Education in Ancient India c13.s1.27

c13.s1.27

The neglect of Vernaculars : Hindu educational system was unable to promote the education of the masses; probably because of its concentration on Sanskrit and the neglect of the vernaculars. The revival of Sanskrit that took place early in the first millennium was undoubtedly productive of much good; it immensely enriched the different branches of Sanskrit literature which began to reflect the ideals and ideas of the individual and the race. But owing to the deep fascination for Sanskrit, society began to identify the educated man with the classical scholar as was the case in the Europe of the Renaissance period. But when the best minds became engaged in expressing their thoughts in Sanskrit, Prakrits were naturally neglected. As long as Sanskrit was intelligible to the ordinary individual, this was not productive of much harm. But from about the 8th century A.D. Prakrits and vernaculars became widely differentiated from Sanskrit, and those who were using them began to find it difficult to understand the latter language. Hindu educationalists did not realise the importance of developing vernacular literatures in the interest of the man in the street. Alberuni observes, "The language in India is divided into a *neglected vernacular one*, only in use among the common people, and a classical one, only in use among the upper and educated classes, which is much cultivated." ¹ We no doubt come across a few cases from the 13th century onwards where provision was made for the teaching of Telugu, Canarese and Marathi in some of the schools and colleges of South India, but the general impression produced by a survey of the educational system and institutions is that society was not alive to the importance of the teaching and development of vernaculars in the interest of the spread of education among the masses. Things in India were however quite on a par with what they were in contemporary Europe, where Latin continued to be the medium of instruction down to the 17th century A.D. The classics dominated the curriculum of the Public Schools in England down to *c.* 1850 A.D., boys could write better Latin than English. In the 16th century school boys were punished for using the mother tongue, and its study could be started in Jesuitical schools only with the special permission of the Provincial.¹ India however could have been much in advance of the world ideas in this matter if the impetus that was given to the cultivation of vernaculars by the two gifted Seers, Mahāvīra and the Buddha, had not died down owing to the revival of Sanskrit.