SuttaCentral
Dear Pali experts,
Recently I heard Bhante Sujato explain that the phrase evaṁ me sutaṁ was not spoken by Venerable Ānanda himself, but by the reciter of the sutta, since the texts were transmitted orally.
Does anyone have evidence or a source confirming that Bhante actually said this?
See his note at DN 1:1.1.1:
Tradition holds that these were the words spoken by Ānanda when reciting the Suttapiṭaka at the First Council following the Buddha’s death. In fact it is a tag signifying that the text has been passed down through oral tradition and the speaker was not present at the events (DN 5:21.10, MN 127:17.4).
We don’t have any contemporary third party accounts to prove otherwise either.
Which Bhante? Bhante Sujato or Bhante Ananda? I’m guessing the latter since you yourself just said “Recently I heard” lol 
Okay so I may have misunderstood the question? 
Your testimony is evidence enough for me! 
The Pāli word sutam (Sanskrit: śruta, from the root śru) does literally mean ‘heard’ but idiomatically as used in Pali and other coeval Middle-Indic and Sanskrit texts, it didn’t necessarily mean only ‘speech’ (so the idea that this is indicative of a putative oral tradition where each reciter prefixed their recitation of a sutta with “evam me sutam” to show that they were part of an oral tradition, is entirely a wrong conclusion).
The same word is used in Ashokan edicts to mean listening to his written edicts being read out (by a person who was literate, most common people and monks were illiterate at this point in history) - it doesnt mean that his written edicts were part of any oral tradition either.
The Pali canon belongs to the same period as the ashokan edicts, so the word sutam (in evam me sutam) would necessarily have to mean what it commonly meant in his time. Writing was known in this time, and written Buddhist texts were being read out to the king himself, and he states that his written edicts must be regularly “heard” (not “read”) by his audience:
iyaṃ ca lipi tisanakhatena sotaviyā - “This writing (edict) must be listened to (every month) on the day of the Tiṣya nakṣatra (Tiṣya constellation)”
aṃtalā pi ca tīsena khanasi khanasi ekena pi sotaviya
iyaṃ ca lipi anucātuṃmāsaṃ tisena nakhatena sotaviyā
kāmaṃ cu khaṇasi khanasi aṃtalā pi tisena ekena pi sotaviya
iyaṃ ca lipī anutisaṃ sotaviyā - This writing (edict) must be “heard” on the Tiṣya day of each month
alā pi khanena sotaviyā ekakena pi
iyaṃ ca lipī anucātuṃmāsaṃ sotaviyā tisena (P) aṃtalā pi ca sotaviyā
khane saṃtaṃ ekena pi sotaviyā
So the word ‘sutam’ (in ‘evam me sutam’) does not impute the existence of any oral tradition – in fact it shows that such a tradition did not exist, if there was already an oral tradition in Ashoka’s time, why would he ask the Buddhist monks to hear the pre-existing Suttas (when they as Buddhist monks would know and “hear” the suttas more than Ashoka himself), and why would he ask others to hear his own edicts?
What he was suggesting therefore by asking the sangha to “hear” specific suttas is - “I have heard these suttas being read out to me, and I like their message, so you too try to listen to them being read out to you so you too can see how good their contents are”. He would not be asking them to “hear” again what they themselves were already supposedly bearing in their memory and “orally” passing around from memory, as that sounds weird. Therefore the evidence is against the existence of any early oral transmission.
The reciter of the sutta is the literate monk, the one reading it out aloud from a preserved manuscript - not one reciting it from memory. Everything after the original narrator’s narration (which was narrated to the original scribe) was a written transmission (and further editing and standardization) in manuscripts without which word by word fidelity of transmission would have been inconceivable.
There is no Buddhist today or any time who knows a real Buddhist oral-transmission tradition, because everyone who repeats memorized texts has repetitively read aloud and memorized a written text and claims that it is oral tradition - while an oral transmission tradition is not that. An oral tradition is a tradition where there is no written text to memorize in the first place, or to check again whether you or anyone else have memorized it correctly or not. A true oral transmission for the Pali canon has never existed in Buddhism to my knowledge. Happy to be persuaded against though..
Thank you so much, Venerable. 
That is exactly what I was looking for.
You didn’t misunderstand my question. 
Your theory sounds good.
Not a Pali or sutta expert, after reading your theory, I would assume that Evaṁ me sutaṁ was spoken by the one who recited the sutta to whoever wrote it down the first time.
Hello! You can read this article, it is just on your topic.
For the Theravada canon as it exists today, I think you are right. At a certain point in history, we see Buddhists using written documents and memorization as ways to transmit texts. The descriptions of Chinese translation projects around the 4th and 5th centuries CE reference both recitation of large collections from memory (which were not always so successful) and use of written copies as source texts.
Another bit of historical evidence of the later introduction of written documents is that in the classical era, Buddhists began including copying written texts as a merit making exercise along with memorization, recitation, and explanation. Most EBTs don’t mention copying texts, but it’s common in later Mahayana works.
Finally, while it’s true that at some point the sectarian canons were codified and frozen in place, the parallels that exist make it clear that there was period when the wording and content of Buddhist scriptures varied a great deal from reciter to reciter, which is what we would expect from an oral tradition that allowed a certain amount of improvisation, and so forth. There is also a great deal of variations in EBT parallels that are caused by phonetic confusions rather than written typos. Studying parallels in Chinese is really necessary to see them fully because that’s where the earlier material is preserved. Looking at Sanskrit and Pali doesn’t illuminate what the situation was in earlier eras.