Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c17.41

c17.41

**Eligibility for education.** The eligibility for studentship is strictly laid down. The teaching of the Vedas must not be imparted to one who has not formally become a disciple, who has not observed vows or who is of impure soul. No knowledge should be imparted to one whose character is not previously known. As pure gold is tested by heating, cutting, and rubbing, so should disciples be examined with reference to their birth and qualities. There is, in addition, the very remarkable injunction that persons of *all the four castes* are competent to listen to discourses on Vedas or Vedic recitations (*śrāvayechchaturo varṇān*) [xii, 327].