Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

EDUCATION

In South India, there were Buddhist centres of learning at Kan- chipuram (Tamil Nadu) and Nagarjunakonda (Andhra Pradesh) and Jain centres at Tirupparutta Kunram (near Kanchipuram) and Pataliputra (South-East Arcot). Later Brahmanical and Virashaiva maths became centres of learning during the Pallava and Chola periods. Tiruvorriyur in Tamil Nadu, an important centre of Shaivism, became a centre of higher learning. The special features of these famous centres were : 1) Payment of fees, for example, the entire fees of 1000 pieces of money was to be paid in advance at Taxila 2) Democratic pattern of institu- tional administration 3) Gradation of staff (like the modern lectur- ers and professors) 4) Diverse courses from philosophy to politics and commerce 5) Tutorial system 6) Evaluation system 7) Large numbers of students and teachers (at one time, Nalanda is reported to have had more than 8000 students and 1500 teachers.) During the Buddhist period women's education was not en- couraged. Buddha himself reluctantly allowed selected women to become nuns who received education. But nuns were kept segre- gated from monks ( bhikshus ) and they could teach only girls in nunneries. Hence we get no names of outstanding women schol- ars. The Brahmanical revival in the early middle ages dealt a severe blow to Buddhist educational institutions like Nalanda and Taxila. But in the wake of the coming of the Arabs and the Turks and the establishment of the madrasa the Brahmanical institutions failed to give a positive thrust to the indigenous education pattern. Scholars retreated into shells where they struggled to keep up the purity of ancient lore. Old religious texts, literature and language became the focus of study in the pathshala, along with discourses on ancient philosophy, astronomy and mathematics. A prominent centre of higher education in medieval times was Banaras where Vedanta, Sanskrit literature and grammar were taught as well as philosophy, medicine, astronomy and geography. Other centres were Mithila in north Bihar and Nadia in Bengal. With the establishment of Muslim rule in the north, the madrasas emerged as the centre of higher learning. The first madrasas were established by Muhammad Ghori. The later sul- tans established several madrasas and during the reign of Muham- med bin Tughlaq there were nearly one thousand madrasas in Delhi alone. Regional madrasas were established in the Deccan in Gulbarga, Bidar, Bijapur, Ahmednagar and Golconda as these cities became regional political centres. The Mughal rulers showed a greater interest in higher education. Akbar's reign (1556-1605) marks a new epoch in the madrasa system of education. Akbar wanted to promote the education of Hindus and Muslims alike. They were encouraged to study in the same madrasas. He also introduced changes in the modes of study and in the curriculum. During the first two centuries of Muslim rule the madrasa syl- labus was theology-oriented. In the 15th century during the reign of the Lodhis when the Hindus, together with the Muslims were officially encouraged to be trained therein, there was a change of emphasis in the syllabus. In the early 16th century the madrasa syllabus comprised grammar, literature, logic, jurisprudence, commentaries on the Quran and mysticism. Akbar tried to dilute the theology content of the syllabus. History, civics and politics, ethics, accounts and arithmetic, logic, philosophy, geometry, as- tronomy, medicine and physiognomy were added. The medium of instruction in the madrasas was Persian. Persian courses were

popular with both the Hindu and Muslim middle classes as it pro- vided them a passport to government jobs. Most of the texts prescribed for higher studies were in Arabic. A major achievement of medieval intellectuals and scholars was their success in creating an atmosphere in which people learnt to live together despite occasional disharmony and conflicts. There was a positive interaction between the Hindu Bhakti movement and the Islamic sufi movement, between ancient Indian temple architecture and the Islamic architecture between the native craft work skills of India and the intricate craft work of Muslims from the west. There began a kind of co-existence, if not a synthesis, in which mutual respect and goodwill thrived in the midst of occa- sional conflicts between the ruling Muslims and the native reli- gious scholars. More importantly, the development of trade guilds and art centres of excellence, unmatched even today is the high- light of the contribution of Muslim rule in India. When the East India Company acquired territories in India, they left the Indian system of education undisturbed and respected the endowments made by the Indian rulers. Warren Hastings en- couraged the revival of Indian learning and established the Calcutta Madrasa in 1781. Sir William Jones, who arrived in Calcutta in 1784, was a pioneer of Asian studies, an Orientalist, who favoured education through Persian and Sanskrit. He founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta. William Jones praised Persian and eloquently stated the cultural and practical reasons why English- men should master it: "The Persian language is rich, melodious and elegant; it has been spoken for many ages by the greatest princes in the politest courts of Asia and a number of admirable works have been written in it by historians, philosophers and poets, who found it capable of expressing with equal advantages the most beautiful and elevated sentiments." He also praised Sanskrit for its "won- derful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either." William Jones became well versed in Sanskrit and threw fresh light on the antiquity of the Indian zodiac, the lunar year of the Hindus, the Hindu chronology etc. He prepared a catalogue of Indian plants with their names both in Sanskrit and Linnaean generic nomenclature. He died at the early age of 48 in 1794. During his short stay of 10 years in India he built the Asiatic Society into a prestigious institution. In 1791 Jonathan Duncan, the. Resident at Benaras, opened the Hindu College with the object of educating the Hindus in their own language by prescribing courses in theology, medicine, music, me- chanics, arts, grammar, mathematics, history, philosophy, law and literature. In 1792-93 when the House of Commons debated the renewal of the Charter of the East India Company, Wilberforce advocated the sending of schoolmasters and missionaries to India. This was opposed and it was maintained that the Hindus had "as good a system of faith and morals as most people." It was pointed out that it would be inadvisable to give them any kind of learning other than what they possessed. After a few years, Charles Grant, one of the Directors of the East India Company, submitted a memorandum in which he lamented the low moral condition of the people of India. He asked the Company to improve their condition by imparting to them a knowledge of the English language which was to serve "as a key which will open to them a world of new ideas."