Education in Ancient India c12.s2.t4: The Age of the Purāṇas and Nibandhas (c. 500 A. D.—1200 A. D.)
Education in Ancient India c12.s2.t4
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The Age of the Purāṇas and Nibandhas (c. 500 A. D.—1200 A. D.)
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Educational Achievements of the Age :—India continued to enjoy the reputation of an international centre of education during this period also. Down to c. 900 A. D. Tibetan and Chinese students continued to flock in her eastern Universities, and her doctors used to be summoned in Western Asia for curing royal patients and organising state hospitals. Education had not become mere book learning; Indian teachers excited admiration of foreign students by their remarkable powers of explanation and exposition. Graduates of this period were remarkable for their logical acumen and mastery in Sanskrit, though the latter was no longer the spoken tongue. Facilities for free higher education continued to be ample; if with the decline of Buddhism the number of monastic colleges decreased, the loss was more than compensated by the rise of numerous temple colleges. Brahmacharya discipline no doubt became nominal owing to early marriages; even married students, however, showed commendable perseverance in pursuing protracted courses of studies. Poor students continued to maintain themselves by begging if necessary; the number of teachers eager to follow the high code of the profession, which enjoined free tuition, still continued to be very large. Society's earnestness for education was thus remarkable.
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Educational Defects of the Age :—Though thus higher education continued to prosper, the education of the masses suffered during this period. Upanayana now completely disappeared from Kshatriyas and Vaishyas; this gave a serious blow to their cultural and literary education, reduced the percentage of literacy among them and made their education very narrow. Useful arts and professions began to be regarded as plebian and were boycotted by the higher sections of Brahmanas; as the services of the best intellect in society were no longer available for the development of arts and crafts, they ceased to make any progress worth the name. Growing orthodoxy of the age disapproved of dissection and condemned the pursuit of agriculture on the ground that it involved killing of insects at the time of ploughing. Medical education in the course of time became less efficient; surgery went out of vogue and agriculture became a neglected and plebian profession. The marriageable age of girls was further lowered during this period; girls were ordinarily married at the age of 10 or 11. This naturally gave a death blow to the female education. A few ladies no doubt appear as poetesses during this period; they were however exceptions rather than the rule. Education could not reach the masses as the medium of higher instruction was Sanskrit, which was no longer the spoken tongue. No serious or concerted effort was made to develop literature in vernaculars in order to facilitate the infiltration of knowledge to the masses. In the sphere of higher education specialisation was carried to too great an extreme; the logician, the mathematician and the rhetorist, for instance, did not possess much knowledge of the problems and achievements of one another. The preservation of ancient literature and culture was the main concern of the educational system; it was unable to produce many scholars who could substantially enrich it. The creative vein in the Hindu intellect could still be seen in the realm of poetics and to a less extent, in those of philosophy, literature and astronomy. It was however quite feeble, compared to its strength and achievements in the preceding ages. The situation deteriorated further by the growing self-conceitedness of the scholars of the age and their refusal to benefit by the knowledge and experience of outsiders. They had no longer a free, open and enquiring mind; they would refuse to accept what was not in consonance with the views of sacred scriptures. This stood in the way of progress in sciences like astronomy and medicine, history and geography. During the medieval times great importance was attached by Indian Pandits, as by Jesuitical scholars, to the cleverness and skill in mere wordy warfare; a person was hailed as a great scholar if he could perceive distinctions where none existed and silence his opponent by a brilliant display of the resources of a well trained memory. Depth of scholarship thus often went unrecognised and shallow and unscrupulous debators could often pose as great scholars. The general state of affairs regarding education further deteriorated during the period 1200-1800 A. D. owing to the growing impoverishment of Hindu society and the withdrawal of active state encouragement to its educational system during the period of Muslim ascendancy.