द ब्यूटीफुल ट्री: १८वीं सदी में भारत की स्वदेशी गुरुकुल शिक्षा (धर्मपाल)

180

181

182

183

XVIII
COLLECTOR, TRICHINOPOLY TO BOARD OF REVENUE:
23.8.1823
(TNSA: BRP: Vol.959 Pro.28.8.1823 pp.7456-57 Nos.35-36)

1. Information having at length been obtained on the
   subject of your letter of the 25th July 1822, I do myself the
   honor to submit the result. The annexed statement drawn up in
   correspondence with that which accompanied your letter, will
   show the number of native schools and colleges in this district,
   and the number of scholars male as well as female Hindoos of all
   castes, and Mussulmans, who are educated in them.
2. The scholars generally continue in the schools from the
   age of 7 to 15 and the average yearly expense of education is
   about 7 pagodas. There are no schools or colleges in this district
   for the support of which my public funds are appropriated, and
   in institutions for teaching Astronomy—Theology or any other
   science.
3. In the talook of Jyalore alone, and no other, there are 7
   schools, which were formerly endowed by some Native
   Government with between 44 and 47 Cawnies of land for the
   maintenance of the teachers.
   Trichinopoly, G.W. Saunders,
   23rd August, 1823. Collector.
   (Statement on following page)
   184

185

XIX
COLLECTOR, BELLARY TO BOARD OF REVENUE:
17.8.1823
(TNSA: BRP: Vol.958 Pro.25.8.1823 pp.7167-85 Nos.32-33)

1. The delay of my Amildars, in furnishing the requisite
   returns, has hitherto prevented my submitting to you the
   enclosed statement called for in your orders of the 25th July
   1822, and 19th of June last.
2. The population of this District is specified in the
   enclosed statement at 9,27,857 or little less than a million of
   souls. The number of schools is only 533 containing no more
   than, 6,641 scholars, or about twelve to each school, and not
   seven individuals in a thousand, of the entire population.
3. The Hindoo scholars are in number 6,398, the
   Mussulman scholars only 243, and the whole of these are males,
   with the exception of only sixty girls, who are all Hindoos
   exclusively.
4. The English language is taught in one school only. The
   Tamil in four, the Persian in twenty-one, the Mahratta in twenty-
   three, the Teloogoo in two hundred and twenty-six, and the
   Carnataca in two hundred and thirty-five. Besides these, there
   are twenty-three places of instruction, attended by Bramins
   exclusively, in which some of the Hindoo sciences, such as
   Theology, Astronomy, Logic and Law, are still imperfectly taught
   in the Sanscrit Language.
5. In these places of Sanscrit instruction in the Hindoo
   sciences, attended by youths, and often by persons far advanced
   in life, education is conducted on a plan entirely different from
   that pursued in the schools, in which children are taught read-
   ing, writing, and arithmetic only, in the several vernacular
   dialects of the country. I shall endeavour to give a brief outline of
   the latter, as to them the general population of the country is
   confined, and as that population consists chiefly of Hindoos, I
   shall not dwell on the few Mussulman schools in which Persian
   is taught.
   186

6. The education of the Hindoo youth generally commences
   when they are five years old. On reaching this age, the master
   and scholars of the school to which the boy is to be sent, are
   invited to the house of his parents. The whole are seated in a
   circle round an image of Gunasee, and the child to be initiated is
   placed exactly opposite to it. The school master, sitting by his
   side, after having burnt incense and presented offerings, causes
   the child to repeat a prayer to Gunasee entreating wisdom. He
   then guides the child to write with its finger in rice the mystic
   name of the deity, and is dismissed with a present from the
   parents, according to their ability. The child, next morning
   commences the great work of his education.
7. Some children continue at school only five years, the
   parents, through poverty, or other circumstances, being often
   obliged to take them away, and consequently, in such cases, the
   merest smattering of an education is obtained; and when
   parents take a lively interest in the culture of their children's
   minds, they not infrequently continue at school as long as
   fourteen and fifteen years.
8. The internal routine of duty for each day will be found,
   with very few exceptions, and little variation, the same in
   schools. The hour generally for opening school is six o'clock. The
   first child who enters has the name of Saraswatee, or the
   Goddess of learning, written upon the palm of his hand, as a
   sign of honor, and, on the hand of the second, a cypher is
   written, to show that he is worthy, neither of praise nor censure,
   the third scholar receives a gentle stripe; the fourth two, and
   every succeeding scholar that comes an additional one. This
   custom as well as the punishments in native schools, seem of a
   severe kind. The idle scholar is flogged, and often suspended by
   both hands, and a pulley, to the roof, or obliged to kneel down
   and rise incessantly, which is most painful and fatiguing but
   perhaps a healthy mode of punishment.
9. When the whole are assembled, the scholars according
   to their number and attainments, are divided into several
   classes. The lower ones of which are placed partly under the care
   of monitors, whilst the higher ones are more immediately under
   the superintendence of the master, who at the same time has his
   eye upon the whole school. The number of classes is generally
   four; and a scholar rises from one to the other, according to his
   capacity and progress. The first business of a child on entering
   187

