Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c15.39

c15.39

**Teacher as Heir of Pupil.** The relationship of a teacher, a pupil, or a priest has been given a distinct legal value in Hindu Law. According to Baudhāyana, on failure of all heirs claiming any sort of blood-relationship, “the spiritual preceptor, the pupil, or the priest engaged to perform sacrifices, shall take the inheritance.” The *Āchārya*, spiritual preceptor, is defined by Baudhāyana as “he who girds the pupil with the sacrificial cord and instructs him in the Vedas”. On failure of these heirs the succession passes on to the fellow-student “who studies the Veda under the same teacher”. According to the law as laid down by Gautama, the legal heirs may also include “persons allied by funeral oblations, family name, and by patriarchal descent”, but commentators differ as to whether this remote relationship in blood has precedence over the relationship in learning. At any rate it must be observed that the law accords a lower status to the spiritual relationship through learning than that given to it by the rules relating to Brahmacharya under which the preceptor is to be regarded as the equal of the pupil’s parents as regards the reverence and obedience due from him. This equality, as has been already pointed out, was emphasized in a much earlier age when we find its recognition in a Sūtra of Pāṇini relating to the relationship of blood and learning—*vidyāyonisambandha*—to which is to be applied the same grammatical suffix.