Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c12.s6.32

c12.s6.32

**Higher Education open to first three Castes.** It has been first stated that the nation was in the making in these schools. But a doubt is sometimes expressed that the nation as a whole did not benefit by such schools which were close corporations not open to all but only to a select class, the Brahmins. The evidence adduced above will show the falsity of this charge. But let a higher authority speak on the point. The following remarks are made by Max Müller [*Lectures on the Origin of Religion*, p. 349]: "Before the ancient language and literature of India had been made accessible to European scholarship, it was the fashion to represent the Brahmins as a set of priests jealously guarding the treasures of their sacred wisdom from the members of all the other castes and thus maintaining their [Figure: POLANNĀRUVA A Sage reading a paim-leaf MS; supposed by O. C. Gangoly to be the Vedic Rishi Pulastya after whom is named the city Pulasta-nagara = Polannāruva in Ceylon [Plate 51 of]