Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c28.21

c28.21

**Number and Composition of a School: Admission of all Castes except Chaṇḍālas.** The maximum or standard number of pupils which an individual teacher admitted was 500 [i, 239, 317, 402; iii, 18, 235, 143, 171, etc.]. The number gave scope to great variety in the composition of the school. The students were quite a heterogeneous lot, drawn from all ranks and classes of society and representing diverse social conditions. Youths of Brahman and Kshatriya castes were of course in large numbers among them [cf. iii, 158] ; there were also princes from distant kingdoms [i, 272 ; ii, 87 ; iii, 238 ; v, 162 ; v, 177, 210, 247 ; 262, 426, 457 ; iv, 96, 316 ; iii, 115, 415], and sons of magnates or magnificos, some of whom were Brahmans [ii, 99 ; v, 227 ; iv, 237, etc.] ; there were, again, sons of merchants and tailors [iv. 38], and even fishermen [iii, 171], for we read of a teacher who was, on principle, against all restrictions on admission of students and would " preach the moral law to anyone he might see though he did not want it, to fishermen and the like" [ib.]. Chaṇḍālas were not, however, admitted as students. We read of two Chaṇḍāla boys from Ujjenī who, considering the misery of their lot due to their birth, thought : " We shall never be able to play the part of Chaṇḍālas ; let us conceal our birth and go to Takkasilā in the disguise of young Brahmans, and study there." Thus introducing themselves they " followed their studies in the law under a far-famed master ". One of the students was even successful in his studies. Their disguise was, however, detected at a dinner offered to the school by a villager by their use of the Chaṇḍāla dialect in an unguarded moment and they were at once expelled [No. 498].