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

120 EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA [Ch.
a thousand could explain, as we have seen already,
twenty collections, of Sūtras. This means that there
were about a thousand competent teachers to look
after the education of about 4,000, but in no case,
more than 9,000 monk students. On the average
therefore each teacher was in charge of about not
more than nine students. Personal attention was
thus possible to each student and the teaching
therefore must have been very efficient. The college
had eight big halls and 300 smaller apartments and
every day the authorities used to arrange for about
a hundred lectures. Learned monk teachers were
held in high veneration and were provided with sedan
chairs. They were experts in the art of teaching and
expounding; I-tsing gratefully observes, 'I have been
very glad that I have had an opportunity of aquiring
knowledge personally from them, which I should
otherwise have never possessed.'
Curriculum : The curriculum at Nālandā was
very comprehensive and catholic. The establishment
belonged to the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism, but
the works of the rival school, the Hīnayāna one, were
also taught. This necessitated a study of Pali
language, in which most of the Hīnayāna works were
composed. Works of the famous Mahāyāna scholars
like Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Asaṅga and Dharmakīrti
must have been specially studied. But it is not to be
supposed that the curriculum of the University was a
sectarian one in the sense that it neglected Hindu
subjects. In the first place it must be noted that
subjects like grammar, logic and literature were
common to both the Hindus and the Buddhists.
Secondly, we have to remember that Bauddha and
Hindu religion and philosophy had become so
intricately interconnected with each other that to study