The University of Nalanda c13.178

c13.178

Coming to times less remote than the Vedic and Upaniṣadic, to the centuries when *Smṛtis* and *Dharma Sūtras* were composed, and when various philosophical systems were propounded, we notice that the conception of higher knowledge underwent a partial modification. Modification in the sense that doubts were raised² whether there was a soul, whether it was immortal, whether the realization of Soul was secondary and the problem of escaping from the chain of worldly miseries all-important. And in order to uphold one philosophy and to destroy the other, new ways and means were devised. Educational history of this period reveals nothing but the quest of men in search of means, by which they sought to wreck the doctrine of the heretic—as each one called his opponent. Nevertheless, the aim of acquiring knowledge, for realizing the Unknown, the Unmanifest, or the state of *Nirvāṇa* was still cherished. This quest of the Buddhist student for *Nirvāṇa*, etc., or of the non-Buddhist student for the Unknown may be compared with the desire of the Upaniṣadic student to know *Brahma* and may be classed as Higher knowledge.