school is to obtain a knowledge of the letters, which he learns by
writing them with his finger on the ground in sand, and not by
pronouncing the alphabet as among European nations. When he
becomes pretty dexterous in writing with his finger in sand, he
has then the privilege of writing either with an iron style on
cadjan leaves, or with a reed on paper, and sometimes on the
leaves of the aristolochia identica, or with a kind of pencil on the
Hulligi or Kadata, which answer the purpose of slates. The two
latter in these districts are the most common. One of these is a
common oblong board about a foot in width and three feet in
length. This board, when plained smooth, has only to be
smeared with a little rice and pulverized charcoal and it is then
fit for use. The other is made of cloth, first stiffened with rice
water, doubled in folds, resembling a book, and is then covered
with a composition of charcoal and several gums. The writing on
either these may be effaced by a wet cloth. The pencil used is
called Buttapa, a kind of white clay substance, somewhat
resembling a crayon, with the exception of being rather harder.
10. Having attained a thorough knowledge of the letters,
the scholar next learns to write the compounds, or the manner
of embodying the symbols of the vowels in the consonants and
the formation of syllables, etc., then the names of men, villages,
animals, etc., and finally arithmetical signs. He then commits to
memory an addition table, and counts from one to a hundred; he
afterwards writes easy sums in addition, and subtraction of
money; multiplication and the reduction of money, measures,
etc. Here great pains are taken with the scholars, in teaching
him the fractions of an integer, which descend, not be tens as in
our decimal fractions, but by fours, and are carried to a great
extent. In order that these fractions, together with the arith-
metical table, in addition, multiplication, and those on the
threefold measures of capacity, weight, and extent, may be ren-
dered quite familiar to the minds of the scholars, they are made
to stand up twice a day, in rows, and repeat the whole after one
of the monitors.
11. The other parts of a native education consist in
deciphering various kinds of hand writing, in public and other
letters, which the school master collects from the different
sources; writing common letters, drawing up forms of agreement;
reading; fables and legendary tales; and committing various
kinds of poetry to memory, chiefly with a view to attain
distinctness and clearness in pronunciation, together with
readiness and correctness in reading any kind of composition.
188

12. The three books which are most common in all the
    schools, and which are used indiscriminately by the several
    castes, are the Ramayanum, Maha Bharata, and Bhagvata; but
    the children of the manufacturing class of people have in
    addition to the above, books peculiar to their own religious
    tenets; such as the Nagalingayna Kutha, Vishvakurma Poorana,
    Kumalesherra Kalikamahata; and those who wear the Lingum
    such as the Busvapoorana, Raghavankunkauya Geeroja Kullana,
    Unabhavamoorta, Chenna Busavaswara Poorana, Gurilagooloo,
    etc., which are all considered sacred, and are studied with a view
    of subserving their several religious creeds.
13. The lighter kind of stories which are read for
    amusement, are generally the Punchatantra,
    Bhatalapunchavansatee, Punklee Soopooktahuller,
    Mahantarungenee. The books on the principles of the vernacular
    languages themselves, are the several dictionaries and
    grammars, such as the Nighantoo, Umara, Subdamumbured,
    Shubdeemunee Durpana, Vyacurna Andradeepeca,
    Andhranamasungraha, etc., etc., but these last, and similar
    books, which are most essential, and, without which, no
    accurate or extensive knowledge of the vernacular languages can
    be attained, are, from the high price of manuscripts and the
    general poverty of the masters, of all books, the most uncommon
    in the Native Schools; and such of them which are found there
    are in consequence of the ignorance, carelessness, and indolence
    of copyists in general, full of blunders, and in every way most
    incorrect and imperfect.
14. The whole of the books, however, in the Teloogoo and
    Carnataca schools, which are by far the most numerous in this
    district, whether they treat of religion, amusement, or the
    principles of these languages, are in verse; and in a dialect quite
    distinct from that of conversation and business. The alphabets of
    the two dialects are the same, and he who reads the one, can
    read, but not understand, the other also. The natives, therefore,
    read these (unintelligible) books to them, to acquire the power of
    reading letters, in the common dialect of business; but the
    poetical is quite distinct from the prose dialect, which they speak
    and write; and though they read these books, it is to the
    pronunciation of the syllables, not to the meaning or construc-
    tion of the words, that they attend. Indeed few teachers can
    explain, and still fewer scholars understand, the purport of the
    numerous books which they thus learn to repeat from memory.
    Every school boy can repeat verbatim a vast number of verses, of
    189

