Ancient Indian Education: An Inquiry into its Origin, Development, and Ideals c8.55

c8.55

Buddhism placed both religion and education on a more popular basis than Brāhmanism, and by breaking down the monopoly of higher learning which had been in the hands of the Brāhman teachers, it may have also indirectly helped to increase the desire for primary education amongst the people. There was, moreover, about the first century of our era a most remarkable laymen’s movement in India. This is illustrated by the production of the *Bhagavad Gītā*, which belongs to about that period, in which the possibility of the attainment of salvation by an earnest layman who does his duty is expounded, and also by the growth of the Mahāyāna form of Buddhism which holds out hopes of spiritual progress to those who are not able to forsake the world and become monks. This upheaval, both in Vaishṇavism and in Buddhism, is the evidence of a widespread movement amongst laymen in India, and it would be not unlikely that it would be also characterized by a growing desire for education. It is, perhaps, from this period that the Buddhist monasteries began to undertake secular as well as religious education, and there may also have been a large growth of popular elementary schools.