Education in Ancient India c5.64

c5.64

The Daily Life of the Student:—Let us now see what was the daily life of the student. Naturally it differed in different courses and we have detailed information only about the religious and literary education. The students taking these courses used to get up early in the morning before birds had begun to stir,⁵ i. e. at about 4-30 A. M. Then they used to attend to morning functions, take their bath and offer their prayers. Vedic students used to spend a good deal of the morning time in performing various morning rituals connected with fire sacrifices; this afforded them practical training in the rituals they were expected to perform in their after-life. Other students contented themselves with their prayers (*sandhyā*) and spent the rest of the morning either in learning new lessons or in revising old ones. At about 11. A. M. this work would come to an end and students used to break off for their meals. Those staying with their teachers or in boarding houses used to get ready meals served out for them; those who were poor used to go out to collect cooked food for their meals. After the noon meal there followed a period of rest of about an hour or so; and teaching started at about 2 P. M. and went on till the evening. We sometimes get references to students spending their evening in collecting sacred fuel for sacrifices (Jātaka No. 150); but this must have been true of Vedic students of the early period only. Evening was probably spent in physical exercises. At sunset they offered usual prayers, attended to fire sacrifices, and then took their supper. Poor students, who had to work by day in the teacher's house or elsewhere, used to spend a considerable part of the night in studies. We should not forget that paper and printing were unknown and books were rare and costly; so there was little of homework possible, except the revision and recapitulation of the lessons learnt in the teacher's presence. Students of sculpture, architecture, painting, smithy and carpentry etc. spent most of the day in the teacher's workshop, learning the details and the technique of the art and trade, and often accompanying and helping the teacher as apprentices in the professional work that he may have undertaken in the town or city. It will be thus seen that the educational system tried to reproduce in the student life the atmosphere and the conditions existing outside in actual life both in the case of religious and industrial students.