प्राचीन भारत में शिक्षा (डॉ. ए.एस. अल्तेकर - गुरुकुल एवं बौद्ध विहार शिक्षण इतिहास)

100 EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA [Ch.
for government views and policies. The state in ancient
India, however, did not attempt to control education,
because it was liberally subsidising it. There were
no Directors of Public Instruction and Inspectors and
Deputy Inspectors of Schools to dictate and control
educational policy. Even when grants were given to
learned Brahmanas, there was no stipulation that they
would be withdrawn if free education was not given
by the donees. It was the king's duty to make such
grants. It was the Brahmana's duty to teach, even
when there were no grants. Each side was to perform
its duty though there were no specific stipulations.
Even when hundreds of villages were given to the
Nālandā University by Hindu Gupta emperors, they
did not stipulate that Buddhism should adopt a
particular policy towards the religion of the donors.
Monks at Nālandā declined to revise the traditional
rules of seniority in order to show some courtesy
concession to a royal donor, who desired to be regarded
as the seniormost monk, when he had joined the church
as a layman.² There was as perfect a toleration in
education as there was in religion. Kings were giving
grants to all institutions, without caring to control their
policy or curricula. Of course this was not an unmixed
blessing, as will be shown in the last chapter; but it
cannot be denied that it helped the cause of free
educational development.
Government Help elsewhere : The failure to
organise an educational department might appear to
the modern reader as a blemish in the ancient

1. Pinkewitch, New Education in Soviet Russia.
2. Narasimhagupta Bālāditya wanted this concession, but it
   was refused. He was regarded as the seniormost only among lay
   followers. Waters, II, pp. 164-5.