Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c17.73

c17.73

There are several similar lists in the Mahābhārata. Reference has already been made to two such lists [xiii, 104, 125; v, 189, 1 ff.], where we have mention of *Śabdaśāstram* and the sixty-four *Kalās* together with *Yuktiśāstram* (i.e. "grammar, fine arts, and etiquette"). Another list enumerates the following [ii, 11, 25]: Ashṭāṅga-āyurveda (Medicine with its eight branches), Ṛigveda, Sāmaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda, Sarvaśāstrāṇi, Itihāsas, Upavedas, Vedāṅgas, Vāṇī of seven kinds, Sāmas, Stutiśāstras (treatises of hymns), various kinds of Gāthā literature, Bhāshyas (*bhāshyāni tarkayuktāni*), Nāṭakas, Kāvyas, Kathākhyāyikās (Kārikāḥ). Hopkins holds the view that probably this list is earlier than the previous one, but both show that "the line of education was away from the Veda and that what time the princes had was given to culture, not to religion". He further holds that "as the old royal personal fighting days ended—that is, as the princes were more and more expected to be figure-heads in war, and drove into battle to watch it on an elephant's back rather than to lead it in a war-car—their older bow- and sword-training was given up; but the time so gained was spent in more effeminate, certainly not more dryly intellectual occupations. Perhaps the rather late Virāṭa, with the cowardly little crown-prince, shows us the step between"