Now for the word pitaka. In ancient India construction workers used to move building materials from one place to another by means of a relay of baskets. They would put the baskets on their heads, walk some distance to the next worker, pass it to him, and he would repeat the process. Writing was known in the Buddha's time but as a medium it was considered less reliable than human memory. A book could rot in the monsoon damp or be eaten by white ants but a person's memory could last as long as they lived. Consequently, monks and nuns committed all the Buddha's teachings to memory and passed it on to each other just as construction workers passed earth and bricks to each other in baskets. This is why the three sections of the Buddhist scriptures are called baskets. After being preserved in this manner for several hundred years the Tipitaka was finally written down in about 100 B.C. in Sri Lanka.