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

VII] PRIMARY EDUCATION 175
When this ceased to be the case, the family priest or
the preceptor, to whom students were sent for Vedic
education, may have imparted the primary education
as well; for primary education at this time was a
more integral part of higher education than is the case
now. Primary schools also existed in some localities;
we sometimes get references to rich boys going to
attend them, when their wooden slates were carried by
their servants.¹ But who conducted these primary
schools, or how they were financed is not known.
Public institutions even for higher education had not
yet been evolved, as we have seen already. Primary
schools also must therefore have been private institu-
tions. Literacy was very wide spread at this time;
it is but natural that some of the members of the
Brahmana, Kshatriya and Vaishya classes may have
taken to primary education as a career.
PRIMARY EDUCATION DURING
c. 200 B.C. to 800 A.D.
The Time of Commencement :—Primary education
was assigned a definite place in the educational system
during this period by the exaltation of its beginning
into a religious ritual known as Aksharasvīkaraṇa (see
Appendix I A), which was performed at about the age
of five or six. This was the time for the beginning
of primary education. Authors of this period represent
the Buddha, Raghu, Lava and Kuśa as beginning their
education at about this age.² The Chinese pilgrim
I-tsing also found that primary education used to
begin at the age of six.
Scope of Primary Education :—Boys began their
study with the primary and compound alphabets and
1 Kaṭāhaka Jātaka, No. 125.
2 Lalitavistāra, Canto 10; Raghuvaṁśa, Canto III, Uttara-
Rāmacharit, Act II.