Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c12.s6.64

c12.s6.64

The composition of the *Parishad* is also interesting from another point of view. It shows the progress of specialization in Vedic study achieved during this period. According to Gautama, as we have already seen, there were, firstly, four specialists in the four Vedas of the "walking library" type. Next, there were three others who specialized in the three different Institutes of Law, besides another three who were proficient in the laws relating to the three āśramas of life. Vasishṭha and Baudhāyana refer, however, to specialists in the Mīmāṁsā, in the Aṅgas, and in sacred law. Manu wants three specialists in the three Vedas, and specialists in Logic, Mīmāṁsā, Nirukta, and Law. It will be noted that all these references point to the early development of special law Schools. Vasishṭha and Baudhāyana mention side by side with one who knows the Aṅgas the reciter or teacher of the sacred law (*Dharma-pāṭhaka*), who must therefore be a person who specially devotes himself to the study of that subject and knows more than one Dharma-sūtra. He is, so to speak, the *Law Member* of the *Parishad* and to speak of *one* legal expert means that special law Schools were already existing, the collective literature of which had to be mastered by that expert. Gautama, however, constitutes his *Parishad* rather differently: he does not create a special seat in it for an individual law member; he equires three persons knowing three different Dharma-sūtras and says nothing of any experts specially devoted to the study of the sacred law. Manu's *Parishad*, however, knows of an individual law member like that of Vasishṭha and Baudhāyana.