Indian Indigenous Educations Systems of 18th Century

[Jaideep Joshi]

Regards,
Jaideep

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jaideep Joshi <jaide...@gmail.com>
Date: 24 January 2013 21:58
Subject: Fwd: Indian Indigenous Educations Systems of 18th Century
To: Jaideep Joshi <jaide...@gmail.com>

Namaskaar,

Following Nareshji's suggestion, im starting a separate thread on India's native education systems to debate and settle this issue once and for all (at least within this group).

Two lines of argument are pursued by two sets of scholars in this regards. Let me first list down their main postulates.

P) The popular-academic and largely believed view:

1) Education consisted of memorising the Vedas and shastras

2) Education happened in Sanskrit

3) only Brahmins had access to education

4) education lacked practicality

5) education was disallowed for women after Manu-smriti. The Vedic period however, was "secular" in that we have examples of women Rishis

6) British education was a great benefit for India

evidence quoted (numbered by postulate):

1-4) none

5) references from Manusmriti

6) McCauley’s minutes?

N) The "Indian nationalistic" view which wants to challenge the above view:
1) Education happened via the gurushishya mode in gurukuls

2) Education happened in Sanskrit

3) British education was responsible for death of Sanskrit

4) education was open for women (only Gargi/Maitreyi quoted as evidence )

evidence quoted (numbered by postulate):

1-2) references in old texts

3) none

4) references from very old texts

Now it turns our that data shows quite a different picture from either of these.

D) The postulates from the evidence that I shall quote shortly are as follows:

1) Education was open to all, even so called Chandalas. The British had a negative role to play, if at all, in the education of the "lower" castes.

2) Education happened in native languages, very few schools were in Sanskrit

3) Large number of schools were free of cost

4) schools did not necessarily operate in a gurukul mode: i.e. they had class timings etc much like today's schools

5) Education was (at least in principle) open to women, and even Muslim women attended the schools. Women even learned Vedas and Shastras, though to a lesser degree

6) Numbers of women in schools were low, possibly because most women received education at home.

7) education did not consist of rote learning of Vedas and shastras

8) Shudras in fact dominated even in higher sciences like astronomy and Medicine, (except Vedas, whicih were exclusive to Brahmins)

9) the general pattern of education was similar throughout India, though detailed data is currently available only for some presidencies .

10) Britain, in fact, got the idea of education for all from India

Now coming to evidence for each of the above postulates.

A lot has been quoted from very old sources, so I will mainly quote 2 sources, both of which are from colonial period: 1) The Beautiful Tree 2) Balambhatti

Since no one seems to have read "The Beautiful Tree", I am forced to reproduce content from it here, along with a note on what the book is all about.

Beautiful Tree: When British administrators surveyed India (for whatever purposes), they sent letters to England describing the native systems. Many of these letters included detailed data. These letters are available to this day in archives of Chennai and England. Dharampal, after analysing a few of these letters for 10 yrs, summarized the data in a book called "The Beautiful Tree". Chapters 1,2,3 are an absolute must read as they set the context of British activities in India as well as Europe during  this period.

Balambhatti: This is a commentary on the Mitakshara (11th century) which is a commentary on the Yajnavalkya smriti, written in the 18th century by Balambhatta Payagunde. (A period during which, as is commonly believed, India was neck deep in social injustice, primitiveness, stagnation etc., from which Britishers are supposed to have rescued her.)

Evidence (numbered by postulates)

1) "In his first report, [William Adam] observed that there exist about 1,00,000 village schools in Bengal and Bihar around the 1830s" (TBT, pp18)

In various provinces, from Oriya speaking to Tamil speaking, there were total >1.6 lakh students int ~16000 schools and colleges, where total population was ~ 128 lakhs. (TBT, pp24,25)

 Here is the caste-wise composition of students in schools from various provinces. (TBT, pp 28)

According to William Adam's report:
"It is true that the greater proportion of the teachers came from the Kayasthas, Brahmins, Sadgop and Aguri castes. Yet, quite a number came from 30 other caste groups also, and even the Chandals had 6 teachers. The elementary school students present an even greater variety, and it seems as if every caste group is represented in the student population, the Brahmins and the Kayasthas nowhere forming more than 40% of the total. In the two Bihar districts, together they formed no more than 15 to 16%. The more surprising figure is of 61 Dom, and 61 Chandal school students in the district of Burdwan, nearly equal to the number of Vaidya students, 126, in that district. While Burdwan had 13 missionary schools, the number of Dom and Chandal scholars in them were only four; and, as Adam mentioned, only 86 of the ‘scholars belonging to 16 of the lowest castes’ were in these missionary schools, while 674 scholars from them were in the ‘native schools’.

