Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c12.s6.20

c12.s6.20

**Plurality of Teachers.** The Sūtras also continue the tradition of the Upanishads in another respect. They point to a plurality of teachers for the student. Young Brahmins in olden times, just as now, went from one teacher to the other, learning from each what he knew. Each such teacher would generally know and teach only one Veda and a student would have to learn several Vedas from several teachers. The rules which seemingly require a pupil to stay with one and the same teacher refer only to the principle that the pupil must stay with his teacher until he has learnt the subject which he began with him. This is evident from the following passage of Āpastamba [i, 2, 7, 14]: "If a pupil has more than one teacher, the alms (collected by him) are at the disposal of him to whom he is just then bound." Another passage [i, 2, 8, 26] expressly refers to a pupil "attending to two teachers", while, according to another [i, 2, 7, 26], the student is permitted, in the event of the incompetence of his teacher, "to go to another and study there." Sometimes, the regular teacher may appoint another to do his work. So long as his instruction lasts, the new teacher is to be treated with the same respect as the principal but, according to some, only if he is a worthy person in point of learning and character. In any case, obedience as towards the teacher is not required to be shown towards his substitute. We are also told of teachers younger than their pupils who are not, of course, to show him the obedience proper for the regular teacher. One such teacher was "young Kavi, the son of Aṅgiras, who taught his relatives who were old enough to be fathers, and as he excelled them in sacred knowledge he called them 'Little sons', for a man destitute of sacred knowledge is indeed a child" [Manu, ii, 151-3]. Lastly, three are mentioned persons teaching each other mutually different redactions of the Veda, in which case obedience towards each other is not ordained for them [see Āpastamba, i, 4, 13, 13–17].