Ancient Indian Education: An Inquiry into its Origin, Development, and Ideals c8.39

c8.39

Writing was introduced into India about 800 B.C., and the elaboration of the Brāhmī script was completed by about 500 B.C. or even earlier.³ A Buddhist tract called the Sīlas, which dates from about 450 B.C.,⁴ gives a list of children's games. One of these is called *Akkharikā* (Lettering), which is explained as ‘Guessing at letters traced in the air, or on a playfellow's back’. Such a game amongst children seems to show that the knowledge of the alphabet was prevalent at least amongst a certain section of the community, perhaps those who belonged to the trading and commercial classes, for it is they who would have the greatest need for a knowledge of reading and writing, and neither the Brāhman nor the Buddhist sacred books seem to have been committed to writing till a very much later date. The ancient writers Nearchus and Q. Curtius, in the last quarter of the fourth century B.C., refer to the custom of the Indians of writing letters on cloth and bark; and Megasthenes, at a slightly later date, speaks of the use of milestones to indicate distances and halting-places on the high-roads.¹ In another passage, however, Megasthenes relates that judicial cases in India were decided according to unwritten laws, and that the Indians knew no letters. Taking these passages together it seems that at that time writing was used for public or private notifications, but that it had not begun to be used for the purposes of literature. It is then probable that the knowledge and use of writing, though widespread, was confined to the commercial and official classes, but this does not necessarily imply the existence of schools for teaching these arts.