2) Most schools were not in Sanskrit, but in native languages: TBT, pp. 29

4) TBT, pp 31

5, 8) TBT, pp 40 (I would say that this is the most impressive table in the book)

6) TBT, pp 41

TBT, pp 43: Among Shudras, the girls to boys ratio was in fact higher, which I find very counter-intuitive

7) TBT, pp 32

Also, there are sufficient references to refute P.5, that women education stopped since the compilation of the Manusmriti:

1. Judge in Sankara-Mandana debate was Mandana Mishra's wife, which was very much after the Manusmriti's compilation

2. Data shows that women were present in elementary schools as well as in advanced schools, and even in Veda study, though in limited numbers. This shows that there was no "law" banning education of women.

3. Both Mitakshara and Balambhatti mention sadyovadhus and brahmacharinis, both are obviously after manusmriti:

Balambhatti: "If it be said, that a girl not married and so not passing through the sacrament, cannot go to heaven, to this we reply, that a girl may pass her whole life in study after getting the sacred thread, and thus become a Brahmavadini, a knower of Brahman, and thus go to heaven. Ordinary women must pass through the formality of the sacrament of marriage in order to go to heaven, but not so the Brahmavadinis."

4. Patanjali, who mentions women grammarians, is post manu-smriti even by modern chronology

I beg pardon for this really long mail. But I hope it contributes towards clearing the dust on this issue. If anyone wants to support/ refute anything in this thread, please take it up point by point, and make precise and reference-backed statements.

Pranaam,
Jaideep

[Ramakrishnan D]

हरि ॐ

जयदीप महोदय !

नमो नमः ।   भवतः पत्रेण बहवो संशयाः निर्गताः भारते पूर्वकाले समाजः कथमासीत् इति । 

एत‍त् ज्ञातुमिच्छामि यत् कदा संस्कृतभाषाबोधना पाठशालासु स्थगिता वा सार्वजनिक पाठशालासु संस्कृतपाठनमेव

नासीत् वा ? सा ब्राह्मणैः निरुद्धा वा अन्यजनानां कृते ? सा भाषा प्रायः पाश्चात्यानां पालनकाले अधोमुखी अभवदिति

मन्ये आङ्लभाषाव्यामोहेन वा अधिकारिणां बलात्कारेण वा । कृपया सूचयन्तु भवतामभिप्रायान् । धन्यवादाः ।

भवदीयः

रामकृष्णः ।

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[Vimala Sarma]

Thank you Joshi Mahodaya.

I did a bit of a search and much of the book, Beautiful Tree is available as PDF file;  See http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/beautifultree.pdf

There is nevertheless a lot of scepticism in some circles - including academic circles.  Can you please tell me if there are scholarly reviews of the book?

Vimala

Dr Vimala Sarma

My new e-mail is sarma...@gmail.com

+612 9699 4414

+61 409 690 220

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[Jaideep Joshi]

Pranaam Ramakrishnan Mahodaya!

Elementary schools were certainly in vernacular languages. Very few were in Sanskrit. It is unlikely that Sanskrit was a spoken language on a large scale during 18th century. Higher learning schools, however, were probably Sanskrit medium. Even in these, there was representation of many castes and not Brahmins alone.

I had also read somewhere (although I cant recall the reference) that adhyayan of Vedas was actively discouraged by British, and only Shastras were allowed to be taught. Medicine was also discouraged. For eg, there is recorded evidence (see Dharampal Collected writings, Vol 1) that inoculation of smallpox was done traditionally by a sect of Brahmins, but that was discouraged by British because they wanted to promote European vaccines.

Regards,

Jaideep.

Regards,
Jaideep

On 25 January 2013 10:56, Jaideep Joshi <jaide...@gmail.com> wrote:

Pranaam Vimala Mahodaye!

Dharampal himself urged that his works be reviewed academically. Our intellectuals, for the last 60 years, have resorted to neglecting work that makes their theories uncomfortable. The same was done with Dharampal, K.D. Sethna, Kota Venkatachelam, and with so many others. Once the challenging authors die, status quo (i.e. the colonial views on India) is resumed.