the meaning of which, he knows no more than the parrot that
has been taught to utter certain words. Accordingly, from
studies, in which he has spent many a day of laborious, but
fruitless toil, the native scholar gains no improvement, except
the exercise of memory and the power to read and write on the
common business of life; he makes no addition to his stock of
useful knowledge, and acquires no moral impressions. He has
spent his youth in reading syllables, not words, and, on entering
into life, he meets with hundreds and thousands of books of the
meaning of which he can form not even the most distant
conjecture, and as to the declension of a noun, or the
conjugation of a verb, he knows no more than of the most
abstruse problem in Euclid. It is not to be wondered at, with
such an imperfect education, that, in writing a common letter to
their friends, orthographical errors and other violations of
grammar, may be met with in almost every line written by a
native.
15. The government could not promote the improved
education of their native subjects in these districts more, than
by patronizing versions, in the common prose and spoken
dialect, of the most moral parts of their popular poets and
elementary works, now committed to memory in unintelligible
verse. He who could read would then understand what he reads,
which is far from the case at present. I am acquainted with
many persons very capable of executing such a task; and, in the
Teloogoo language, would gladly superintend it, as far as is in
my power, at this distance from the Presidency.
16. The economy with which children are taught to write in
the native schools, and the system by which the more advanced
scholars are caused to teach the less advanced and at the same
time to confirm their own knowledge is certainly admirable, and
well deserved the imitation it has received in England. The chief
defects in the native schools are the nature of the books and
learning taught and the want of competent masters.
17. Imperfect, however, as the present education of the
natives is, there are a few who possess the means to command it
for their children even were books of a proper kind plentiful and
the master every way adequate to the task imposed upon him,
he would make no advance from one class to another, except as
he might be paid for his labour. While learning the first
rudiments, it is common for the scholar to pay to the teacher a
quarter
190

of a rupee, and when arrived as far as to write on paper, or at
the higher branches of arithmetic, half a rupee per mensem. But
in proceeding further such as explaining books, which are all
written in verse, giving the meaning of Sanscrit words, and illus-
trating the principles of the vernacular languages, such
demands are made as exceed the means of most parents. There
is, therefore, no alternative, but that of leaving their children
only partially instructed, and consequently ignorant of the most
essential and useful parts of a liberal education. But there are
multitudes who cannot even avail themselves of the advantages
of this system, defective as it is.
18. I am sorry to state that this is ascribable to the gradual
but general impoverishment of the country. The means of the
manufacturing classes have been, of late years greatly dimin-
ished, by the introduction of our own European manufactures,
in lieu of the Indian cotton fabrics. The removal of many of our
troops, from our own territories, to the distant frontiers of our
newly subsidized allies, has also, of late years, affected the
demand for grain, the transfer of the capital of the country, from
the Native Governments, and their Officers, who liberally
expended it in India, to Europeans, restricted by law from em-
ploying it even temporarily in India, and daily draining it from
the land, has likewise tended to this effect which has not been
alleviated by a less rigid enforcement of the revenue due to the
state. The greater part of the middling and lower classes of the
people are now unable to defray the expenses incident upon the
education of their offspring, while their necessities require the
assistance of their children as soon as their tender limbs are
capable of the smallest labour.
19. It cannot have escaped the Government that of nearly a
million of souls in this district, not 7,000 are now at school; a
proportion which exhibits but too strongly the result above
stated. In many villages, where formerly there were schools,
there are now none; and in many others, where there were large
schools, now only a few of the children of the most opulent are
taught, others being unable, from poverty, to attend or to pay
what is demanded.
20. Such is the state, in this district, of the various
schools, in which reading writing, and arithmetic, are taught in
the vernacular dialects of the country, as has been always usual
in India, by teachers who are paid by their scholars. The higher
branches of learning on the contrary, have always, in this
191

