Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c11.s4.39

c11.s4.39

**Instruction without formal pupilage.** At the same time the evidence seems to indicate that a formal pupilage was not absolutely binding in the earlier period. The differentiation between the four compulsory *āśramas* or life-stages was a comparatively late growth. Thus in the *Chhāndogya* [iv, 9, 3] it is merely said that "the knowledge which is gained from a teacher (as opposed to supernatural instruction by beasts, fire, geese, or ducks) leads most certainly to the goal." In another passage [v, 11, 7] King Aśvapati instructs six Brāhmaṇas who approach him with the fuel in their hands *anupanīya*, "without first admitting them as his pupils," or "demanding any preparatory rites". In still another passage [vi, 1, 1] we read: "'There lived once Śvetaketu Āruṇeya. To him his father (Uddālaka, the son of Aruṇa) said: 'Śvetaketu, go to school; for there is none belonging to our race, darling, who, not having studied (the Veda) is, as it were, a Brāhmaṇa by birth only.'" From this remark it may be reasonably inferred that at that time entrance upon the life of a Brahmin-student, while it was a commendable custom, was not yet universally enjoined upon Brahmins. Similarly, the entrance also of Satyakāma upon studentship appears to be his voluntary determination (ib., iv, 4, 1). Again, in the *Bṛihadāraṇyaka* [ii, 4] Yājñavalkya instructs his wife Maitreyī and King Janaka [iv, 1-2, 3-4] who yet were not strictly his pupils; he also imparts knowledge on the deepest problems [as, e.g. iii, 8, in the conversation with Gārgī] in the presence of a numerous circle of hearers, and only exceptionally, when he desires to explain to Ārtabhāga the mystery of the soul's transmigration, does he retire with him into privacy [iii, 2, 13].