However, there has indeed been scholarly a review of the books by Claude Alvares. (See the preface of the attached pdf called "Making History". The pdf is vol I of the collected writings which is on Science and Technology of the 18th century). There also exists a Dharampal Chair at one university (ill get the info soon, though I heard it has been vacant for many years out of neglect by academia).

Scepticism is always welcome, but it MUST BE informed. One has to take pains to go into the archives and produce conuter-evidence in order to qualify for commenting. The archives are available to this day in England and in Chennai. Dharampal chair was set up precisely to study them in greater depth. For now, the data is in front of you, and at least for the Madras presidency, the data is detailed and irrefutable. (Incidentally, it is the Tamil schools which come out as best examples of education for all, equality etc, and ironically, it is the same state that believes that its people were oppressed for millennia)

PS: All of Dharampal's writings are available here.

Regards,
Jaideep

[Jaideep Joshi]

Pranaam Vimala Mahodaye!

Dharampal himself urged that his works be reviewed academically. Our intellectuals, for the last 60 years, have resorted to neglecting work that makes their theories uncomfortable. The same was done with Dharampal, K.D. Sethna, Kota Venkatachelam, and with so many others. Once the challenging authors die, status quo (i.e. the colonial views on India) is resumed.

However, there has indeed been scholarly a review of the books by Claude Alvares. (See the preface of the attached pdf called "Making History". The pdf is vol I of the collected writings which is on Science and Technology of the 18th century). There also exists a Dharampal Chair at one university (ill get the info soon, though I heard it has been vacant for many years out of neglect by academia).

Scepticism is always welcome, but it MUST BE informed. One has to take pains to go into the archives and produce conuter-evidence in order to qualify for commenting. The archives are available to this day in England and in Chennai. Dharampal chair was set up precisely to study them in greater depth. For now, the data is in front of you, and at least for the Madras presidency, the data is detailed and irrefutable. (Incidentally, it is the Tamil schools which come out as best examples of education for all, equality etc, and ironically, it is the same state that believes that its people were oppressed for millennia)

PS: All of Dharampal's writings are available here.

Regards,
Jaideep

On 25 January 2013 06:53, Vimala Sarma <vsa...@bigpond.com> wrote:

[G S S Murthy]

A short addendum for what it iis worth: During nineteenforties when I was a school boy,
 my father would talk of what is called in Kannada," koolie maTha", which was a one-teacher primary school where village boys learnt elements of 3R.

The teacher was paid in cash/kind through voluntary contribution by the villagers. The teacher was more often than not a Brahmin, belonging to th

a village where Brahmins lived(Agrahara).

Regards,

Murthy

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[Jaideep Joshi]

Thanks Dr. Bhat Mahodaya for pointing out the following typo:

"3. Both Mitakshara and Balambhatti mention sadyovadhus and brahmacharinis, both are obviously after manusmriti:"

It should be Brahmavadinis.

Also, the point on women grammarians was mentioned by someone in a previous thread, but I could not verify it. Can someone post the reference?

Regards,

Jaideep.

Regards,
Jaideep

[Hnbhat B.R.]

For the study of Veda-s by ब्राह्मण-s (not by Shudras or others, obligatorily) महाभाष्य attests the following in the पस्पशाह्निक:

(प-३; अकि-१,१.१४-२.२; रो-१,८-१४; भा-६/१७) आगमः खलु अपि ।

(प-३; अकि-१,१.१४-२.२; रो-१,८-१४; भा-७/१७) ब्राह्मणेन निष्कारणः धर्मः षडङ्गः वेदः अध्येयः ज्ञेयः इति ।

(प-३; अकि-१,१.१४-२.२; रो-१,८-१४; भा-८/१७) प्रधानम् च षट्सु अङ्गेषु व्याकरणम् ।

(प-३; अकि-१,१.१४-२.२; रो-१,८-१४; भा-९/१७) प्रधाने च कृतः यत्नः फलवान् भवति ।

And for the mention of any female Grammarians, I would like to get any reference from Yudhishthir Mimamsaka-s History of Sanskrit Grammar or Belwalkar's Sanskrit Grammar, both are authentic, than mere mention of Patanjali, to Mahabhashya.

