Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c18.2

c18.2

**Evidence.** Ancient Indian Literature, whether Sanskrit, Pāli, or the Prākṛits, being mainly religious in character, it does not furnish much evidence on the subject of industrial and technical education, though it is upon the basis of such education that ancient India was able to build up her own economic life and prosperity and figured in the ancient world as the chief exporting country, supplying foreign countries from time immemorial and through the ages with luxuries and other articles turned out by her cottage industries and handicrafts. Bits of evidence on this important and interesting subject are found scattered throughout this literature, and these may be pieced together to produce a picture of ancient Indian Industrial Education as a whole, though it is not possible to trace its history and development by different periods and stages, as in the case of general education and culture.