Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c9.14

c9.14

**Two Ages and Types of Literary Activity.** We shall now go behind the Rigveda Saṁhitā into the fundamental question of the method and system of educatior. responsible for the remarkable literary output it presents and also the wider cultural background to which it is related. The Saṁhitā itself indicates that we have to distinguish between two ages of literary and educational activity which were widely separated in both age and character. The first was an age of creation, of the primordial Rigveda which came into being in the original hymns as they were revealed by their so-called seers or Ṛishis. The Vedic Aryans then found it necessary for their work amidst non-Aryans (whom the Rigveda calls Dāsas, Dasyus, or Asuras and distinguishes by several other physical and cultural characteristics) that they should fix their national sacred literature reflecting their own ideals of thought and life as a means of preserving their cultural integrity as a people. Thus was called for the collection and ordering into one body the floating mass of hymns, the composition of the *Rigveda Saṁhitā*. But the production of this work was not a mere religious [Figure: No. 1.—Images in stone of seven Vedic Ṛishis·.
(1) Vasishṭha
(5) Atri
(2) Viśvâmitra
(6) Kaṇva
(3) Vâmadeva
(7) Gṛitsamada
(4) Bharadvâja Local tradition names the Ṛishis somewhat differently in the following order: (1) Vasiṣhṭha, (2) Atri, (3) Durvâsâ, (4) Bharadvâja, (5) Viśvâmitra, (6) Jâmadagni, and (7) Parâśara. [Found at Rajgir Kund, old Râjagṛiha, in Bihar.]]