Education in Ancient India c12.4

c12.4

Introduction : In the course of our narrative so far we have finished the history of the origin and development of the different branches of education in ancient India. We devoted separate chapters to topics like primary education, professional education, educational institutions, etc., and the treatment in each of them must have enabled the reader to visualise clearly the development and vicissitudes that took place in their connection from age to age. We also indicated at each place the contribution that Buddhism made to the development of education in ancient India. For a proper understanding of the subject it is however desirable that the reader should get a clear picture of the educational conditions as a whole in the successive periods of ancient Indian history, as also of the contribution which the Buddhism made to educational theory and practice. We therefore propose to devote the present chapter for this purpose. Its first section will give a general resume of the contribution of the Buddhism to ancient Indian education and the second section will provide a bird's eye view of the general condition of education in the successive periods of Indian history.