Eternal India Encyclopedia

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 The Brahmanical system of education based in the home of the individual teacher was superseded by the monasteries with the emergence of the Buddhist system.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. 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 QUOTE A most wonderful thing we notice in India is that here

"Ancient Indian Education" by Radha Kumud Mookerji.