Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c12.s6.34

c12.s6.34

The view which Max Müller thinks was in vogue before the discovery of Sanskrit Literature unfortunately still persists with great vigour in some quarters even in this country and it is necessary in the interests of truth to combat it. Indeed, one passage of Manu [ii, 165] proves conclusively that the rules of studentship applied not merely to the highest caste, but practically to the entire Indo-Aryan people: "An Āryan must study the whole Veda together with the Rahasyas, performing at the same time various kinds of austerities and the vows prescribed by the rules of the Veda." It is to be noted that the *Āryas* were made up of the three twice-born classes and the Śūdras making up the lowest castes were outside the pale of Aryan society.¹ Regarding the other feature or fact noted by Max Müller in our ancient educational system, viz. that it was a system of compulsory universal education, we may bring together a few select passages from the Sūtra works. "A twice-born man who, not having studied the Veda, applies himself to other (and worldly study) soon falls, even while living, to the condition of a Śūdra and his descendants after him" (Manu, ii, 168). We have already cited other passages [e.g. Manu, ii, 39] in which it is laid down that persons who do not initiate themselves within the periods fixed for their castes "become Vrātyas (outcasts), excluded from the Sāvitrī and despised by the Aryans". It was not, however, mere social degradation with which breaches of the sacred and compulsory duty of a man to educate himself were punished. Vashishtha [iii, 4] quotes a very remarkable passage from Manu in which it is laid down that "the king shall punish that village where Brāhmaṇas, unobservant of their sacred duties and *ignorant of the Veda*, subsist by begging; for it feeds robbers". Thus the state enforced this wholesome law of compulsory education framed by society by penalizing a village that even acquiesced in the culpable ignorance of Brahmins by giving them alms to which they were not entitled, and such Brahmins were to be treated not merely as Śūdras but also as *robbers*, thus meriting both social and moral odium. It is thus that we can also very well realize the force and truth of the following legitimate boast of a king in the Upanishads: "In my kingdom there is no thief, no miser, no drunkard, no man without an altar in his house and no ignorant person" [Chhānd., v, 11, 5].