bhāṇaka

Bhāṇaka (Pali: reciter) were Buddhist monks who specialized in the memorization and recitation of a specific collection of texts within the Buddhist canon. Lineages of bhāṇakas were responsible for preserving and transmitting the teachings of the Buddha until the canon was committed to writing in the 1st century BC, and declined as the oral transmission of early Buddhism was replaced by writing.

==Early Buddhist era== Academic consensus and Buddhist tradition holds that all early Buddhist traditions preserved their texts via oral transmission – significant evidence of this includes the structure and distinctive features of early Buddhist texts, the absence of Vinaya regulations dealing with writing and writing materials, and terms derived from practices of listening and recitation used to describe the Buddha's teaching and the acts of the early Sangha.