Education in Ancient India c9.s2: Primary Education from
Education in Ancient India c9.s2
- Language
- English
Primary Education from
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C. 1000 B. C. to C. 200 B. C.
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Introduction of Reading and Writing
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Obligatory Upanayana helps the Spread of Literacy
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¹ See Appendix 1. B.
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i. e. Brahmanas, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas. Even in modern times when this ritual has become a mere formality, we find that the percentage of literacy is fairly high among those castes which still go throug hits formality. We may therefore well conclude that the case was similar, if not much better, in the past. Since Upanayana of both boys and girls was universal among the Aryans at c. 600 B. C. we may well conclude that the percentage of literacy among them must also have been very high. It may have been as high as 80 percent. We can now understand the proud claim of an Upanishadic king that there was no illiterate person in his kingdom.¹ This was a natural consequence of an obligatory Upanayna being followed by genuine Vedic and literary studies.
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¹ न मे स्तेनो जनपदे····नानाहिताग्निनर्बिद्वान् । Ch. Up., V. 11. 5.
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The Curriculum of Primary Education : Grammar, philology, arithmetic, astronomy and metrics were well developed in this period, and a good grounding in them was not possible without a knowledge of the art of writing. Reading and writing must have been included in primary education, although there was still a prejudice against committing the Vedas to writing. Elementary arithmetic and grammar, phonology and metrics also formed part of the primary curriculum. Sanskrit was still the spoken language and Prakrits were yet to be developed. Primary education was therefore mainly confined to the preliminary stage of the cultivation of Sanskrit.
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Agencies of Primary Education : We have but scanty information as to how primary education was imparted. It must have been given in the family as long as it continued to be the centre of education.
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When this ceased to be the case, the family priest or the preceptor, to whom students were sent for Vedic education, may have imparted the primary education as well; for primary education at this time was a more integral part of higher education than is the case now. Primary schools also existed in some localities; we sometimes get references to rich boys going to attend them, when their wooden slates were carried by their servants.¹ But who conducted these primary schools, or how they were financed is not known. Public institutions even for higher education had not yet been evolved, as we have seen already. Primary schools also must therefore have been private institutions. Literacy was very wide spread at this time; it is but natural that some of the members of the Brahmana, Kshatriya and Vaishya classes may have taken to primary education as a career.
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¹ *Kaṭāhaka Jātaka*, No. 125.
Linked texts (2)
- Jātaka — Pāli
- Chāndogyopaniṣad — Sanskrit