Education in Ancient India c7.s3.26

c7.s3.26

Administration: At the head of the general administration was the abbot-principal, who used to be assisted by two councils, one academic and the other administrative. How these bodies used to function has been already described in the last chapter. To arrange for the free boarding and lodging of so vast a number of students as 5,000 (or perhaps 10,000) was a very costly affair; the University was enabled to do it because different kings had assigned the revenues of a large number of villages for the upkeep of the establishment. The number of these villages was 200 during I-tsing’s stay at the University (c. 675-685 A.D.). Sealings of a number of these villages, obviously attached to letters sent by them to the University administration, have been found in excavations.