Heeraman Tiwari

Texts come into being and go, but tradition remains; tradition contains memory of texts and their contents. Texts and tradition both compliment each other, enrich each other. Texts preserve and represent tradition; tradition in turn reflects upon the texts which have been and point to those which are yet to be produced. Tradition also mediates and meditates between two sets of texts – texts from the past and those of the present. Sometimes, traditions are also perceived to be inventing and reinventing texts which may or may not have direct connection with the texts of the past. In early India, like elsewhere in the world, production of literary, philosophical and religious texts was woven in the pattern of texts, commentaries and meta-texts. For example, the ancient Indian seers, writers and philosophers all represented their traditions in their writings; they also reflected upon the tradition they were representing in a way that furthered, renewed and strengthened their particular tradition. In ancient Indian literature and philosophy the concept of underlining affiliation to the tradition is strong. A scholar who may have produced absolutely new ideas, may still wish to maintain that what he is doing, or has done, is not more than collating, scrutinizing and repeating what has already been said by his elders in the tradition. This study seeks to look for answers to the problem of texts and their contexts and their affiliation to a particular tradition in which they may have been generated. Texts and their commentaries appear to be the main source of generating a tradition.