Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c9.53

c9.53

**Summary: Highest Knowledge attained by 'Tapas' and revealed in Veda.** To sum up: the system of education adumbrated in the Rigveda thus concerns only the acquisition of the highest knowledge and saving wisdom and not of ordinary secular knowledge or intermediate truths for purposes of worldly life. The method of this learning is determined by its aims and contents. The method of attaining the knowledge of the Absolute, "Parabrahma-jñāna," is not the method of acquiring a knowledge of the objective sciences, arts, and crafts. It is the method of realization of the highest and ultimate truths called *Ṛita* and *Satya* by inhibition of the senses and the objective, the method of meditation (*dhyāna*; cf. *dhīrāḥ*) sustained by a life of austerities, *tapas* or *yoga*. In a Rigvedic passage, *Tapas* is described in a literal sense as "the most radiant effulgence coming from the highest knowledge" (*tapaḥ uttamaṁ mahaḥ*), where the worshipper prays for the highest gift, the light of supreme knowledge or *Tapas* (the opposite of *Tamas* or ignorance). The vehicle, the language, of this learning, too, is different. The Rigveda describes the popular speech, the spoken tongue, as "imperfect" ("*pāpayā vāchā*") and "untrue" (*alaka*), because it cannot serve as the vehicle of Truth or supreme knowledge. It is the language of the field and factory, a fragment of Vāk or Brahma (*Brahmāyaṁ Vāchaḥ*), which cannot express the truths hidden in the depths of the soul (*nihitaṃ guhāyām*). These highest and ultimate truths are revealed by a different language, the language of the Vedic Mantras evolved out of the popular speech by means of *tapas* and *yoga* by learned men called *Vipras*, *Vedhasas*, or *Kavis*, *Ṛishis*, *Manīshīs*, and *Munis* who live in a state of trance (*unmaditāḥ*) and in the subtle body (*vātān ā tasthimā*) and are worshipped of the gods themselves (*deveshita*). We are further told that these learned men and seers developed Vedic knowledge and speech by their discussions at Assemblies or Conferences meeting on occasions of Sacrifices where this knowledge and speech were "attained, mastered, collected, and distributed". It was these Academies and learned Assemblies which were thus the agencies for the formulation and propagation of Vedic learning. The members of these bodies are described as *Sakhās*, i.e. those who come together by the bond of fellowship in learning, and are fellow-seekers after Truth.