The above reference quoted only attests the study of Veda by Brahmana obligatory and according to smriti- text,and Dharmashastra texts, only Brahmana is authorized both to learn and teach Veda-s and other two VarNa-s are only entitled to learning Veda-s. No discussion on admission of female students or any prohibition to the learning of Veda-s by women, is found. But it is alltogether ignored in the contexts. Brahmana was described as having six duties:

 विप्रश्च ब्राह्मणोऽसौ षट्कर्मा यागादिभिर्वृतः ( २. ६. ८१६)

by Amara in his synonyms of Brahmana in the above reference. The six include यजन, याजन, दान-प्रतिग्रह, and अध्ययन-अध्यापन - three sets, for all the six only Brahmana is obliged to attend. Others of traivarnika-s,  Here is the record of Arthashastra by Chanakya at his time:

 एष त्रयी-धर्मश्चतुर्णां वर्णानां आश्रमाणां च स्व-धर्म-स्थापनादौपकारिकः ।। ०१.३.०४ ।।

 स्वधर्मो ब्राह्मणस्य अध्ययनं अध्यापनं यजनं याजनं दानं प्रतिग्रहश्च ।। ०१.३.०५ ।।

 क्षत्रियस्याध्ययनं यजनं दानं शस्त्र-आजीवो भूत-रक्षणं च ।। ०१.३.०६ ।।

 वैश्यस्याध्ययनं यजनं दानं कृषि-पाशुपाल्ये वणिज्या च ।। ०१.३.०७ ।।

 शूद्रस्य द्विजाति-शुश्रूषा वार्त्ता कारु-कुशीलव-कर्म च ।। ०१.३.०८ ।।

As it is clear, शूद्र’s धर्म doesn't include any of the three sets meant for the त्रैवर्णिक-s. This picture cannot be turned aside by the census record in 1825 AD.

This is just to show the system of caste based education, which has neither the Mecaulay or his Imperialistic system of Education did not have anything to to deny the lower caste the Education or promote Education as the purpose of this topic seems to object. The above is the picture we get from the record of Arthashastra, if we accept it as an authentic recording of the law at the time of Chanakya. This continued from the time Amara had written his lexicon including षट्कर्मा as the synonym of ब्राह्मण, by whose time it was already established as his duties much earlier than his time.

And for the records of Balambhatti, and Mitakshara, I would like to have the precise reference where the commentary is offered. The context only can decide whether it supports the learning of Veda-s by women or not. Without the context, one cannot decide by quoting a running translation.

[Subrahmanian R]

Dear Scholars,

 

On the subject of Indian education system, particularly women education, I may be permitted to quote a few lines from 'A History of South India' by Sri K.A. Nilakanta Sastri in the Chapter on 'Social and Economic Conditions':  "The Italian traveller Pietro Della Valle (1623) has left a vivid account of the village schools and the methods of instruction they followed including the process of learning by rote and the use of fine sand strewn on the floor for writing, methods which survived in full till the other day and have perhaps not quite gone out yet in remote villages. Ibn Batuta (1333-45) records"I saw in Hanaur thirteen schools for the instruction of girls, and twenty three for boys, a thing I have not seen anywhere else"

 

With reverence to all

R Subrahmanian

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[Sunder Hattangadi]

Search in this book may be helpful: http://ia601508.us.archive.org/10/items/YajnavalkyaSmritiWithThreeCommentaries/yajnavalkya_smriti_three_comm.pdf (1437 pages, 154 MB) Regards, sunder --- On Fri, 1/25/13, Hnbhat B.R. <hnbh...@gmail.com> wrote:

[विश्वनाथ: बण्डारु]

Dear Shri Arvindji,

I am unable to resist adding my bit of rhetoric :).

You asked a question -

      Why do we ignore that and put all our trust in 'Beautiful Tree',

By the same token, why should we put all our trust in the data from Poona college, which you your self state that has been a bastion of traditional Brahminical learning in Maharashtra. ?

You have also stated the following in another thread called 'Clearing A Doubt on Macaula's 'minute' about this very same Poona college just few days back (Emphasis and underlining mine)  -

After the replacement of the Peshwa rule by the British, the annual distribution of Dakshina was stopped and replaced by the establishment of a college called the Hindu College in 1821.  The teaching in this College was of the traditional type of Nyaya, Tarka, Mimansa, Vyakarana, Alankar etc. and learned Shastris were appointed to teach these.  Scholarships were given to the students and the College was open only to Brahmans.  This measure was calculated to pacify the influential Brahman lobby and to reconcile them to the new regime.

So, if this specific college is open only to Brahman students, why are you giving the data from it to refute the data from Beautiful Tree that claims lower casts were part of  educational system ?

Sorry for being personal in this email, but it doesn't sound correct to me that data is being mus-represented here.

