Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c12.s6.41

c12.s6.41

**The Rule of Oral Teaching.** We have now considered the salient features of the educational system of ancient India as exhibited in the Sūtra literature. There is one fundamental aspect of that system which clearly distinguishes it from the modern system of education, viz. its complete independence of the external aids given to learning by the art of writing. This basal factor will easily explain the characteristic features of the ancient Indian educational methods which almost follow from it as corollaries. It is not yet definitely known when the art of writing itself was evolved in India. But the point to be noted in this connection is that even when the art of writing was completely prevalent in the country, the indigenous teachers and educationists deliberately omitted to take advantage of it for purposes of instruction. The Vedic system of oral teaching, like everything else to be found in the Vedas, was the first and last word on the subject of pedagogic methods; that was the only authoritative system to be pursued through the subsequent ages in spite of all material facilities they might bring in their course. It is hardly to be doubted that by about 500 B.C. at the latest there must have been developed the complete Sanskrit alphabet on phonetic principles, the alphabet assumed in the grammar of Pāṇini (giving him the latest possible date, viz. fourth century B.C.) and yet it was a long time before writing was used for the preservation and propagation of our sacred literature, for it was relegated to the sphere of business or secular life. There was a traditional opinion absolutely condemning the acquisition of knowledge from written sources. This opinion has been already cited from the *Mahābhārata* and *Tantra-Vārttika* of Kumārila.