History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c24.s1.236

v2.c24.s1.236

As the study of the Veda was a duty enjoined upon a brāhmaṇa, so teaching Veda to another was a duty. Medhātīthi on Manu (II. 113) quotes a Vedic text⁷⁹⁵ 'He who having studied the Veda would not teach one who requests him to do so would be one who destroys his own good acts (i. e. would lose the benefit thereof), would shut the door leading to happiness; therefore he should teach; it leads to great glory'. When Satyakāma Jābāla did not teach his pupil Upakosala anything for twelve years, though the latter served assiduously by attending to the sacred fires of the teacher, the teacher's wife remonstrated with the husband by saying 'this student has worked hard and attended the fires, may the fires not censure you and order you to teach him the vidyā he desires' (Chān. Up. IV. 10. 1-2). The Praśna Up.⁷⁹⁶ VI. 1 gives expression to the view that if a teacher keeps back anything he knows he dries up entirely. The Āp. Dh. S. I. 4. 14. 2-3 expressly prescribes 'the teacher whom a student asks for instruction should not refuse him, if he finds no defect in the student.'⁷⁹⁷ Āp. Dh. S. (I. 2. 8. 25-28) lays down certain excellent rules for the teacher 'the teacher, anxious for the welfare of the student as if he were his son, should attentively impart learning to the student without hiding anything from him in all matters of duty; nor should the teacher restrain the student for his own work in such a way as to cause obstacles in his study except in seasons of distress. A teacher becomes no teacher if he avoids giving instruction' (i. e. he may be abandoned). The Droṇaparva (50. 21) says that a pupil comes only after the son according to the idea of those who know dharma. If a teacher does not teach a pupil anything even after his pupil has stayed with him for a year, the former receives all the sins of the pupil. A teacher⁷⁹⁸ who did not teach or was sinful was to be abandoned. Similarly a teacher, who became puffed up, did not care for what should or should not be done and took to a sinful path was to be abandoned.⁷⁹⁹ Āp. I. 1. 1. 13 lays down that a student must stay with his teacher who performs his upanayana till he completes his study, unless the teacher himself swerved from the path of dharma and became a sinner and (I. 2. 7. 26) that if the teacher cannot teach the subject, the pupil may resort to another teacher.