A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c18.20

c18.20

Sanskrit learning tended to be the monopoly of Brahmins, though there were exceptions, and it was particularly encouraged by means of large special endowments. Sometimes only four, and sometimes as many as fourteen or eighteen subjects of study were enumerated. The four subjects were: philosophy (*ānvikshikī*), Veda (*trayī*), economics (*vārttā*), and politics (*daṇḍanīti*)—a group which was particularly suited to kings and which in fact first occurs in Kautilya’s *Arthaśāstra*. The fourteen *vidyās* were: the four *Vedas*; six *angas* (auxiliaries)—phonetics, prosody, grammar, etymology (of difficult words), astronomy and ritual; *purāṇa*; logic (*tarka*); exegesis (*mīmāṃsā*); and law (*dharmaśāstra*). To these were added *āyurveda* (medicine), *dhanurveda* (archery), *gāndharvaveda* (Music) and *arthaśāstra* (politics) to make up the tale of eighteen. Brahmins learned in many of these sciences served as *Rājagurus* (teachers of kings) and spread themselves all over the land edifying the lives of the inhabitants of every town and village. Gifts of land and houses were frequently offered as inducements to Brahmins to come and settle where they were wanted. In several places they were organized into corporate colleges called *brahmapurīs* and *ghaṭikās*, like the *brahmapurī* at Belgaum or the *ghaṭikā* at Kāñchi. A Vaishnava *maṭha* and its scholars are mentioned in an inscription of Nripatunga’s reign from Kāveripākkam. Another record of the same monarch proves the flourishing condition of a college at Bāhūr, near Pondicherry, where the fourteen *vidyās* were pursued. At Salatgi was another eminent college to which pupils came from different *Janapadas* (countries) and whose *vidyārthisangha* was richly endowed in 945 by Nārāyaṇa, the minister of Krishna III, with the revenues of houses, land, and levies on marriages and other ceremonies. We also hear (1058) of a *ghaṭikā* at Nāgai with ample provision for 200 Veda students, 50 students of the *śāstras*, three teachers of the Vedas, and three teachers of the *śāstras*—one each for Bhāṭṭa, Prābhākara-mīmāṃsā and Nyāya —besides a librarian who brings up the strength to 257 in all. At Ennāyiram in South Arcot the Chola Rājendra I endowed a large college of (1) 270 junior students of whom 40 studied the elements of grammar according to the Rūpāvatāra, 10 studied the sūtras of Bodhāyana, and the rest learnt the Vedas by rote; (2) 70 senior students, 10 studying vedānta, 25 vyākaraṇa, and the rest Prābhākara-mīmāmsā; and (3) a teaching staff of 14. In another college, in the same neighbourhood at Tribhuvani, there were 260 students and 12 teachers. Full details have been preserved of the food and residence of the pupils of a smaller institution at Tirumukkūdal in Chingleput district in an inscription of the reign of Virarājendra (1067) which also gives equally interesting details about the stock of medicines maintained in a good-sized hospital in the same place. A medical school at Tiruvāḍutuṛai where the Aṣṭāngahridaya and Caraka Samhitā were taught, and a school for the study of Pāṇini's grammar at Tiruvoṛṛiyūr, may also be noted. The study of Law and Astronomy found special encouragement from the Yādavas of Devagiri. Education and learning continued to receive generous support from the Rāyas of Vijayanagar and their numerous feudatories. The Bāhmani kingdom and its successors naturally devoted more attention to Muslim education and Islamic studies, in such large and well-equipped colleges as the one at Bidar, established by the celebrated minister Mahmud Gawan.