Sacred tradition

A class of writings in several of the world religions that by their adherents are considered secondary only to revealed books like the Bible, the Koran or the Vedas. The sacred traditions arise due to oral transmission of the words of the founder, spoken usually after the giving of the revealed book, or they are words of subsequent great masters. Eventually written down, such traditions are ascribed to Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and other figures. Typical traditional texts are in the Sunna and Hadith of Islam; in the Creeds, Apostolic Canons and some other early Church writings in Christianity; in the Sayings of the Fathers and the Talmud in Judaism, and in the Smitri of Hinduism. All the earliest books of Buddhism, however, may be considered traditional, as there was no one revealed text ever published. In most instances of sacred tradition the books are considered 'binding' on believers in respect to their teachings.