Education in Ancient India c11.s1.22

c11.s1.22

How Girls were educated: Let us now try to find out the agencies for imparting female education during this period. We have already seen that for a long time family was the only educational institution, and even boys used to receive education only from their fathers, uncles or other elders. The same naturally was the case with girls. When however later Smṛitis like Yama³ lay down that none but near relations should teach girl students, they are probably referring to a state of affairs current by about the beginning of the Christian era; for there is evidence to show that such was not the case in the earlier period. When a large number of women were receiving higher education and were making their own contributions to the march of knowledge, it is but natural to suppose that some of them must have followed the profession of teaching. And the presence of the terms *Upādhyāyā* and *Upādhyāyānī* in Sanskrit language supports this conjecture. The latter of these words is a courtesy title given to the wife of a teacher, who may or may not be educated. The former, however, denotes a lady, who was herself a teacher. That a special term should have been coined to denote lady teachers in order to distinguish them from wives of teachers would show that their number in society could not have been small. We must note in this connection that there was no Purdah custom in Hindu society down to the 12th century, and so there was no difficulty for women in taking to the teaching profession. Lady teachers may probably have confined themselves to the teaching of girl students, though some may have taught boys also. Pāṇini refers to boarding houses for lady-students, *chhātrīsālās*², and these probably were under the superintendence of *Upādhyāyās* or lady teachers, who had made teaching their profession. Unfortunately we have no clear and sufficient evidence about the activities of lady teachers and the management of girls' boardings.