Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c12.s6.48

c12.s6.48

**Personal Touch in Education.** Education has been aptly defined as the transmission of life from life to life. This ideal seems to have been literally realized under this ancient pedagogic system which did not permit the introduction of any dull, dead, inert matter—the written literature—as an instrument of education. Some of the Indian religions provide for intermediaries between God the Most High and sinful humanity below to work out the latter’s salvation, but in the educational organization there was no intervening medium between the guru and his disciple. The teacher was the direct and sole source of light and life and the pupil must depend upon him absolutely for his educational salvation, for there was no other source of knowledge available in the country. Thus there was always a personal touch, a human element, a living inspiration in such instruction which helped to make it a vital and not a mechanical and monotonous process: it was a commerce of life, a communion of souls.