Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c12.s6.67

c12.s6.67

It will appear that in the original and primary Vedic schools, the principal objective of instruction was a full and accurate knowledge of the sacred texts. Thus the curriculum, as has been already noted, comprised the Saṁhitā texts of the Mantras and *Brāhmaṇas*, together with their Pada, Krama, and other still more difficult *pāṭhas* or modes of recitation added in the later age when these were devised. To complete this course would require a considerable time and must have fully occupied the twelve terms of four and a half or five and a half months which the Smṛitis give as the average duration of the studentship for the acquisition of one Veda [see *ante*]. Besides the Veda, the student had also to learn the Aṅgas, and as long as these consisted of short simple treatises, it was possible for him to commit them to memory in the time prescribed for it, viz. the seven or eight dark fortnights from the month of Pausha to that of Vaiśākha, though, according to some Smṛitis, the Aṅgas might be studied at any time out of term [cf. *Vas.*, xiii, 7]. The literature of the Aṅgas was not, however, stationary but was growing. In course of time one of its branches, the Kalpa or Ritual alone, reached large dimensions as seen in the Sūtras of the Baudhāyanīyas and Āpastambīyas. Another branch, Vyākaraṇa or Grammar, also developed similar proportions and a scientific system of treatment as reflected in the final work of Pāṇini. But the Aṅgas were developing not merely in bulk but also in number. Thus Nyāya or Pūrva Mīmāṁsā, the art of interpreting the rules of the Veda, was added to the list of the auxiliary sciences which had to be studied in connection with the sacred texts. It was thus becoming a matter of sheer impossibility for a student to commit to memory the vast literature that was meant by these sacred texts together with the Aṅgas in their developed forms. The fact of the matter was that though it was in the Vedic schools that the study of the Vedāṅgas was first started as a supplement to the study of the Vedas, the impetus given to their cultivation gradually and naturally resulted in the production of a literature which could no longer be contained within the purview of the original Vedic schools. Thus these Vedic schools lost their old monopoly as centres of the intellectual life of the Āryas, for new special schools of science grew up in response to the requirements of a growing culture. There was a large accumulation of material for each of the Aṅgas, requiring a more specialized study and scientific treatment than was possible in the Vedic schools proper. The quantity of the matter to be learnt and the natural difficulty of its acquisition necessitated a readjustment of educational arrangements. The expanding culture of the country was outgrowing its old trappings.