Education in Ancient India c5.53

c5.53

Public educational institutions, where teachers used to teach students admitted by the managing body, were not many in ancient India. The relations between the teacher and the student were therefore direct and not through any institution. The student usually went to such a teacher as attracted his attention by his reputation for character and scholarship; the teacher selected such students as appeared to him sincere, zealous and well-behaved. The student usually lived either under the roof of the teacher or under his direct supervision. The teacher not only did not demand any fee but also helped the poor students in getting food or clothing. He nursed him if he was ill. The student naturally lived as a member of the household of the teacher and helped him in doing the household work if necessary. The teacher on the other hand would not expect this work if the student was a paying boarder and would limit it to the minimum in the case of poor students.¹ Under such circumstances the relations between the teacher and the student were naturally very cordial and intimate; they were united, to quote the words of the Buddha, ‘by mutual reverence, confidence and communion of life’.² Students usually did not desert one teacher for another merely out of freakishness.³ Teachers would often entertain genuine affection for their students and would sometimes select some of them as their sons-in-law. Later authorities have laid it down that a student cannot marry his teacher’s daughter, because she stood in the relation of a sister to him; Kacha refused to marry Devayānī on that account. This rule seems to have been framed to prevent complications likely to arise in practice when young students used to live and board with their teachers. But earlier practice seems to have been different. In Jātakas we come across several cases of teachers marrying their daughters to their