Local Government in Ancient India c9.85

c9.85

In the Pāli literature we have many references to apprenticeship but hardly to any terms or conditions regarding the same as we have, for instance, in the *Nārada-smṛti*. The *Vinaya*, for instance, gives elaborate rules regulating the duties of the *saddhivihārika* (pupil) towards his *upajjhāya*, of an *antevāsika*, and vice versa, and also rules regulating the *nissaya* or relation between teacher and pupil, and the conditions determining its admissibility or cessation. But these rules relate only to the education in the sacred lore, religion, and humanities, and not to the training in the crafts with which we are concerned. The apprentice in the industrial sense indeed appears frequently in the Jātaka but no terms or period or other conditions of pupilage are given. Thus in *Jāt.* no. 97 we have a publican and his apprentice, while in *Jāt.* no. 531, the *Kusa-Jātaka*, as we have already seen, a prince apprentices himself to a potter, basket-maker, florist, and the royal chef in succession. In *Jāt.* V. 457-9, two princes receive instruction in arts at the hands of the same teacher who had besides 101 other pupils. The senior pupil also acts as an assistant teacher (*piṭṭhiācariya*). The position of a senior pupil to a *mahāvaddhaki* is indicated by Buddhaghosa (*Asl.* 111. 112). We have also instances of fees being paid by apprentices to their teachers (*Jāt.* IV. 224. 225; 38. 39, where two merchants' sons paid 2,000 pieces each to their master as fee).