Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c18.30

c18.30

**Guilds as Industrial Schools.** While the home of the artisan functioned as the school for imparting instruction in the particular craft plied by him, the collective interests of the craft as a whole in a particular area or region were administered by an organization like a guild which was called *Śreṇī*. Each guild laid down its own laws for the administration of the interests of the particular craft belonging to it. The guilds were of various kinds like the crafts and were like so many industrial schools. The Smṛitis [e.g. Gautama, xi, 21] mention the main guilds to be those of (1) Cultivators, (2) Herdsmen, (3) Traders, (4) Money-lenders, and (5) Artisans, to which Bṛihaspati [i, 26] adds (6) Artists (=*chitra-kāras*), and (7) Dancers. There are also references to Guilds of Musicians, Priests, and Military adventurers. Thus all these may be taken to function like Schools of Fine Arts and Crafts in those days. Every industry or craft was self-governing by its *Śreṇī*, while it was pursued by an individual craftsman as a home or cottage industry, throwing open his own home or cottage as a school for training of apprentices in his craft.