Education in Ancient India c6.3

c6.3

Introduction : The history of ancient Indian education extends over several centuries, and so we naturally come across different types of educational organisations in different ages. In the pre-historic period down to about 1000 B. C. the family was the only educational agency both for the literary and professional education : we have already shown in Chap. II how it used to discharge this function. As education began to become more and more complex and exacting, the specialist came into the field in the form of the private teacher. He continued to be in its sole and undisputed possession till about the early centuries of the Christian era, when organised educational institutions came into existence in connection with the Buddhist monasteries. In a few centuries, Hinduism copied the Buddhist example and organised its own temple colleges. Monastic universities and temple colleges were however confined to some famous centres of learning; private teachers still continued to be the main stay of the educational system throughout the moffusil. In medieval times the Mathas of the various religious pontiffs (Āchāryas) used to organise small centres for higher education, which co-operated with the private teacher in rendering the valuable service of keeping the lamp of learning burning in a dark age, when society was often over-whelmed by anarchy, interneceine war and foreign rule.