Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c29.39

c29.39

**Chinese Pilgrims visiting India at risk of life in search of her Wisdom.** A few other points of interest may be noted in conclusion in connection with Fa-Hien's evidence. The duration of his travels in India was for fifteen years, from A.D. 399-414. "After Fa-Hien set out from Ch'ang-gan it took him six years to reach Central India; stoppages there extended over (other) six years; and on his return it took him three years to reach Ts'ing-chow" (p. 116). This shows that the educational conditions of India as observed and recorded by Fa-Hien in the fifth century A.D. had been prevailing in the country in still earlier times. There is, unfortunately, no positive evidence available like Fa-Hien's, which may enable us to trace the origin and growth of these historical monasteries of Buddhism which, already in Fa-Hien's time, and in the times anterior to him, had become such important and flourishing centres of Buddhist education and learning where was conserved all that was best and typical in Buddhist thought and life. The reputation of these schools, due undoubtedly to their real worth, travelled far beyond the limits of India and caused a large movement of foreign scholars towards them for their instruction, which continued steadily for nearly ten centuries. A profound and abiding regard for the learning and culture of India was needed to feed and sustain such a long-continued movement. Indeed, the enthusiasm for Indian wisdom was so intense, the passion for a direct contact with its seats was so strong, that it defied the physical dangers and difficulties which lay so amply in the way of its realization. An account of these dangers and difficulties is best given in the words of Fa-Hien himself: "When I look back on what I have gone through, my heart is involuntarily moved, and the perspiration flows forth. That I encountered danger and trod the most of the dangers and privations besetting the paths of travel in those days across deserts, and over snowy heights, through inhospitable, and sometimes hostile, natural and human conditions, constitute the most convincing testimony to the supremacy of India in the ancient world of culture.