Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c30.128

c30.128

**Contents of Primary Education: The Five Sciences.** It now remains for us to dwell upon the kind and methods of education imparted at these monasteries as indicated by our traveller. It should, however, be noted at the outset that these monasteries were in charge of the higher education of the country, which was led up to by a well-developed system of elementary education. The monasteries were like colleges to which students were admitted on completion of their preliminary education, of which a separate account is given by Hiuen Tsang. A child is first introduced to a *Siddham* (which is from the expression *Siddhir-astu*, May there be success!), or a primer of twelve chapters giving the Sanskrit alphabet and the combinations between vowels and consonants. After his mastery of the *Siddham*, he was introduced at the age of seven to the "great Śāstras of the Five Sciences", viz. Vyākaraṇa (grammar), Śilpasthānavidyā (the science of Arts and Crafts), Chikitsāvidyā (Science of Medicine), Hetu-vidyā (Nyāya, logic, Science of Reasoning), and Adhyātmavidyā (Inner Science), which, according to Watters, included "the metaphysical and argumentative treatises of the great Doctors of Abhidharma". It is thus clear that the elements of both secular and religious knowledge, of philosophical and practical subjects, entered into the composition of this elementary course of education meant for the sons of Buddhist parents, so that it provided that necessary basis of a good general culture upon which specialization could be successfully attempted in the monasteries. Thus the Buddhist qualification for the religious teacher or leader demanded a knowledge of the practical arts and crafts necessary in serving humanity, such as a knowledge of medicine. We read, for instance, of the great Buddhist leader Kumārajīva that he studied the Śāstras of the Five Sciences mentioned above, and of the famous scholar Guṇabhadra that he, too, had learnt in his youth the Śāstras of those Five Sciences together with Astronomy, Arithmetic, Medicine, and exorcisms (p. 158, vol. i).