Education in Ancient India c4.58

c4.58

The Influence of the Caste System: The caste system has been an important feature of Hindu society for a long time and has naturally exercised considerable influence on the theory and practice of education in ancient India. Let us try to find out its extent. It is usually held that it had rigidly determined the professions and made the teaching line a monopoly of the Brahmanas. We shall however find that Kshatriya teachers of Vedic and philosophical subjects existed down the 6th century B. C. and that the keen intellect of the Brahmana community was for a long time utilised to further the bounds of human knowledge in several branches of non-Vedic studies. It was only in later times that religious and literary education came to be confined to the Brahmanas and professional and industrial training to non-Brahmanas.