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Eternal India
encyclopedia
Ancient Concepts, Sciences & Systems
(with their auxiliaries), astronomy, philosophy and the science of
omens. A detailed account of the training of a kshatriya prince is
given in Kautilya's
Arthashastra.
He acquired knowledge of
religion, writing and accounts, the art of managing horses,
elephants, chariots, the art of waging war, politics and historical
tradition.
NEW TYPE
A new type of education was developed during this period in
the Buddhist monastries for the training of the newly ordained
monks. The Brahmanical system of education based in the home of
the individual teacher was superseded by the monasteries with the
emergence of the Buddhist system. The Buddhist centre of
education became something like a modem university with a large
concentration of teachers and students.
The relations between the teacher and the pupil followed the
pattern of the Vedic scheme. The pupil was expected to obey and
serve the teacher.
As in the Brahmanical system, the student had to find his
teacher to whom he could make a formal request for admission for
studentship. The minimum age limit was fixed at eight and the
maximum period of studentship was twelve years. The curriculum
of Buddhist education consisted of the
Sutta, Dharma
and
Vinaya
sections of the Pali canon together with the
Suttas
and
Sutta-
Vibhanga.
Besides, the
Vedas
and
Vedangas,
astronomy, music,
medicine, magic, arithmetic and a number of arts and crafts were
also studied. The Buddhist method of teaching, like the
Brahmanical, was largely oral. Although writing was known, texts
were not committed to writing.
Taxila, the capital of the province of Gandhara in North-
Western India (now in Pakistan) was the most famous Buddhist
seat of learning of this period. It was famous for medicine, law and
military sciences.
The Jatakas refer to the practice of paying fees in the Buddhist
monasteries. Studies were admitted on payment in advance of
their entire teaching fee. The university of Taxila had 1000 pieces
of money as a fixed fee. The poor were allowed to pay in the form
of services to their teachers. The fees paid by the students was not
collected by the individual teacher but went to the
Vihaara.
The Buddhist system produced many learned women although
they were subject to numerous restrictions. The Buddha had
reluctantly allowed women into the order following pressure from
his foster mother and his favourite disciple, Ananda. But nuns
were kept in a state of complete subjugation to monks and there
was strict segregation.
Another type of education developed in the metropolitan
centres during this period. Banaras was a great centre of learning.
The city of Ayodhya, capital of the Kosala kingdom, is said to have
contained schools of Vedic and Puranic learning.
Vocational and technical training, including medical education,
came into vogue during this period. A Pali canonical work narrates
the career of Jivaka, surnamed Kumarabhaccha or "Master of the
Science of Infantile Treatment". Born the son of courtesan at
Rajagriha and brought up by prince Abhaya of Magadha, he was
sent to study medicine at Taxila. He stayed there for seven years
and completed his training by passing a difficult practical test in the
knowledge of medicinal plants. He rose to the position of a court
physician of Bimbisara, King of Magadha, and became famous
throughout the country as a physician and surgeon.
During the period of the Imperial Guptas and their successors,
the old systems of higher education and advanced types of
educational institutions were continued. Among the Buddhist
monastries of the Gupta period, that at Nalanda attained eminence
because of the grandeur of its establishment and its distinguished
alumni. Descriptions of Nalanda are contained in the accounts of
two Chinese Buddhist pilgrims of the seventh country, Hiuen
Tsang and I-tsing. The buildings consisted of eight halls besides
the main college. Nalanda attracted students from abroad but
because of the strict admission test only two or three out of ten
succeeded in getting admission. Besides Nalanda, Vallabhi in
western India was also famous and attracted advanced students
who wanted to complete their education. During the rule of the
Pala kings of eastern India, a fresh group of monasteries - those of
Vikramashila, Somapuri, Jaggadala, and Uddandapuru - rose to
eminence as centres of learning. In the 11th century, the schools of
Kashmir were so famous that they drew scholars from distant
Bengal for higher learning.
Light is thrown upon the training of craftsmen's apprentices by '
smriti writers of the period. When the apprentice had settled with
his preceptor the period of his apprenticeship, the latter was to take
him to his house, train him in his craft and treat him as his son. The
remains of the art and architecture of that period bear testimony to
the high standard achieved by the craftsmen of the day.
The position which women had in Vedic society and in
Buddhist times was eroded by the time of the smritis, around the
beginning of the Christian era. Vedic knowledge was closed to
women whose true function was seen as marriage and care of their
menfolk and children. The marriageble age of girls was
progressively reduced. Women of the upper and richer classes
however enjoyed opportunities for education in the fine arts and
they became poetesses and skilled in painting and music.
QUOTE
A most wonderful thing we notice in India is that here
the forest, not the town, is the fountain-head of all its
civilisation. Wherever in India its earliest and most
wonderful manifestations are noticed, we find that men
have not come into such close contact as to be rolled or fused
into a compact mass. There, trees and plants, rivers and
lakes, had ample opportunity to live in close relationship
with men. In these forests, though there was human
society, there was enough of open space, of aloofness;
there was no jostling. Still this aloofness did not produce
inertia in the human mind, rather it rendered it all the
brighter. It is the forest that has nurtured the two great
sages of India - the Vedic and the Buddhist. Lord Buddha
also showed his teaching in the many woods of India. The
current of civilisation that flowed from its forests inundated
the whole of India.
Rabindranath Tagore quoted in
"Ancient Indian Education"
by Radha Kumud Mookerji.