Ancient Indian Education: An Inquiry into its Origin, Development, and Ideals c5.56

c5.56

The important position and authority thus claimed for the preceptor of the prince was no doubt influenced and intensified by the tendency in the Brāhmanic schools, which we have noticed in a previous chapter,³ to exalt the teacher to such a position that he was regarded as an object of worship. It is quite possible that some rulers may have shaken themselves free from such a position, but the institution of the *purohita*, to whom was entrusted the religious, moral, and intellectual education of the young princes and nobles, continued down to very recent times. Tod, in his accounts of *Rājasthān*,¹ in referring to these *purohitas* gives rather a bad opinion of them, as men who took advantage of their position to get gain for themselves by working on the superstition of their employers. There were, no doubt, many such, who made use of their office to get wealth and honours from the king, or nobleman, who employed them. But we need not suppose that this was generally the case, and probably many of them were men of high character, whose moral influence on their pupils was distinctly good. India has had many famous rulers, who were educated under this system, and many who attained also to literary merit. Among the latter we must mention King Harsha (606 to 648 A.D.), to whom several plays and verse compositions have been ascribed.² As, however, in the case of the Brāhmanic education, the system of training the young Kshatriyas tended to become stereotyped, and to look too much to the authority of the past for its ideals and practice, and thus it failed to preserve its vitality as an educational force.