Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c31.35

c31.35

**Unsuccessful Teachers and Pupils.** Not all the teachers and the taught in the monasteries were always successful. We read of monks unable to understand the Vinaya and thus compelled "to live under another's care during the whole of their life-time". Sometimes the failure may be due to the want of a really able teacher. "If there be no great teacher, he must live under the care of a sub-teacher." From such a sub-teacher he may arrange to receive instruction twice a day in the morning and evening but with all this it may so happen that the meaning of the Vinaya text is not understood as it ought to be. The incapacity of a teacher is condemned by the Vinaya thus: "Rather be a butcher than be a priest who gives others full ordination and leaves them untaught" (p. 120).