Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c30.132

c30.132

**Methods of Education : Test of Debating Capacity : Gradation of Scholars.** As regards the methods of study, the old Brahmanical division between reciting the texts and understanding their meaning seems to have been still in force. We read of the monks of Udyāna as being "clever at reciting their books without penetrating their deep meaning" (i, 226). But undoubtedly much greater stress was laid upon the ability to expound the texts in public meetings at a time when much of the intellectual life of the country was occupied with the controversies and discussions between the exponents of the different schools of thought. As observed by Hiuen Tsang, "the tenets of these schools keep these isolated, and controversy runs high" (i, 162). Accordingly, monastic education devoted special attention to the development in the alumni of their powers of public debate and exposition, which were highly prized and rewarded. The cultivation of such intellectual capacities was systematically stimulated by recognition awarded on the basis of examinations. "The Brethren are often assembled for discussion to test intellectual capacity—to reject the worthless and advance the intelligent. Those who bring forward (or according to some texts, estimate aright) fine points in philosophy, and give subtle principles their proper place, who are ornate in diction and acute in refined distinctions, ride richly caparisoned elephants preceded and followed by a host of attendants. But as for those to whom religious teaching has been offered in vain, who have been defeated in discussion, who are deficient in doctrine and redundant in speech, perverting the sense while keeping the language, the faces of such are promptly daubed with red and white clay, their bodies are covered with dirt, and they are driven out to the wilds or thrown into the ditches" (ib). But besides the periodical examinations, the ordinary classification of the inmates of the monasteries was meant to promote the same end. Each community of Brethren had its own hierarchy promoted according to a recognized system which is thus described by Hiuen Tsang: "The Brother who expounds orally one treatise (or class of scripture) in the Buddhist Canon, whether Vinaya, Abhidharma, or Sūtra, is exempted from serving under the Prior; he who expounds two is invested with the outfit of a Superior; he who expounds three has Brethren deputed to assist him; he who expounds four has lay servants assigned to him; he who expounds five rides an elephant; he who expounds six rides an elephant and has a surrounding retinue."