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

290 EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA [App.
the great hold which religion possesses over the Hindu
mind, it is natural to expect some rituals in useful
and professional education also. We proceed to
describe some of them in sections E to G.
All Castes eligible : Upanayana or Initiation
was primarily intended for Vedic education, but very
soon its principle was extended to useful education
also. Early writers on Āyurveda, like Charaka and
Suśruta, lay down a special Upanayana ceremony for
students seeking admission to the medical course.
The medical profession was not like the Vedic
scholarship an exclusive monopoly, in theory or
practice, of any particular caste ; so Suśruta holds
that a Kshatriya or a Vaishya physician also can
play the role of the teacher for boys of his own
caste.¹ It is quite probable that even Brahmana
boys may have been initiated by non-Brahmana
medical teachers, though our texts do not attest to
this practice. The surgical school of Suśruta was
in favour of the admission of even Shudra boys,
though formal Upanayana with the recitation of the
Mantras was prohibited in their case.² It is quite
probable that Kshatriya and Shudra surgeons may
have been, by tradition and environment, better
adepts in the use of the knife than their Brahmana
and Vaishya compeers.³
Survey of the Ritual : Ayurvedic Upanayana was
a short ritual modelled largely upon the Vedic proto-

1. Sūtra-sthāna, II, 5.
2. Ibid.
3. Such minor surgical operations as were performed before
   the introduction of the modern surgery were usually attempted by
   barbers both in India and Europe.