Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c29.38

c29.38

The revival was most marked in Magadha, the metropolitan province of the Gupta empire, where, according to Fa-Hien, "the inhabitants are rich and prosperous and vie with one another in the practice of benevolence and righteousness. The Heads of the Vaiśya families establish in the cities ('in all the other kingdoms as well'), houses of dispensing charity and medicines. All the poor and destitute in the country, orphans, widowers, and childless men, maimed people and cripples, and all who are diseased, go to those houses, and are provided with every kind of help, and doctors examine their diseases. They get the food and medicines which their cases require, and are made to feel at ease; and when they are better, they go away of themselves" (p. 79). This statement demonstrates that Brahmanism was as much known for its secular charities as Buddhism: it founded temples for the direct worship of God equally with the institutions for the relief of human suffering. Positivism was not foreign to the creed of Brahmanism which could thus recognize the duty of serving man as a mode of serving God!