Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c27: Chapter XIX: The Milinda Pañha on Education
Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c27
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Chapter XIX: The Milinda Pañha on Education
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**Story of Nāgasena.** The account of the education of the Brahman Nāgasena given in the *Milinda Pañha* [i, 22-6] illustrates the principal features of the systems of both Brahmanical and Buddhist education as they prevailed in its times (second century B.C.). When Nāgasena was seven years old his father sent him on for his education befitting a Brahman to a Brahman teacher. The teaching fee was paid in advance instead of being paid at the conclusion of the studentship under the usual rules. The amount of the fee was a thousand pieces. The subjects of study are classified into (a) *Sikkhā* or the three Vedas, and (b) *Arts* by which the subjects other than the Vedas are meant. Nāgasena under his teacher's instruction achieved the mastery of the Vedas which meant that he "had learnt the three Vedas by heart, could intone them correctly, had understood their meaning, could fix the right place of each particular verse, and had grasped the mysteries they contained", so that "there arose in him an intuitive insight into the Vedas, with a knowledge of their lexicography, of their prosody, of their grammar, and of the legends attaching to the characters in them" and he became a skilled philologist, grammarian, and casuist. Considering the range of his learning his father had to admit that there was nothing more which a Brahman had to learn. Nāgasena's thirst for knowledge was not, however, allayed by Vedic learning. It drove him to Buddhist studies for which he approached the Venerable Rohaṇa who lived at his hermitage at Vattaniya. But Rohaṇa would not admit the boy to his instruction unless he entered the Order. His parents permitted him to enter the Order for the study of Buddhist Literature because "they thought that when he had learned it he would come back again". Then Rohaṇa, considering in what he should first instruct him, whether "in the Discourses (Suttanta) or in the deeper things of the faith (Abhidhamma), decided upon teaching him the Abhidhamma first. Nāgasena soon mastered and knew by heart the whole of the Abhidhamma, i.e. the Dhammasaṅgaṇi, the Vibhaṅga with its eighteen chapters, the Dhātukathā with its fourteen books, the Puggala Paññatti with its six divisions, the Kathā Vatthu, the Yamaka with its ten divisions, and the Paṭṭhāna with its twenty-four chapters.
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After thus finishing his studies, Nāgasena is sent on an educational tour for preaching by his teacher, on a career of intellectual conquest, in the course of which he is brought into touch with some of the noted literary men and centres of learning Assagutta was such a noted man of letters dwelling at the Vattaniya hermitage. Another was Dhammarakkhita, who dwelt in the Asoka Park at Pāṭaliputta From his mouth he learnt by heart the whole of the three baskets¹ (Piṭakas) of the Buddha's word in three months and in three months more he mastered their meanings. Another was Āyupāla of the Saṅkheyya hermitage in the northern city of Sāgala where ruled the learned King Milinda with his 500 Yonakas. He was always "in the habit of harassing the brethren by knotty questions and by argumentations this way and that," and boasted thus: "All India is an empty thing, it is verily like chaff! There is no one, either Samaṇa or Brahman, capable of discussing things with me and dispelling my doubts." His boast was successfully challenged by Nāgasena who had by that time in due course of his wanderings arrived at Sāgala as the head of a numerous body of disciples attracted to him by his phenomenal learning, for he was master equally of the three Brahmanical Vedas and the Buddhist (the three Piṭakas).
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¹ The expression means not "the three collections" but "the three bodies of oral tradition as handed down from teacher to teacher" [*SBE.*, xxxv, p 28 n.].
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The history of Nāgasena calls up and indeed transports us to the old world atmosphere of education and learning which we breathe in the Brāhmaṇas, and Upanishads, with its myriads of wandering scholars diffusing culture through the country, its intellectual tournaments, its learned debates at the courts of its learned kings, its hermitages and sylvan seats of education and the like. The spread of culture, whether Brahmanical or Buddhist, was proceeding on common lines.
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A few other minor points brought to light in this story may be noted. We find the somewhat unusual practice of a teacher accepting a pupil on receipt of fees, a practice which is contrary to the rules of the Smṛitis of the earlier age, as explained above. Next, we notice that with the growth of Buddhist Philosophy and Learning, Brahman scholars, after completing the study of their traditional Vedic learning, would seek to add to their intellectual equipment by a study of Buddhist Literature. The two cultures were thus co-existing without any hostility between them. Thirdly, we have a confirmation of the somewhat scanty evidence of the Vinaya that Buddhist learning had its centres not merely and exclusively in the monasteries, as is commonly supposed, but also in the forests, in the hermitages of solitary and spiritually advanced monks after the Brahmanical model. Fourthly, that Buddhist Learning was not confined to a mere class, the monks, but spread through all the ranks of the people is proved by the instance of a rich merchant of Pāṭaliputta (with 500 waggons travelling) introducing himself as a student of the Abhidhamma and anxious to hear some passages from it [i, 33].
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**Subjects of Study.** The *Milinda* also indicates the range of Brahmanical learning, sacred and secular, of the times. It included the following: the four Vedas, Itihāsas, Purāṇas, lexicography, prosody, phonology, verses, grammar, etymology, astrology, astronomy, the six Vedāṅgas, interpretation of omens, dreams, and signs, prognostications to be drawn from the flight of comets, thunder, junction of planets, fall of meteors, earthquakes, conflagrations, and signs in the heaven and earth, study of eclipses of the sun and moon, of arithmetic, casuistry, of the interpretation of omens to be drawn from dogs, deer, and rats, mixtures of liquids, sounds, and cries of birds [iv, 3, 26]. Another passage in describing the learning of King Milinda mentions the following additional subjects: the Sāṁkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, and Vaiśeshika systems of philosophy, music, medicine, magic, causation, spells, the art of war, poetry, conveyancing, and states the number of the known arts and sciences (*sippas*) to be nineteen [i, 9]. The special knowledge of the Kshatriya was to include a knowledge of all about elephants, horses, chariots, bows, rapiers, documents, and the law of property [iv, 3, 26]. Another passage mentions the arts of calculating, by using the joints of the fingers as signs or marks, of arithmetic (*gaṇanā*) pure and simple, of estimating the probable yield of growing crops, and of writing [ii, 3, 7]. The writing of a letter is referred to [ii, 2, 3], as well as a writing-master exhibiting his skill in writing [vi, 3].
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The *Milinda* also indicates the studies of the Bhikkhus. They must "concern themselves with recitation of, with asking questions about, the discourses, and the pieces in mixed prose and verse, and the expositions, and the poems, and the outbursts of emotion, and the passages beginning 'Thus he said', and the birth-stories, and the tales of wonder, and the extended treatises ". These make up the nine sections into which the Buddhist scriptures are divided [iv, 7, 1]. Besides these studies, the brethren must " trouble themselves about new buildings, about gifts and offerings to the Order " [ib.]. Hearing the Scriptures, recitation of them, asking questions about thein, superintending building work, and seeing to gifts and offerings—all these comprise the duties of Bhikkhus as being conducive to their spiritual progress [v, 7, 6]
Linked texts (1)
- Milindapañha — Pāli