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

XI] ACHIEVEMENTS AND FAILURES 249
more than two thousand years. We shall now proceed
to discuss the causes of the decline in the educational
system and point out its limitations and defects.
DEFECTS AND LIMITATIONS
Introduction : We shall now proceed to point
out the main defects and limitations of the educational
system along with their causes. The period-wise survey
of the educational system, which was taken in the
second section of the last chapter, must have already
indicated to the reader what these defects were and how
most of them arose during the latter half of the first
millennium A. D. We shall discuss them in greater
details now. Attention will also be drawn to some other
limitations of the system, which were more or less
common to almost all systems of education in ancient
times and for which, therefore, the ancient Indian
system alone cannot be blamed.
The Hold of Religion :—Religion had an immense
hold over the Hindu mind and many of the admirable
features of the educational system have to be attribut-
ed to this circumstance, as shown already. It did not
make the educational outlook ‘otherworldly’, as is
supposed in certain quarters. The ideals of the
Vānaprastha and the Sanyāsa were no doubt purely
spiritual, but such was not the case with the ideals of
the educational system. It aimed at producing youths
eminently fit to perform their civic and social duties ; if
any spiritual merit for the life to come was to result from
Brahmacharya, it was to be through the proper
performance of duties, which however were principally
determined with a view to make the student an efficient
and God-fearing citizen.
Secular Studies tend to be neglected :—The
majority of teachers in ancient India were priests, as
was the case all over the ancient world. They did