Education in Ancient India c9.s1.4

c9.s1.4

The Nature of preliminary Training :—What the boys and girls were taught in their early school stage was not how to read and write the Vedic Mantras (verses), but how to pronounce them properly. During this period they were trained to realise the difference between short and long vowels, study the varieties of accents and to master the rules about the conjunction and coalescence of vowels and consonants. At a slightly later stage they were enlightened about the changes that took place in original words when they were combined together in Vedic stanzas.² This was the nature of ‘primary education’ imparted to students in the Vedic period. Such education will appear to us in modern times as rather strange, but we should remember that students could, when equipped with it, successfully prosecute their Vedic studies, which then constituted the higher