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

162 EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA [Ch.
rising of the Vedic texts to one section of Brahmanas
and their exposition to another. It had become
humanly impossible to expect both the tasks to be
done by the same individual.
The Place of Exposition in Teaching : It is no
doubt true that some Sūtra works like those on
grammar and philosophy, which were committed to
memory, are so cryptic as to be mostly unintelligible
by themselves. They were written in that style
merely to lighten the burden on the student's memory.
Their teaching was accompanied by extensive lectures,
some of which used to be later embodied in com-
mentaries. The teaching of the important works on
philosophy, logic and poetics was hardly possible
without exhaustive discussions pertaining to the views
expounded and controverted. In these discussions
there was an unravelling of the subject matter,
distinctions and contra-distinctions were drawn, and
an effort was made to show the reasonableness of one's
position and the errors of the opponent¹. The
students of the various schools of orthodox and
heterodox systems of religion and philosophy reading
under Divākarasena used to listen to the exposition
of their respective systems, deliberate on their natures,
discuss their features, raise doubts on obscure themes,
determine for themselves the main outlines and enter
into discussion with the opponents². The same
procedure must have been followed in other colleges
of philosophy. Reasoning and analysis formed the
crux of the method of study and teaching. The
medium of instruction in higher studies was naturally

1. Mil. Pan. Vol. I, p. 46.
2. Harshacharit, Chap. VIII.