Education in Ancient India c13.s1.33

c13.s1.33

An unfair Comparison: Some of the defects noted above like the neglect of the education of women and the masses crept into the Hindu Educational System only in later times; others like the non-existence of a broad-based secondary course and the neglect of the vernaculars were common to all the contemporary systems. The twentieth century critic often forgets that the West has gone on progressing rapidly during the last 300 years owing to the impetus it has received from the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Scientific Movement, while India has gone on deteriorating ever since 1000 A.D. owing to the almost continuous foreign rule and its natural consequences. The Muslim conquerors no doubt became domiciled in India, but they were on the whole unable to appreciate and encourage Hindu culture and education to any appreciable extent. The effects of the Muslim rule on the learning and scholarship of the Hindus can be described in the words of a Muslim himself. While describing the state of Hindu learning after the invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni, Alberuni observes, ‘The present times are not of this kind; they are the very opposite, (because there is no royal support or encouragement to learning), and therefore it is quite impossible that a new science or any new kind of research should arise in our days. What we have of sciences is but the scanty remains of bygone better times’² Bernier, while describing the state of Hindu education in Benares towards the middle of the 17th century, observes,¹ “Students stay for ten or twelve years during which the work of instruction proceeds but slowly. Feeling no spirit of emulation and entertaining no hope that honour or emoluments may be the reward of extraordinary attainments as with us, the scholars pursue the studies slowly, without much to distract their attention.” The Report of the Bengal Provincial Committee, Education Commission, 1882, observes, ‘The Mahomaden conquest proved disastrous to all indigenous educational institutions.. The proprietary rights in land changed hands. The language of the court was changed. Indigenous learning lost most of its support; and after the classes had settled down, the well-to-do classes of the Hindus took gradually to the cultivation of foreign language, literature and manners. The tols were more and more deserted and left to those only, who wanted to learn the Hindu rituals. In course of time the Musalman teachers and schools drew off the largest portion of the upper and the middle classes of the community and the tols and the pathasalas either died or barely managed to survive.’²