The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c5.s17.23

c5.s17.23

22. There is no doubt that in former times, especially under the Hindoo Governments very large grants, both in money, and in land, were issued for the support of learning. Considerable *Yeomiahs*, or grants of money, now paid to Bramins from my treasury, and many of the numerous and valuable Shotrium villages, now in the enjoyment of Bramins in this district, who receive one-fourth, one-third, one-half, two-thirds, and sometimes the whole, of their annual revenue, may, I think, be traced to this source. Though it did not consist with the dignity of learning to receive from her votaries hire; it has always in India been deemed the duty of Government to evince to her the highest respect, and to grant to her those emoluments which she could not, consistently with her character receive from other sources; the grants issued by former governments, on such occasions, contained, therefore, no unbecoming stipulations on conditions. They all purport to flow from the free bounty of the ruling power, merely to aid the maintenance of some holy or learned man, or to secure his prayers for the state. But they were almost universally granted to learned or religious persons, who maintained a school for one or more of the sciences, and taught therein gratuitously; and though not expressed in the deed itself, the duty of continuing such gratuitous instruction was certainly implied in all such grants.