Local Government in Ancient India c15.18

c15.18

But besides these colleges of instruction for students, the evidence of inscriptions points to the interesting fact that there were public benefactions for the purpose of establishing what may be called colonies of culture and learning, made up of households of genuinely pious and scholarly Brāhmans. No. 99 in vol. II, part V of *South Indian Inscriptions*, gives an interesting account of a gift of a village for the purpose of supporting 308 learned Brāhmans in the pursuit of their sacred avocations of studying and teaching as prescribed in the Śāstras. Regarding the qualifications of this select body of Brāhman scholars, it is stated in the inscription that they had all studied the three Vedas and Smṛtis. The inscription applies to them various learned designations such as Caturvedin, Trivedin, Somayājin, Ṣaḍaṅgavid, Bhaṭṭa, Kramavid (proficient in the Krama-Pāṭha of the *Ṛg-veda*), Sarvakratuyājin, Vājapeyin, &c. A similar gift for establishing a similar colony of 308 Brāhmans is also registered in no. 7 of 1912. No. 277 of 1913 refers to the establishment of another cultured colony of 108 Brāhman families equipped with all the necessaries of life and even with a library called Sarasvatī-Bhāṇḍāra. No. 278 of 1913 registers a similar grant for the same number of Brāhman colonists. The significance of these records is that it was widely and popularly understood and recognized that the cause of learning and culture could be best promoted through a variety of institutions, and not merely through the one usual and prevailing type represented by a school proper meant for the instruction of formal students. It is by means of a liberal endowment of research and support of mature and advanced scholars devoting themselves to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake that the advancement and diffusion of knowledge can be best acccomplished. The idea of establishing colonies of cultured men in specially selected areas away from the distractions of the busy haunts of men, and setting free their mental energy for the exclusive pursuit of knowledge by placing them above all material wants and worries of life, is in accord with the highest academic ideals of the modern age, which even the most progressive peoples of the West are yet far from realizing.