Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c25.44

c25.44

It is thus clear that the laity depended for their religious education upon the monasteries which were the exclusive centres of such education because the monks alone had the monopoly as specialists and experts in the knowledge of the sacred lore. It is also clear that for their general, non-religious or secular education the laity and the public at large had to depend upon the systems and centres of education that existed in the country outside the Buddhist monasteries. We shall now proceed to give an account of these on the basis of the evidence available in Buddhist literature of which the literature of the Jātakas forms the principal part and will thus claim our chief attention.