country, been taught in Sanscrit; and it has ever in India, been
deemed below the dignity of science, for her professors to barter
it for hire. Lessons in Theology, Astronomy, Logic and Law,
continue to be given gratuitously as of old, by a few learned
Bramins, to some of their disciples. But learning, though, it may
proudly decline to sell its stores, has never flourished in any
country, except under the encouragement of the ruling power
and the countenance and support, once given to science in this
part of India, have long been withheld.
21. Of the 533 institutions for education, now existing in
this district, I am ashamed to say not one now derives any
support from the state. I have therefore received, with peculiar
satisfaction, the inquiries instituted by the Honorable the
Governor-in-Council, on this interesting subject; and trust that
this part of India may benefit from the liberality which dictated
the record of his intention, to grant new funds where the same
may be deemed expedient, and to restore to their original
purpose, all funds diverted from this source.
22. There is no doubt that in former times, especially under
the Hindoo Governments very large grants, both in money, and
in land, were issued for the support of learning. Considerable
Yeomiahs, or grants of money, now paid to Bramins from my
treasury, and many of the numerous and valuable Shotrium
villages, now in the enjoyment of Bramins in this district, who
receive one-fourth, one-third, one-half, two-thirds, and
sometimes the whole, of their annual revenue, may, I think, be
traced to this source. Though it did not consist with the dignity
of learning to receive from her votaries hire; it has always in
India been deemed the duty of Government to evince to her the
highest respect, and to grant to her those emoluments which she
could not, consistently with her character receive from other
sources; the grants issued by former governments, on such
occasions, contained, therefore, no unbecoming stipulations on
conditions. They all purport to flow from the free bounty of the
ruling power, merely to aid the maintenance of some holy or
learned man, or to secure his prayers for the state. But they
were almost universally granted to learned or religious persons,
who maintained a school for one or more of the sciences, and
taught therein gratuitously; and though not expressed in the
deed itself, the duty of continuing such gratuitous instruction
was certainly implied in all such grants.
192

23. The British Government, with its distinguished
    liberality, has continued all grants of this kind and even in many
    cases where it was evident that they were merely of a personal
    nature. But they have not, until now, intimated any intention to
    enforce the implied, but now dormant, condition of these grants.
    The revenue of the original grantee has descended, without
    much inquiry, to his heirs. But his talents and acquirements
    have not been equally hereditary, and the descendants of the
    original grantees will rarely be found to possess either their
    learning, or powers of instruction. Accordingly, considerable
    alienations of revenue, which formerly did honor to the state, by
    upholding and encouraging learning, have deteriorated, under
    our rule, into the means of supporting ignorance; whilst science
    deserted by the powerful aid she formerly received from
    government, has often been reduced to beg her scanty and
    uncertain meal from the chance benevolence of charitable
    individuals; and it would be difficult to point out any period in
    the history of India, when she stood more indeed of the proffered
    aid of government, to raise her from the degraded state into
    which she has fallen, and dispel the prevailing ignorance which
    so unhappily pervades the land.
24. At a former period, I recollect, that the government, on
    the recommendation of the College Board, authorised the late Mr
    Ross, then Collector in the neighbouring district of Cuddapah, to
    establish experimental schools with the view of improving the
    education of the natives; but the lamented death of that zealous
    and able public officer led to the abandonment of a plan, to
    which his talents and popularity in the country were peculiarly
    calculated to give success. As Secretary to the college, and to
    your Board, I was, at that time, a warm advocate for such
    experiment; and, if now allowed, I should gladly attempt to
    superintend some arrangement of that kind, in my present
    provincial situation.
25. I would propose the appointment of an able Shastry
    from amongst the Law students at the college, with an addition
    to his existing pay of only 10 pagodas per mensem, to be placed
    under me at the principal station of the district, to instruct
    gratuitously all who chose to attend him, in the Hindoo sciences
    in the Sanscrit language, and the native school masters, in the
    grammar of the Teloogoo and Carnataca tongues, being those
    vernacular here; such a man I have no doubt that I could soon
    obtain from the college; for, if one with all the requisite
    qualifications is not at present attached to the institution, there
    193

