Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c31.31

c31.31

**Admission of unordained Students.** Besides organizing secular courses of study and throwing them open to non-Buddhist students or students from the Buddhist lay public, the monasteries still further widened their scope and sphere of usefulness by admitting to their religious sections even unordained students. These were called *Māṇavas* who might be potential, but not actual, monks with whom they only agreed in seeking instruction in the Buddhist scriptures. They come in the white robes of laymen but they cherish "the intention that they may one day become tonsured and black-robed", i.e. become ordained (p. 105).