On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 8:29 PM, Arvind_Kolhatkar <kolhat...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Jaideep,

I too have read "Beautiful Tree".  I would not place any great stress on the so-called statistical tables in it because Statistics - and gathering unbiased raw data as a science - was unknown to the people who collected that data.

If Indian masses had all that 'education' in the 18th/19th centuries, why did social reformers of the late 19th century, like Phule (bringing educatition to lower classes), Karve (educating girls) had to face so much opposition in their movements?

As I have said in another posting, I, very recently had occasion to look into the 'Poona College' of the 1840s/1850s.  This College was initially established in 1821 as "Hindu College, and was exclusively for Brahman students.  It taught traditional  shastras under Pundit teachers.  It was expanded into 'Poona College' in 1837 to teach, in addition to the traditional subjects, also English and Marathi.  After the Bombay University was founded in 1857 as a result of the 'Woods Education Despatch' (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood's_despatch) the Poona College became the famous Deccan College of Poona.  The Woods Education Despatch is attributed to Woods, then the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the EIC, scholars suspect that it probably penned by John Stuart Mill, who held a clerical job in the EIC at that time.

The book called 'House of Commons Papers' available in books.google.com (http://books.google.ca/books?id=ftISAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y) reproduces a large body of correspondence, Returns and Reports about the affairs of this College.  It gives a large number of details about its working, such as number of students from year to year (about 500 usually), the names of Teachers and of several students, the Teachers pay, stipends given to students, topics and text-books used in the College, the level of discipline, its location (the old Peshwa-time building called Vishram-Bag, which still survives in Poona and has offices of the Municipla Corporation in it) etc.  It almost recreate in the reader's mind the College as it then was.

The numbers of students given therein does not paint a rosy picture of the state of education in India in the 1840s, not too far away from the good days painted in' Beautiful Tree'.  If India did have in the 18th century a wonderful education system as 'Beautiful Tree' describes, where did that tradition disappear in 40 years? If the Indian population did set a great value by education till the end of the 18th century as ' Beautiful Tree' would have us believe, why did it suddenly lose its thirst for knowledge by 1840?  We find that the Poona College had just about 500 students, even though most seats in it were either free or stipendiary.  And that too in the city of Poona, which has always been a bastion of traditional Brahminical learning in Maharashtra.

The portion, relevant to the Poona College in the book that I have cited is available at p. 179 (printed) or 197/698 (pdf version) onwards.  Of some interest is a castewise Table of students in the College at p.251 (printed) or 269/684 (pdf version).  The castewise breakup is: Brahmans 288, Shenvi 3,Kayastha 2. Sutar 1, Sonar 3, Prabhu 14, Palaki(?) 7, European/Portuguese 1, Parsi 2, Juigar(?) 6, unknown 2.  I see that the College is almost entirely a Brahmin place.  Where did all the 'Shudras' of 'Beautiful Tree' disappear and why did they, for no reason, lose all their desire for learning, which 'Beautiful Tree' tells us they had as recently as the late 18th century?

There is a vast body of autobiographical, anecdotal and word-of-mouth evidence that says that education, in whatever quality it was available, was almost entirely the preserve of the upper classes.  Why do we ignore that and put all our trust in 'Beautiful Tree', a book generally unknown even to the most ardent believers that everything In India was good before the British came and spoiled it?  Had conditions been as rosy as painted in it, there would have been no need for Phule, Karve and Ambedkar and their life-long struggles.  Were they fighting imaginary ghosts?

Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, January 24, 2013.

[Jaideep Joshi]

Namaste!

For those who replied before Arvind Mahodaya, the discussion is once again simply centering on study of Vedas, perhaps simply because that is the only "study" that you find mentioned in the old Sanskrit texts. No doubt, study of Vedas was disallowed to Shudras, and this is evident from the statistics in TBT also, where Veda and Law shows only Brahmin students. My clinching argument was, in fact, for the other sciences like Astronomy, Medicine and for Elementary school, which had more of a practical and moral educational basis.

Now Arvindji's post merits a more detailed reply.

Before that, I would reiterate my request to keep mails short and pointed. There is great chance to miss many things in long mails. And the replies continue to grow even longer.

The period which TBT quotes is mostly from around 1825:
"Although the Madras Presidency data which forms the bulk of this book was collected during 1822-25, the educational system to which the data pertained was much older. It was still the dominant system during the 18th century, after which it started decaying very rapidly. The Adam Reports reflect that decline in the fourth decade of the 19th century."

