Education in Ancient India c8.s3.31

c8.s3.31

Selection of Text-books : We have no definite information about the text-books prescribed for the various courses in different institutions during different centuries. These must have gone on changing in course of time when better and more up-to-date books written by competent authorities became available. The selection of text books was usually governed by considerations of merit alone. An author had to submit his work to a synod of scholars at a famous centre of learning like Pāṭaliputra or Benares¹, and if it was found to be a work of merit by that body, it received its imprimatur, which helped its acceptance and spread in provincial towns. It should be however noted that no pecuniary gain was likely to accrue to an author by his book being prescribed in several institutions; for there was no press and copyright in ancient India. The adoption of a work as a text book in the schools of a province however increased the reputation of its author, and we sometimes come across writers adopting rather questionable means to get their books accepted. Ugrabhūti, the teacher of king Anaṅgapāla of the Punjab (c. 1010-c. 1020) is said to have induced his royal pupil to distribute two lakhs of dirhams (= about Rs. 60,000) among the Pandits of Kashmir in order to overcome successfully their reluctance to accept his new work on grammar called Śiṣya-hitā-vṛtti². Such cases however were probably few. Usually books prescribed in a particular school were in vogue at the centre where the principal and teachers of the school were educated. Hindus, Buddhists and Jains would often prefer works written by authors of their own persuasion in the case of a subject like logic, which was cultivated by all schools.