Education in Ancient India c4.49

c4.49

Vedic Age believed more in Nurture: As may be expected, there is no unanimity of views among ancient Indian thinkers also about the relative importance of nature and nurture. A young people, fortunate to have a series of successes, naturally feel that there is nothing impossible or difficult for man. Vedic Aryans belonged to this category and their age therefore did not much believe in heredity or natural endowments. This is emphatically expressed in one of the hymns of the Atharvaveda, where we are told that given proper education, everything can be accomplished. Even Indra owes his supremacy among the gods not to any penance or previous merit, but to his proper training during his studenthood.¹ A few centuries later we find a patriarch praying that some of his sons should become good priests, others brave warriors and the rest successful merchants (S.Br.,X.4.1.10). Obviously he did not much believe in heredity and held that a good deal depended upon proper training and education.