Incidentally, this is also the period when reformers like Mahatma Phule were active (his first book came in 1855), and the society that they saw, clearly had already lost its indigenous education systems. In fact, even in 1825, the indigenous systems were already in a state of decay* following Bentinck's measures of "reforming the court system, [and making] English, rather than Persian, the language of the higher courts and encourag[ing] western-style education for Indians in order to provide more educated Indians for service in the British bureaucracy." (see wiki link above).

* TBT, pp 20: "School attendance, especially in the districts of the Madras Presidency, even in the decayed state of the period 1822-25, was proportionately far higher than the numbers in all variety of schools in England in 1800."

Arvindji, you say

        "I would not place any great stress on the so-called statistical tables in it because Statistics - and gathering unbiased raw data as a science - was unknown to the people who collected that data."

      Can you prove that what the data shows is wrong? Can you prove that there were only Brahmins in all the schools listed in the data, in spite of the explicit numbers mentioned? For that, one will have to go into the archives once again, and show either of the following:

1) that every single table, every single number in TBT is wrong, and it was the author's mistake

2) that there are no such records in the archives and that the author has fabricated all this data

       Without that, there is no basis for such a statement.

       True, there were no exact statistical methods to collect data during that time. But nowhere does history rely on statistics. If historians trash accounts of indigenous education claiming lack of statistics, why dont I see the same historians trashing Al'Beruni's or Megasthenes' or Greek records in Indian history? Why dont they also trash anecdotal references to lack of education in the scriptures, by the same logic?

Now there is a lot to refute in your last paragraph.

     "There is a vast body of autobiographical, anecdotal and word-of-mouth evidence that says that education, in whatever quality it was available, was almost entirely the preserve of the upper classes. "

      Firstly, most these anecdotes, autobiographies, etc, while perfectly true, are from a period after the 1860s, much posterior to the total decay of indigenous systems.
        It does not take many generations to forget the past, especially when it is actively discouraged. Two examples:
       1) How many youngsters from today's generation know Panchatantra, a thing that was so common to even my parents' generation?
        2) The simple home-made remedies that my mother knows are totally unknown in my generation.
        The rate at which knowledge dies is indeed frightening. (PS: I would not have used the word "classes". It means a totally different thing.) Thus this later literature cannot serve as evidence for times several generations past.

     Why do we ignore that and put all our trust in 'Beautiful Tree', a book generally unknown even to the most ardent believers that everything In India was good before the British came and spoiled it?

      One does not judge a book on how many people know it, but by its content. We ought to "trust" it because it presents perfectly falsifiable data, (that too, collected by those who had vested interests in collecting it.) If one wants to prove it wrong, I have already outlined what one needs to do. That is the only scientific way. (see the links also). To Hinduism's great misfortune these "ardent believers" typically have no clue about the contents of any  texts/records.

 
    Had conditions been as rosy as painted in it, there would have been no need for Phule, Karve and Ambedkar and their life-long struggles.  Were they fighting imaginary ghosts?"

     No, they were fighting real issues, issues generated not by the native system, but by absence of it. Sadly, many of these reformers did not have this data at their disposal (these would have been confidential british govt papers back then), otherwise i'm sure they would've taken a different stand. All they had to refer to was old texts, esp. smritis, and that way their stand was justified back then. Moreover, conditions painted in TBT are not as "rosy" as you make it sound. There is no denying that there were problems of the time, but not of the nature and scale that is believed.

 

Regards,
Jaideep

[Vimala Sarma]

Jaideep Mahodaya

I just want to clarify one point made by Arvind Mahodaya, as think you may not have fully understood it.

 

        "I would not place any great stress on the so-called statistical tables in it because Statistics - and gathering unbiased raw data as a science - was unknown to the people who collected that data."

 

What is meant by this is the science of statistics was unknown at this time - ie the factors which give rise to errors and biases in the results.  Unless the methodology is rigorous it may not be possible to interpret the data. For example what was the question asked, was the wording the same everytime - how was it asked; were people paid to produce answers; who was asked - was it teachers or was it parents (same in all areas) , was their any coersion in the answers, who was doing the asking? was it a superior of inferior person, what was the sample size in each area, what was the ratio of response rate to sample size.  Are the data across areas directly comparable; was there independent corroboration, what was the premis being tested, was the sample size valid to get a meaningful result, was the question in the form so only a yes or no answer is given, etc.   See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_methodology for further information.  This information is not given in TBT.

