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

IX] FEMALE EDUCATION 211
Was there co-education ? The modern reader
would be anxious to know whether co-education
prevailed in the past. Our sources however throw but
dim light on the subject. From the Mālatīmādhava
of Bhavabhūti, written in the 8th century A. D., we
learn that the nun Kāmandakī was educated along
with Bhūrivasu and Devarāta at a famous centre of
education.¹ This would show that if not in Bhava-
bhūti's time, at least some centuries earlier, sometimes
boys and girls were educated together while receiving
higher education. In the Uttara-Rāma-charit also (of
the same author) we find Ātreyī receiving her
education along with Kuśa and Lava (Act II). The
stories of Kahoda and Sujātā and Ruru and
Pramadvarā, narrated in Purāṇas, would also point
to co-education. They would further show that at a
time when girls were being married at an advanced
age and receiving co-education, sometimes love-
marriages used to take place as a consequence of it.
When however there were competent lady teachers,
parents may have preferred to send their daughters
to read under them ; but when they were not available,
they may have sent their wards to read under male
teachers, and necessarily along with male students.
In an age, which looked upon love marriages as
nothing abnormal,² co-education need not have
frightened the parents. What percentage of girls
¹ अयि किं न वेत्सि यदेकत्र नो विद्यापरिग्रहाय नानादिगन्तवासिनां
साहचर्यमासीत् । Act I.
² सुखत्वादबहुक्लेशादपि चावरणादिह ।
अनुरागात्मकत्वाच्च गांधर्वः प्रवरो मतः । Kāmasūtra, III. 5. 30
गांधर्वमप्येके प्रशंसंति सर्वेषां स्नेहानुगतत्वात् ।
B. D. S., I. 11-13. 7