Education in Ancient India c5.35

c5.35

Income of the Teacher in Later Period: We however get more definite data about the teacher’s income from the time educational institutions were evolved. Teachers at Buddhist Universities of Nālandā and Vikramaśilā were monks and so required no salaries; the administration had to spend for each monk-teacher just the amount necessary for the maintenance of only four students.¹ In south Indian colleges the annual salary of teachers varied according to their qualifications and subjects from 160 to 200 maunds of rice.² This income was about two and half times the income of the village accountant or the carpenter, and was equal to about four times the amount necessary for meeting the normal food expenses of a family of five persons. We would not be wrong in supposing that as a general rule in ancient India the Sanskrit teacher imparting higher education received a similar income. He was thus neither suffering from abject poverty nor rolling in superfluous wealth. Society enabled him to lead a life of moderate comforts according to the ideal of plain living and high thinking. We can now understand why learned teachers were exempted from taxation. The income of the primary teacher was naturally less than that of the Sanskrit teacher. In Bengal at the advent of the British rule, the income of the primary teacher was just equal to that of the patwari, who collected the village revenue or the amin, who settled village disputes on behalf of Zemindar.¹ Probably the same was the case during the ancient Indian period. This income however was not in the form of a fixed salary, but had to be collected in the form of voluntary and irregular subscriptions from the villagers and guardians.