 

Vimala

 

Dr Vimala Sarma

My new e-mail is sarma...@gmail.com

+612 9699 4414

+61 409 690 220

 

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[Jaideep Joshi]

Vimala Mahodaye,

I understood very well what Arvindji meant. My point was that can we find a single record in history, which qualifies the survey method you describe? And yet, we put all our faith on such records to create our history, and even believe firmly in it. (See how entire Indian chronology is based on a SINGLE identification of sandrocottus with chandragupta maurya! - A truely scientific method indeed!!) Nonetheless, the volume of data is TBT is far more voluminous than these scant references scattered around elsewhere. Yes, there could be biases in it, but are any historical records free from biases? Moreover, considering that these records were created not by "Hindu nationalists" or "Europenan romanticists", but by administrative collectors, more likely than not, the bias can be expected to be the other way round, i.e. the system was probably even better than TBT says!

Arvind Mahodaya,

Education has never been a formal state-dependent excercise until the British rule. However, your mail insists that what is not state funded is necessarily of a lower grade, informal, almost useless. I will reply to this soon, from Dharampal's other volumes, which give data on how these systems were funded, how instruction happened, etc.

Regards,

Jaideep.

Regards,
Jaideep

On 27 January 2013 11:15, Arvind_Kolhatkar <kolhat...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Friends,

I am not denying that there was 'some' kind of education available to the masses.  I know, for example, that in Marathi areas there was a kind of a village school, usually held under a tree, and managed by a teacher called in Marathi as 'Pantoji'.  He was paid by the local people through voluntary contributions of some money, grain, cloth etc.  However, it was not, and could not be, an organized effort.  The teacher taught what he knew of the three R's - and that was usually not much, - pupils attended when they felt like - which was not often, because, being children, they had more interesting things to do like playing gulli-danda, parents could not be bothered to ensure attendance because they found the grown-up children more useful working along with them in the field or tending to the cattle.  There was no supervision, no regulation, no expectation of the minimum result to be achieved.  Yes, this kind of informal education did exist.

The end-products of this system would usually end up knowing some writing, some basic arithmetic and some scattering of religious or moral poetry and little else.  Enough for most Indians of those days to carry on with their traditional lives.

This happened because the Indian rulers, Muslim as well as Hindu, never considered that equipping their subjects with education was a part of their responsibility as rulers.  As rulers, they were only interested in gathering revenue and using that for their own personal lavish lifestyles, maintaining armies that only fought and decimated each other.  Whatever may have been the ideal of a ruler in theory - प्रजानां विनयाधानाद्रक्षणाद्भरणादपि। स पिता पितरस्तासां केवला जन्महेतवः॥ as Kalidasa beautifully puts it - do we know a single ruler of the 17th/18th century who did this?

The British, alien rulers that they were, for the first time in the history of India, and for whatever vile motives, spoke of educating the natives.  Did any Mughal emperor or the Peshwas, or the Ranas ever speak in these terms?  Education, as a responsibility of the state and as an activity supported by the state, emerged for the first time in India under the British.  From there it has now advanced to the stage where, at least in theory, we have compulsory education in India.  Who started this trend?

Somebody spoke here in this discussion about the great emperor Ashoka.  Now Indian memory of Ashoka till the end of the 18th century was a single reference in Vishnupurana in a long list of names.  I think there is perhaps not even a single mention of the great emperor Ashoka in the vast body of classical Sanskrit literature.  He was totally forgotten, as were also the Guptas, supposedly patrons of Kalidasa.  None of the Brahmans could read Ashoka's inscriptions scattered throughout India.  It was James Princep and his colleagues in the Asiatic Society of Bengal who, out of their personal curiosity, pieced together the Brahmi script and, as a result, Ashoka, Chandragupta Maurya and the whole Gupta dynasty again emerged into daylight.  The local pundits never knew this and had even less desire to find it out.  This was the level of 'education' in India.  All were busy dissecting and parsing obscure terminologies in vyakarana or nyaaya and in चर्वितचर्वण of the surest path to escaping the cycle of rebirth and attaining mokSha.

