poetry of devotion to one God.

Scripture is often treated as more than a text. In a gurdwara the Guru Granth Sahib sits on a throne under a canopy, is waved with a whisk like a king and put to rest at night: since 1708 it has been the eternal Guru. A Torah scroll is dressed in a mantle and crown, never touched directly, and buried when worn out. Muslims wash before handling the Qur’an and keep it in a high place.

In Tibet, prayer wheels filled with scripture are turned to spread its blessings, and in many Buddhist lands copying a sutra is itself an act of merit.