Education in Ancient India c5.74

c5.74

How far was the Rule to Beg Followed: There is clear evidence to show that Smritis themselves did not expect the rule of begging to be literally followed by all students, both rich and poor. They have laid down a penance, only if the student did not beg at least once in the week.⁴ This shows that the rule of begging was a mere formality in the case of rich students and a reality only in the case of the poor ones.⁵ When circumstances permitted, Smṛitis have allowed students to take their food in the house of their preceptors.¹ Well-to-do students at Taxila were generally living and boarding at their teachers' houses. In richly endowed colleges like those at Nālandā, Salotgi and Ennāyiram, arrangements were made by the college administration for the free boarding of students from generous endowments received for the purpose; begging food was not necessary at these places. Sometimes, as at Benares for instance, such arrangements were independently made by rich citizens of the locality.² Begging food was not necessary at such places. The Chinese pilgrim Yuan Chwang attributes the fame of Indian scholars for deep scholarship to the circumstance that students in India have not to worry about their food, clothing and medicines.³ It will be thus seen that begging was elevated into a duty for the student, primarily for the purpose of bringing education within the reach of the poorest, and secondarily for removing the superiority complex from the mind of rich students: he was the ideal student who lived by begging and not he who lived on his family's support. The rule was not intended to be literally followed by all students every day.