Kacc 1:1; early date of Pali literacy

I generally agree that the Pali canon as we have it now reflects
awareness of literacy; the trouble is that the heterogenous nature of
the canon allows modern scholars to dismiss such evidence as later
additions.  While this tendency is understandable, I do not feel that
it is informed by skepticism, but seems instead to proceeed from a
highly romanticized (and un-historical) attachment to the notion that
the Suttas were preserved in a purely oral form for a mythical
duration of time before arriving in Sri Lanka (where, supposedly, they
were written for absolutely the first time, with no prior precedent,
modern assumption has it, rather than collated as a written corpus for
the first time, with various imperfect precedents).

Among the interesting quotations reflecting awareness of literacy was
the phrase "unwritten leaf", implying an awareness of such a thing as
a written leaf, quoted by a Burmese essayist --but I could not (or did
not) trace the original Pali of that quote.  There are other, better
known examples.

For no good reason Ashavghosa's hagiography of the Buddha is
frequently quoted as evidence in debates of these kinds, but his work
is spurious for obvious reasons (i.e., the date of its composition,
and the language that it's in).

E.M.