Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c30.50

c30.50

**Kanyākubja.** At Kanyākubja, Hiuen Tsang noticed 100 monasteries with more than 10,000 Brethren of both the Vehicles (p. 340), showing a great increase of Buddhism from the time of Fa-Hien who found here only two monasteries. Kanyākubja was then under the rule of the great king Harshavardhana of the Vaiśya caste, with his headquarters at Kanouj. He gave a great impetus to Buddhism by prohibiting the use of animal food, erecting thousands of topes on the banks of the Ganges and Buddhist monasteries at the sacred places of the Buddhists. "Once a year he summoned all the Buddhist monks together, and for twenty-one days supplied them with the regulation requisites. He furnished the chapels and liberally adorned the common halls of the monasteries. He brought the Brethren together for examination and discussion, giving rewards and punishments according to merit and demerit. Those Brethren who kept the rules of their Order and were thoroughly sound in theory and practice he 'advanced to the Lion's Throne' (that is, promoted to the highest place), and from these he received religious instruction; those who, though perfect in the observance of the ceremonial code were not learned in the past, he merely honoured with formal reverence; those who neglected the ceremonial observances of the Order, and whose immoral conduct was notorious, were banished from his presence and from the country" (p. 344).