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

66 EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA [Ch.
permitted, Smṛitis have allowed students to take their
food in the house of their preceptors.¹ Well-to-do
students at Taxila were generally living and boarding at
their teachers' houses. In richly endowed colleges like
those at Nālandā, Salotgi and Ennāyiram, arrangements
were made by the college administration for the free
boarding of students from generous endowments received
for the purpose; begging food was not necessary at these
places. Sometimes, as at Benares for instance, such
arrangements were independently made by rich citizens
of the locality.² Begging food was not necessary at such
places. The Chinese pilgrim Yuan Chwang attributes the
fame of Indian scholars for deep scholarship to the
circumstance that students in India have not to worry about
their food, clothing and medicines.³ It will be thus seen
that begging was elevated into a duty for the student,
primarily for the purpose of bringing education within
the reach of the poorest, and secondarily for removing
the superiority complex from the mind of rich students;
he was the ideal student who lived by begging and not
he who lived on his family's support. The rule was not
intended to be literally followed by all students every day.
Rules of Discipline: Let us now survey and com-
ment upon the rules of discipline prescribed for students.⁴
It was felt that student's life should be characterised by
dignity, decorum and self-discipline and should be devoted
to acquire a grounding not only in learning but also in the
1 भैक्षाचार्यवृत्तिः स्यात् । M. Gr. S., 1 1. 3; see also Manu, II. 142.
2 Losaka Jātaka, No. 41 (C. 500 B. C.) and Bernier p. 335,
(17th century A. D.) both refer to the arrangements made by
the rich citizens of Benares for distributing khichdī to poor
students.
3 Beal, Life of Yuan Chwang, p. 113.
4 For the rules of the student life, see Manu, II, 175ff. ; Yāj. I. 28 ff.;
Gau. Dh. S. I. 2; As. Gr. S. I. 22; Dr. Gr. S. II. 5 etc.