Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c30.130

c30.130

**Monasteries admitting Monks of different Schools of Buddhism.** Sometimes, as we have already seen, a monastery would accommodate monks of different schools, and sometimes even students so far apart in their tenets and practices as the Tīrthikas and Buddhists and Brahmans (i, 319; ii, 100, 108). These remarkable facts demonstrate that the so-called Buddhist monasteries were not run like denominational universities in the narrow spirit of a sectarian exclusiveness. Here taught or studied side by side adherents of opposed and incompatible theories. No creed or articles of faith barred the door of admission of a teacher or a student to the equivalents of the chair or the degree of such universities. Thus this ancient education, in a land noted for its many creeds, and for its sectarian divisions, stood boldly in practice for the abiding principle that the way to Truth lies through Liberty!