Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c32.s1.47.3

c32.s1.47.3

It was derived from Brahmanism with its remarkable absence of any official creed and its readiness to accommodate within its pale a wide variety of deities and beliefs. Buddhism thus imbibed "the flexibility which marked the methods of the older faith". The founder of Buddhism was well known for his consideration towards followers of other creeds whom he did not like to convert in haste, while this large and catholic ideal utters itself in no uncertain and feeble tones in some of the edicts of Asoka who stood for "the growth of the essence of the matter in all sects". The ideal of Liberty leads to that of social service. The inspiration of this ideal is responsible for the administration of the University on a democratic basis as far as possible. Under this inspiration the Saṁgha counts more than the individual monks, the whole is always greater than the part. Thus sectarian differences are merged in a common life and service, in the service to a common ideal. Nālandā stood for this larger synthesis to be realized in and through life, in which the theoretical and conventional differences were reconciled.