The Colas c32.5
The Cōḷas c32.5
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c32.5.1
Higher education was generally denominational in character and pursued in schools and colleges attached to *maṭhas* and temples. The *maṭha*, the *paḷḷi* and the *vihāra* were centres of learning which often owned large libraries and transmitted by successive copyings a vast mass of manuscript literature on a variety of topics which increased in volume and diversity from generation to generation. Besides numberless little endowments for the pursuit of particular branches of study, like the Mīmāmsā of Prabhākara,⁵ and grammar (Vyākaraṇa),⁶ under the guidance of individual teachers, there were in existence colleges for general higher education, which provided instruction in various branches of study and comprised a large number of teachers and pupils commanding all the facilities for intellectual intercourse provided by a common life in the same place, if not also under the same roof. Even these large institutions were fully endowed and all the places in these colleges were free places filled by the most deserving pupils chosen from a group of competitors for admission to each course of study. These mediaeval South Indian colleges have not had the advantage of a full description from the pen of a curious and observant foreigner like I-tsing, or of having been buried underground for centuries and then suddenly revealed by the spade of the excavator.
c32.5.2
But contemporary inscriptions bear eloquent testimony to the great work done in their day by some of these Hindu centres of higher learning and the extent to which they enlisted the sympathy and appreciation of a thoughtful and generous public. The existence of a Vedic school, Chandoga-kiḍaippuram, endowed by a member of the village executive (*āḷungaṇam*) of Kāmappullur (Kāppalur, N. Arcot) with land he bought from the *sabhā*, is attested by two inscriptions of the reigns of Parāntaka I and Sundara Cōḷa. About A.D. 999, the Mahāsabhā of Āniyūr (now Ānūr, Chingleput Dt.) provided a *bhaṭṭavṛtti* for the teaching of Veda, grammar (*Aṣṭādhyāyī*) and other subjects. The *bhaṭṭa*, it was laid down, must be well-versed in the Vedas and should be able to teach Pāṇini-vyākaraṇa, the Alaṅkāra, and the twenty-chapters of the Mīmāṁsā. He was not only to teach his pupils but also feed them. The mention of twenty chapters of Mīmāṁsā is notable; we have now only sixteen, the rest are believed to have been lost, but were still current in the reign of Rājarāja I.
c32.5.3
In the reign of Rājēndra I, the *sabhā* of Rājarājacaturvēdimaṅgalam (Eṇṇāyiram), in South Arcot, resolved in the presence of an officer of the king's government, to arrange for the feeding of the pupils and the remuneration of the teachers of a college in accordance with the terms of an order made by the king himself.⁷ From the words of the inscription it is not easy to say whether the college was founded on this occasion, or had been in existence for some time before Rājēndra came forward to give it such splendid support. However that may be, the details recorded in the inscription give an accurate idea of the strength of the college, the popularity of the different courses, the relative esteem in which teachers of different subjects were held in so far as this may be judged from their respective salaries, and the average cost of maintaining pupils of different grades. The provision in this record contemplates 270 junior students and 70 senior students and a teaching staff of 14 persons. Among the junior students, Brahmacāris, forty studied the elements of grammar according to the *Rūpāvatāra*, and the rest were learning the Vedas by rote—75 devoting themselves to the Ṛg- and 75 to the Yajur-veda, twenty to each of the Vājasanēya-, and the Chandōgā- and Talavakāra- sāmas, ten to the Atharva-Vēda and the remaining ten to the Baudāyana-*gṛhya*, -*kalpa*, and *gaṇa*. Each of these junior pupils was allowed six *nāḷis* of paddy per diem.
c32.5.4
The seventy senior pupils (*chātras*) had an allowance of ten *nāḷis* each, and were studying three advanced subjects—Vyākaraṇa 25, Prābhākara Mīmāṁsā 35 and the Vēdānta 10. It will be noticed that, in the courses of study, while all the four Vedas are represented, there is only one *sūtra* of Ṛgveda. The use of the *Rūpāvatāra* as an introduction to the elements of Sanskrit grammar in Rājēndra's reign,⁸ the popularity of the Mīmāmsā of Prabhākara almost to the exclusion of the Bhāṭṭa school, and, if the whole college was a Vaiṣṇava institution, as most probably it was, the mention of Vēdānta of the Viśiṣṭādvaita school as a subject of study long before the great Bhāṣya of Rāmānuja came into existence, should also be noted as of particular significance to the history of Sanskrit learning in South India. Among teachers, the largest daily allowance in grain of one *kalam* and a third went to the professor of Vēdānta; the *nambis* who taught the Mīmāmsā and Vyākaraṇa came next, getting one *kalam* each. All the others were on the same level receiving only three *kurunis* or a fourth of a *kalam* *per diem*.
c32.5.5
Besides these daily allowances of grain, all the teachers and *chātras* (senior pupils) except the professor of Vēdānta got other allowances in gold—at the rate of one *kaḻañju* per *adhyāya* taught in the case of Vyākaraṇa and Mīmāmsā teachers, entitling them to 8 *kaḻañjus* and 12 *kaḻañjus* respectively for a whole course, and a half *kaḻañju* per head *per annum* for all the rest. To make money by teaching Vēdānta was prohibited by law and custom, and this, apparently, was the reason why no payment in gold was offered to the teacher of Vēdānta. Another college, quite similar to that at Eṇṇāyiram, was maintained at Tribhuvani, near Pondicherry.⁹ There were in it 260 students