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

VI] HIGHER LITERARY EDUCATION 159
Method of Teaching in the Vedic Schools :
Education therefore was for a long time imparted
through the oral lesson, without the medium of a
book. This method persisted in the Vedic schools
down to recent times. The teacher used to pronounce
only two words of the Vedic stanza at a time, which
the student was asked to recite with exact intonation
and accent. The number of words was reduced to
one, if the expression happened to be a compound
one.¹ If the student had any difficulty in the
matter, it was explained to him. When a whole
verse was thus taught to one student, he was dis-
missed and the same process was repeated with the
next one. Necessarily every student used to
receive individual attention under this system. The
method of teaching was direct and personal and
not even a text-book intervened between the teacher
and the student.
Method of Teaching in non-Vedic Schools : The
above method of teaching was extensively followed
in other branches of learning also, no doubt with
suitable modifications, when it was deemed necessary
that certain texts should be memorised by the student.
Small portions of the text were recited and explained
by the teacher to the students; when they had
understood them, each one was required to commit
them to memory. It was in this way that students
used to learn important books like the grammar of
Pāṇini, the dictionary of Amara, the law-book of
Manu or the work on poetics by Mammaṭa, which had
to be committed to memory. Books being both
costly and fragile, there was no other efficient
alternative method of study, if it was desired that

1. Ṛik-prātiśākhya, Paṭala, XV.