Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c17.50

c17.50

of learning: "Carrying the burden of sacrificial wood, Kuśa grass, and fuel, I was coming towards the hermitage and, feeling tired, sat for rest under the shade of the banyan tree, along with my companions, the kine, under my charge" [i, 76, 35, 36]. One of the traditional duties of the student was to tend his preceptor's cattle, and collect wood for fire and sacrifice, and this brought him into intimate touch with Nature and subjected him to Nature's influence and educational processes working through "silent sympathy", as Wordsworth puts it. The outdoor life and fellowship with the lower animals had also their own advantages to the student.