Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c27.7

c27.7

**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].