[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Science, technology and education](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science) › [Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist)](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.mookerji-1947) › c19.24 # Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c19.24 Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c19.24 - **Language:** English ### [c19.24](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.mookerji-1947.c19.24) \*\*Learned Settlements.\*\* The cause of learning and culture was not confined, however, to these Schools or Colleges. It was recognized that learning should be a life-long pursuit and could not be confined within the limits of study which a College could undertake within the time fixed for it. Accordingly, we find public benefactions establishing not merely the purely educational institutions where the foundations of learning are laid but institutions of a wider scope, serving as centres of post-graduate, advanced study under savants devoting themselves completely to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. These endowments of higher learning and research sought to establish entire learned settlements or cultured colonies, made up of households of pious and scholarly Brahmans, in select areas. Inscription No. 99 of vol. ii, part v of \*South Indian Inscriptions\* records the gift of a whole village for supporting 308 learned Brahmans in their sacred avocation of research and teaching, who were chosen as masters of the Vedas and Smṛitis and known as "Chaturvedin, Trivedin, Somayājin, Shaḍaṅgavid, Bhaṭṭa, Kramavid (proficient in the \*Krama-pāṭha\* of Rigveda), Sarvakratuyājin, Vājapeyin, etc". They were thus masters of both the texts or tenets and practices of Dharma and could promote learning and religion together. Inscription No. 7 of 1912 records another similar gift establishing a colony of 308 Brahmans. Inscription No. 277 of 1913 records an endowment establishing a group of 108 learned Brahman families with provision for all the necessaries of life, including a library called \*Sarasvatī Bhāṇḍāra\*. These learned settlements were centres of light and life, showing how theory and practice should go together, how precept should be supported by example, ethics by conduct, learning was to be lived, and truth or religion was to be realized in the activities of daily life. The cause of learning was thus very well served by these endowments supporting advanced scholars in a life of research and religion and pursuit of Truth for its own sake, to the exclusion of all other pursuits. - [Previous: c19.23](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.mookerji-1947.c19.23) - [Next: c19.25](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.mookerji-1947.c19.25) - [Up: c19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.mookerji-1947.c19) ## Linked texts (1) - [South Indian Inscriptions](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.epigraphy.south.sii) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.mookerji-1947.c19.24](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.mookerji-1947.c19.24) · Pramāṇa