History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c24.s1.363

v2.c24.s1.363

Another striking feature of the ancient educational system was the total absence of any prior agreement about fees for teaching students. So early as Bṛ. Up. IV. 1. 2 we find Yājñavalkya saying to king Janaka who offered to give him a thousand cows, an elephant and a bull (or as Śaṁkara explains an elephant-like bull), 'my father was of opinion that without fully teaching a pupil one should not receive any reward from him'.⁸⁷⁶ Gaut.⁸⁷⁷ (II. 54-55) says that at the end of his studies the student should request the teacher to accept the wealth that he could offer or ask the teacher what should be given and after paying or doing what the teacher wants or if the teacher allowed him to go without demanding anything, the student should take the ceremonial bath (i. e. return home). The Āśv. gṛ. (III. 9. 4) has almost the same words. The Āp. Dh. S.⁸⁷⁸ (1. 2. 7. 19-23) requires the student to offer at the end of his studies, whatever their extent may be, a dakṣiṇā obtained from proper sources to his teacher according to his abilities and that if the teacher is in straightened circumstances, to offer him a fee even by begging from a person who is of the *ugra* caste or from a śūdra and that after offering a fee or doing even a very strikingly good turn to his teacher he should not boast of it to others nor should he ever dwell in his mind over it. The ideal was that the dakṣiṇā (fee) offered to the teacher at the end of study was simply for pleasing or propitiating the teacher and was not a complete equivalent of or compensation for the knowledge imparted. Manu (II. 245-246) says that the student need not give anything to the teacher till his snāna; when he is about to return home, he may offer to his guru some wealth; that the gift of a field, gold, a cow, or a horse, of even shoes or an umbrella, of a seat, corn, vegetables and clothes (either singly or together) may engender pleasure in the teacher. The Chān. Up.⁸⁷⁹ III. 11. 6 eulogises brahmavidyā by declaring it to be more valuable than the gift of the whole earth together with all its wealth. The smṛtis⁸⁸⁰ declare that even if the guru teaches a single letter to the pupil, there is nothing in this world by giving which the pupil can get rid of the debt he owes. The Mahābhārata says (Āśvamedhika 56. 21) that the teacher's satisfaction with the student's work and conduct is indeed the proper dakṣiṇā.⁸⁸¹ Yāj. I. 51 says that one should give to his teacher what he chooses to ask as dakṣiṇā and Kātyāyana⁸⁸² quoted by Aparārka (p. 76) prescribes that a brāhmaṇa pupil may give a cow, a princely one a village, a vaiśya a horse (if able to do so). It has been shown above (p. 355) how kings and others made gifts of lands or provided for salaries to teachers. One of the earliest record about university scholarships is contained in the Bahur (near Pondichery) plates of Nṛpatuṅgavarman in which we find a grant to a Vidyāsthāna (a seat of learning) for promotion of learning (E. I. vol. 18 p. 5). In E. I. vol. 15 p. 83 there is provision of 30 *mattars* of land for professors lecturing to ascetics and of eight *mattars* to teachers giving lessons to the youths in a monastery (in the times of Cālukya Someśvara I at Sūdi in Dharwar District in śake 981). The Peshwa distributed to learned brāhmaṇas every year dakṣiṇā which rose to 4 lakhs of rupees a short time before 1818 A. D. It may be stated that even in the 20th century there are numerous brāhmaṇa teachers of the veda and the śāstras who teach pupils for years without stipulating for any fee or even receiving anything from them.