Education in Ancient India c7.s7.t6: Somes Other Temple Colleges
Education in Ancient India c7.s7.t6
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Somes Other Temple Colleges
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Temple Colleges fairly common in south India: We have got somewhat detailed information about the free Sanskrit colleges that were organised in the five temple establishments mentioned above. There are, however, clear indications that there were many more similar temple colleges in the Deccan in the medieval times (c. 900—1400 A. D.). Thus at Hebbal in Dharwar district there existed a Maṭha in Bhuja-bbeśvara temple in the 10th century A. D., which had received an endowment of about two hundred acres of land for giving free tuition and boarding to students. About 200 students must have been receiving free education here.¹ At Nagai in Nizam's dominions, there existed a big temple Sanskrit college in the 11th century where two hunndred students were instructed in Vedic lore, two hundred in Smṛitis, one hundred in epics, and fifty two in philosophy. The library of the institute employed six librarians.² In 1075
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¹ E. I., IV, p. 355.
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² Hyd. Arch.. S., No. 8, p. 7.
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A.D., a temple at Bijapur received a big endowment of about 1200 acres of land for providing food and raiments to ascetics and to the pupils of Yogeśvara Paṇḍita, who was conducting a free Mīmānsā school there.¹ To judge from the endowment, the college of this Paṇḍita must have been much bigger than that at Ennāyiram. At Managoli in Bijapur district, during the latter half of the 12th century, a local temple used to maintain a grammar school where Kaumāra grammar was taught by a teacher, who was given an endowment of 20 acres of land.² At about the same time the Dakṣiṇeśvara temple authorities at Belgamve in Karnatak used to offer free boarding to students studying in the temple school.³ In 1158 A. D. there flourished at Talgund in Shimoga district a small Sanskrit college in the local Prāṇeśvara temple, where free food and education was offered to 48 students, studying the Ṛigveda, the Yajurveda, the Sāmaveda, Prābhākara-Mīmānsā, philosophy (Vedānta), linguistics (Bhāṣā-śāstra) and Canarese. The institution had employed two cooks to manage the kitchen of the boarding house. At Punnavayil in Tanjore District there existed another grammar college, attached to a local temple and endowed with 400 acres of land. As the endowment for the maintenance of this institution was larger than that enjoyed by the Ennāyiram college, it is quite likely that it may have afforded free education and food to about 500 students.⁴ South Indian Inscriptions Nos. 604, 667, 571, and 695 of 1916 record various grants for the salaries of teachers and boarding of students studying in different temple colleges in Tamil country. The last of these records is an interesting one, for it records a donation for a *Sarasvatī-bhavana* or library of a temple college in Tinevelli district. These instances of temple authorities organising Sanskrit schools and colleges are typical of the age. Many more must have existed, whose memory has not been handed down to the present times. For, down to the 18th century almost every religious centre in south India used to maintain a Sanskrit school or college. The whole country was in fact studded with them¹.
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¹ I. A., X, pp. 129-31.
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² E. I., V, p. 22.
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³ E. C., L. No. 45.
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⁴ S. I. E. R. for 1918, pp. 109-110.
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¹ Report of the Madras Committee, Education Commission, 1882, p. 1, foot-note.
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Temple colleges in northern India : Instances of temple colleges given above all hail from South India. It is not however correct to suppose that no such institutions existed in north India, because they are not referred to in any north Indian inscriptions. A very large number of north Indian temples have been destroyed, along with their documents of antiquity, during the Muslim invasions and rule. If all the documents conveying extensive properties to most of the rich temples in north India are recovered, it would be almost certainly found that a considerable portion of the temple property was originally intended for educational purposes. Temple authorities used to discharge their duty to impart education; one of the reasons that impelled Aurangzeb to destroy Hindu temples was the report that Brahmanas of Sindh, Multan and Benares were using their temples as schools. It is thus clear that in North India also, the important temples were centres of education throughout the middle ages.