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

III] THE TEACHER AND THE STUDENT 61
expect this work if the student was a paying boarder
and would limit it to the minimum in the case of poor
students.¹ Under such circumstances the relations bet-
ween the teacher and the student were naturally very
cordial and intimate; they were united, to quote the
words of the Buddha, 'by mutual reverence, confidence
and communion of life'.² Students usually did not desert
one teacher for another merely out of freakishness.³
Teachers would often entertain genuine affection for
their students and would sometimes select some of them
as their sons-in-law. Later authorities have laid it down
that a student cannot marry his teacher's daughter,
because she stood in the relation of a sister to him ; Kacha
refused to marry Devayānī on that account. This rule
seems to have been framed to prevent complications likely
to arise in practice when young students used to live and
board with their teachers. But earlier practice seems to
have been different. In Jātakas we come across sev-
eral cases of teachers marrying their daughters to their
1 Cf. न चैनमध्ययनविघ्नेन आत्मार्थेषूपरुन्ध्यादनापत्सु । Ap Dh S., I 2. 8
The teacher was also responsible for the safety of students when
he sent them out for his own work; if any mishap overtook them
he was held guilty. Cf. गुरुप्रयुक्तश्चेन्म्रियेत (शिष्यः) त्रीन्कृच्छ्रांश्चरेत् ।
Bau. Dh. S., II. 1. 27
2 M. V.. I. 32. 1
3 Students deserting their teachers without any reason are ridiculed
as crows by Patañjali, cf. यो गुरुकुलं गत्वा न चिरन्तिष्ठति स उच्यते
तीर्थकाक इति । Vol. I. P. 391
In Uttararamacharit, II, we no doubt find Ātreyī leaving
Vālmīki, and going to Agastya But the reason was that she
was too dull to read along with Kuśa and Lava. Of course if a
student wanted to learn a different branch of learning, he would
leave his old teacher and go to the expert in the particular
branch.