Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c18.202

c18.202

**Arts and Crafts according to Pāli Texts.** While these Sanskrit texts thus know of sixty-four and some additional *Kalās*, early Pāli texts, as will be seen below, mention the stock number of eighteen *Sippas* or Arts. But they do not state what the individual Arts were. The *Majjhima Nikāya* [i, p. 85; iv, pp. 281, 382] mentions some of these as Conveyancing or Law, Mathematics, Accountancy, Agriculture, Commerce, Cattle-breeding, and Administrative training. The *Milinda Pañha* [i, 6], gives a different list as follows: · Holy Tradition and Secular Law; Sāṁkhya, Nyāya, Vaiśeshika; Arithmetic, Music, Medicine; four Vedas, Purāṇas, Itihāsas; Astronomy, Spells, Hetuvidyā, Magic; Military Art; Poetry; and Conveyancing, making up in all nineteen *Sippas*. The *Milinda* list was perhaps inspired by the Brahmanical list of eighteen *Śāstras* comprising four Vedas, six *Vedāṅgas*, four *Upāṅgas* consisting of Purāṇa, Nyāya, Mīmāṁsā, and Dharmaśāstra, and four *Upavedas* consisting of Āyurveda, Dhanurveda, Gāndharva-Veda, and Sthāpatya (architecture) or, according to some, Arthaśāstra [see *Vishṇu Purāṇa*, iii, 6, 28; and *Bhāgavata Purāṇa*]. The *Jātakas* differentiate, and that rightly, between religious and literary subjects like the *Vedas* or humanities, and the *Śilpas* proper indicating a craft or vocation based on practical skill. One *Jātaka* [vi, 427] mentions eighteen Crafts organized into guilds and mentions those of "masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, painters, men skilled in all arts and crafts".