Education in Ancient India c8.s4.17

c8.s4.17

Testimony of Chinese Pilgrims : Indian teachers were past masters in the art of explanation and exposition; students from distant countries like Korea and China used to brave the dangers of the perilous journey to India, not because they wanted to learn by rote the scriptures of their religion, but because they were anxious to hear the exposition of obscure metaphysical passages which could be heard nowhere else. What Yuan Chwang valued in his Indian teachers was not their capacity to recite the sacred texts, but their remarkable ability in explaining obscure passages and offering illuminative suggestions on doubtful points.² About his Indian gurus, I-tsing says, ‘I have been always very glad that I had an opportunity of aquiring knowledge from them personally, which I should otherwise have never possessed’³