A written word is seen as some gestation of "evolution" an icon of "progress" a symbol of "civilisation" yet the ancients saw "memory" as a facet of "spiritual evolution" they saw "memory" as an icon of "progress" and they saw "memory" as a symbol of "civilisation".

A written word is seen as some gestation of "evolution" an icon of "progress" a symbol of "civilisation" yet the ancients saw "memory" as a facet of "spiritual evolution" they saw "memory" as an icon of "progress" and they saw "memory" as a symbol of "civilisation".

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"Memory" was seen by the ancients as symptomatic of purity and spiritual advancement and one of its highest honours was that of a "Sruti Dhara" whose meaning is one who can "capture ( dhara ) what they hear ( sruti )" even after hearing once.

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As part of his purport to the Krsna Book, Srila Prabhupada writes "One who can remember everything perpetually is called a Sruti Dhara and the Sruti Dhara Brahmacari can repeat verbatim all that he has heard without reference to notes or books".

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"Sruti" forms from the letter "R" which means "arriving" "moving" "reaching" and the letter "U" which means "intensity" "strength" "pervasion" and together they produce the root "Ru" meaning to "reach ( r ) with intensity ( u )" as in that which "roars" "howls" and "cries out loud".

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"Ru" meaning to "howl" can be seen in words such as "Rut" which is an animals "mating cry" and "Riot" which means an "uproar" "quarrel" "dispute" and "Raucous" which means to "shout" and "Ruin" which means to "smash down" and also the words "Rupture" "Eruption" and "Rumour".

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"Ru" which is seen to express "noise" and "sound" combines with the letter "S" whose meaning is to "connect" to "join" to "unite" and this becomes "Sru" which means to "connect ( s ) with sound ( ru )" as in to "hear" as seen in "Sruti" whose meaning is "hearing" "listening" and "learning".

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"Sruti" meaning that which has been "heard" and "Smriti" meaning that which has been "remembered" are the subject of arguments and debates which rage upon either side, but in truth they both compliment each other as part of a whole which is known as the Vedas.

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As the yearly seasons come and go, so do the cosmic seasons, and in previous ages the consciousness was more refined due to simplicity of life, purity of food, water and air, and more importantly the purity of peoples minds, and even in this age some 2500 years ago we find the great "Panini" as an example of a "Sruti Dhara".

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"As one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence it is by no means an exaggeration, no one who has even a small acquaintance with that most remarkable book could fail to agree. In some four thousand "sutras" or "aphorisms" some of them no more than a single syllable in length "Panini" sums up the grammar not only of his own spoken language, but of that of the Vedic period as well. The work is the more remarkable when we consider that the author did not write it down but rather worked it all out of his head, as it were." Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) American linguist and author of Language, published in 1933.

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"Panini's grammar is the earliest scientific grammar in the world, the earliest extant grammar of any language, and one of the greatest ever written. It was the discovery of Sanskrit by the West, at the end of the 18th century, and the study of Indian methods of analysing language that revolutionised our study of language and grammar, and gave rise to our science of comparative philology”. - Walter Eugene Clark - The Legacy of India.

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"The Sanskrit grammarians of India were the first to analyse word forms, to recognise the difference between the root and suffix, to determine the functions of suffixes and on the whole to elaborate a grammatical system so accurate and complete as to be unparalleled in any other country.” - The renowned British Sanskrit scholar Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1854-1930).