Ancient Indian Education: An Inquiry into its Origin, Development, and Ideals c5.10

c5.10

In the *Dharmasūtras* of Āpastamba, Baudhāyana, and Vasisṭha there is no mention of the subjects to be studied by the king, but in Gautama ² it is said that he shall be ‘fully instructed in the threefold sacred science and in logic’.³ It further says ⁴ that the administration of justice shall be by the Veda, the *Dharmaśāstra*,⁵ the Angas, and the *Purāṇa*,⁶ so that it may be presumed that the royal princes were expected to become acquainted with these also during their period of schooling. A knowledge of the use of arms and of military skill was, of course, necessary, and a great deal of the time of the young Kshatriyas must have been given to learning their duties as warriors. Already in the hymns of the *Rigveda* there is a passage ⁷ which appears to refer to military combats amongst young warriors, and as the Kshatriyas became marked off from the other castes as those whose function it was to fight for their protection, the practice of arms must have become more highly specialized. In the *Mahābhārata*¹ we read² how the young Pāṇḍu and Kuru princes were instructed in the various kinds of military skill. This included fighting on horseback and on elephants, in chariots and on the ground. The weapons used were the club, the sword, the lance, the spear, the dart, and above all the bow. The preceptor of these young princes in the use of arms is said to have been not, as we might have supposed, a Kshatriya warrior, but a learned Brāhman named Droṇa. The purpose of the author may have been to exalt the dignity of the Brāhman caste by showing how the Kshatriyas learned even their own special functions from the Brāhmans. In the *Rāmāyaṇa*³ of Vālmīki we read with regard to Rāma and his brothers⁴—