Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c6.s2.45

c6.s2.45

STUDY HOURS. The study hour seems to have commenced very early in the morning, when the boys were roused from their sleep by the crowing of a cock. The cock, it seems, was domesticated in every school to serve as a clock. It was a necessity. Once, when the trained cock died, the students brought a second one which, however, had been bred in a cemetery, and had no knowledge of times and seasons, and used to crow casually—at midnight as well as at daybreak. Roused by his crowing at midnight, the young Brāhmaṇas fell to their studies; by dawn they were tired out and could not for sleepiness keep their attention on the subject already learnt (gahitatthānamapi); and when he fell acrowing in broad day, they did not get a chance of quiet for repeating their lessons (sajjhāya). And, as it was the cock's crowing both at midnight and by day which had brought their studies to a standstill, they took the bird and wrung his neck.⁶ This passage shows that there were certain hours for private study, when the students repeated new lessons and revised the old ones. The two things had probably to be finished before noon.