I came across the following passage about the quality and level of education in Orissa at the end of the 18th century.  I think that this description is fairly representative of India as a whole.  It is from a book called 'Development of Modern Education in India - An Empirical Study of Orissa' by by Bina Sarma.  It is available as a preview book at books.google.ca/books?isbn=8185880948.  Please see pp 17 and 18 thereof:

"Thus it seems that up to the end of the 18th century there was no well-conceived plan to manage the educational institutions that existed.  As has already been observed the educational institutions were managed by voluntary organizations and charitable religious endowments.  There was nothing like an integrated system of education under government control, supervision or direction.  There were no school buildings, no printed books, no standard syllabi, no qualified teachers.  On the whole, education was mechanical and medieval in its nature.  As a matter of fact the best and the real aspects of ancient wisdom and sciences were neglected and the superficial aspects of scriptural faith dominated the mind of the people.  The vast majority of the common people in Orissa had no learning in the formal sense, but all could do things by memory.  Religious songs, popular tales and ballads were widely current in the society and always served to fill the minds of all classes of people with certain amount of ethical and intellectual tastes.  In short, at that time emphasis was laid on imparting culture rather making the people literate.  As a result, neither individuality nor a rationalist outlook could develop among pupils in schools in pre-British days.  The education imparted was to make pupils staunch Hindus or Muslims, uncritical subscribers to their respective religions and social structures sanctioned by those religions.

The reasons for this sad state of affairs are not far to seek.  Imparting education to the people was not considered a primary duty of the government during the Muslim and Maratha period (1568 to 1751 AD).  The sphere of governments activity was confined mainly to the work of collection of revenue.  The little patronage that the rulers provided to the men of letters did not help in any way to spread education in Orissa.

Despite this deplorable condition it will be wrong to presume that the system of education prevalent in Orissa in the pre-British days was entirely useless.  The system no doubt had certain defects and was different from the modern system.  Yet it served the needs of the time.  Howsoever defective and unscientific it might have been, undoubtedly the students received a sort of rudimentary knowledge in all matters relating to a common civic life through this system."

Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, January 27, 2013.

[विश्वासो वासुकेयः]

On Saturday, January 26, 2013 9:45:21 PM UTC-8, Arvind_Kolhatkar wrote:

 

There was no supervision, no regulation, no expectation of the minimum result to be achieved.  Yes, this kind of informal education did exist.

The end-products of this system would usually end up knowing some writing, some basic arithmetic and some scattering of religious or moral poetry and little else.  Enough for most Indians of those days to carry on with their traditional lives.

It is true that at some point the "factory model" of producing people with skills would be required to benefit (in the sense of increased mostly-material prosperity) from the industrial-revolution-spurred economy. There is no reason why Indians would not have responded to economic incentives on their own, in their own way - as many other unequal East Asian societies eventually did. The "enlightenment" delivered by our former rulers reminds me of the Borg more than anything else.

That said, I have heard modern educators who find this system of force-feeding mathematics or whatever to uninterested kids abhorrent and a killer of creativity - see talks by Ken Robinson for example. They argue that this factory system is not necessarily as great as it is cracked up to be.

PS: http://www.kamat.com/search/?search=education&B1=Search would be a good source of articles on Indian education.

[Sai Susarla]

Of late, I am observing that Samskrit mailing list is slowly getting converted into a dustbin of all sorts of non-Samskrit-related discussions in english.

What does any of this discussion have to do with Samskrit?
If people would like to debate about such topics, why don't they write in Samskrit? At least those who are reading will get the practice of understanding Samskrit language, whatever the subject matter?
Keep this simple rule in mind when posting stuff to this mailing list - "In Samskrit, or On Samskrit".
- Sai.

On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 11:15 AM, Arvind_Kolhatkar <kolhat...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Friends,

I am not denying that there was 'some' kind of education available to the masses.  I know, for example, that in Marathi areas there was a kind of a village school, usually held under a tree, and managed by a teacher called in Marathi as 'Pantoji'.  He was paid by the local people through voluntary contributions of some money, grain, cloth etc.  However, it was not, and could not be, an organized effort.  The teacher taught what he knew of the three R's - and that was usually not much, - pupils attended when they felt like - which was not often, because, being children, they had more interesting things to do like playing gulli-danda, parents could not be bothered to ensure attendance because they found the grown-up children more useful working along with them in the field or tending to the cattle.  There was no supervision, no regulation, no expectation of the minimum result to be achieved.  Yes, this kind of informal education did exist.

The end-products of this system would usually end up knowing some writing, some basic arithmetic and some scattering of religious or moral poetry and little else.  Enough for most Indians of those days to carry on with their traditional lives.

[Ricardo Louro Martins]

https://www.facebook.com/CentroDeEstudosOrientaisVyasa?fref=ts

http://aulasdesanscrito.com/

Namaskaram