Education in Ancient India c4.42

c4.42

The Importance of the Family, Pre-birth Period: Association and imitation begin to influence the student not only from the time of his joining a school or Gurukula, but from his early childhood; ancient Indians therefore attached great importance to the family in their scheme of education. They held that the child begins to receive influences that mould its character and determine its efficiency right from the time of its conception. If Prahlāda became a deep devotee and Abhimanyu a skilful warrior, the reason was the influence indirectly exercised upon them by Nārada and Kṛṣṇa respectively, when they were still to be heralded in this world. It was believed that the impressions, which would be conveyed on the mind of the expectant mother, would be automatically transmitted to the mind of the child to be born. The mother therefore was advised to devote herself to the study and contemplation of the achievements and biographies of great national heroes and heroines, so that she may herself get a child that may be a worthy successor of theirs.