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

X] CONTRIBUTION OF THE BUDDHISM 231
important texts to memory ; this stood them in good
stead in debates and controversies. But Buddhist
education was far from being mere cramming of texts.
Reasoning and analysis formed an important part in
the method of teaching ; what critical foreign students
like Yuan Chwang and I-tsing admired in their Indian
teachers was not their keen memory, which stored
numberless texts, but their remarkable powers of ex-
planation and exposition. Individual attention was
paid to students ; at Nālandā each teacher had not
more than ten students under his charge.
Female Education : Buddhist nunneries went out
of vogue from about the 4th century A. D.; so at
the time when Buddhist monasteries had developed
into colleges of international reputation, women were
not receiving any advantages of the education
imparted in them. Their marriages were at that
time taking place very early. In the early history
of Buddhism however, the permission given to women
to enter the Order gave a fairly good impetus to
the cause of female education, especially in aristo-
cratic and commercial sections of society. A large
number of ladies from these circles joined the Order
and became life-long students of religion and
philosophy. Their example must have given an
indirect encouragement to the spread of education
among lay women as well.
Buddhism and Primary Education: It is well
known that in modern Burma Buddhist monasteries
afford valuable help in spreading literacy, as a
result of which the percentage of male literate
population in that country was as high as 38 even
in 1902. It is therefore not improbable that what
Buddhist monasteries are doing in modern Burma