Hindu Administrative Institutions c8.s1.19

c8.s1.19

The prince was expected to finish his higher studies by the end of the sixteenth year when he was legally allowed to enter the *gṛhasthāśrama*. There is evidence to show that education was not at home but at a public place where teachers were available. Away from their parents and deprived of a life of luxury at the palace, they cultivated the regular habits of mind and body. The result was something invaluable. It nurtured in time the virtue of discipline (*vidyāvinīta*). If all his studies could not advance him in the direction of this higher quality of discipline, woe to such studies! It was a practical and moral education that ancient India gave to her young.² Even though the prince had completed the student's course and got married, he was not placed in independent situations. A period of apprenticeship as a subordinate to an administrative head was to be gone through.³ After he was declared competent and worthy of occupying an independent position, he was appointed to responsible posts like the general-in-chief of an army, governor of a province, or consecrated as an heir-apparent.⁴