are many that I know there who can speedily qualify themselves
for it in a very short time.
26. Subordinate to this man and liable to his periodical
visitations, I would recommend that seventeen school masters,
for Teloogoo and Carnataca, be entertained, at from 7 to 14
rupees each per mensem to be stationed at the seventeen Cusba
stations under each of my Amildars, and liable to their
supervision, to teach gratuitously these languages. Their lowest
pay might be fixed at 7 rupees, and might be raised, by fixed
gradations, with the increasing number of their scholars, as high
as the maximum above stated. All of these might be selected
from the best informed of the present school masters here; but,
with reference to the low state of knowledge amongst the present
persons of that class, most of them will previously require
instruction from the Head Shastry, in grammar, etc. Though
forbidden to demand money all such masters should be allowed
to receive any presents their scholars may offer to them;
particularly those usual, on entering or quitting school.
27. The highest expense of such an institution would be
273 rupees, the lowest 154 rupees per mensem. The first
expense must necessarily be borne by government, who alone
are able to originate, and, at first support, such a plan. But
proper steps may be taken to engage in it the aid of the more
opulent classes of the community, and if practicable to induce
them, in due time, willingly to contribute to the support of such
schools. Indeed, I have little doubt that the plan would soon
carry with it the united consent, and grateful approbation, of the
more respectable and well informed of the inhabitants at large.
28. It would also greatly accelerate the progress and
efficiency of such schools, if Government were to appropriate a
moderate annual sum, to the purpose of preparing and printing,
at the college press, or elsewhere, suitable books for the use of
these schools, in the prose, or common, dialects, of the Teloogoo
and Carnataca languages; on the principle stated by me in a
former part of this letter. These should consist of selections from
the most approved native school books, fables, proverbs, etc.,
now in use in the schools or well known in the country to the
exclusion, in the first instance, of all new publications whatever.
Books of a popular and known character, intelligible to all who
read, would thus be procurable at a cheaper rate, and in more
194

correct state, than at present, and the teachers might be
employed to dispose of them at low prices.
29. If public examinations once a year were instituted
before the Head Shastry, and small premiums of badges of
distinction were distributed, for the purpose of rewarding, on
such occasions, those who are most advanced, a suitable effect
might be produced, and a powerful stimulus afforded to the
students.
30. To cover the first expense of these schools, and to
provide further for their gradual extension, if found, advisable,
without entailing any additional or new expense on government,
it might be provided, that, on the demise of any persons now
holding Yeomiahs or alienated lands, a new inquiry be instituted;
and that, though the same may have been continued for more
than one generation by the British Government, it be resumed,
and carried to a new fund, to be termed the school 'fund' (to
which the proposed expense should also be debited), unless it is
clearly stated that the body of the original grant to be
'hereditary', on the intention of the ruling power at the time to
make such grant hereditary, be clearly proved to the satisfaction
of government.
31. If an arrangement of this kind is sanctioned, I have
little doubt that, in a few years, the receipts from such a fund
would more than counterbalance the disbursement. But even if
they did not, the charge would be comparatively trifling. The
enactments of the British Parliament contemplate such a charge.
The known liberality of the authorities in England on this
subject ensure to it sanction: the supreme government have set
the example; and, the Provincial functionaries in the Madras
territories ought perhaps to take blame to themselves; that they
have waited to be called upon, before they stood forth as the
organ of public opinion, in a matter of such importance and
universal interest; I sincerely hope that it will not, as before, be
allowed to sink into oblivion; but that the information submitted
by the several Collectors, will enable your Board and the
government, to mature, from their suggestions, some practical,
or at least some experimental plan for the improvement of
education, and the support of learning in Southern India.
Bellary, A.D. Campbell,
17th August 1823. Collector.
(Statement on following page)
195

XX
COLLECTOR, RAJAMUNDRY TO BOARD OF REVENUE:
19.9.1823
(TNSA: BRP: Vol.963, Pro.2.10.1823, pp.8520-25 Nos.29-30)

1. I have the honor to submit the information called for in
   your Deputy Secretary’s letter dated 25th July 1822, together
   with a statement in the prescribed form of the number of native
   schools in this Collectorate and of the number of scholars.
2. I also take the liberty to forward another statement
   which being in more detail and containing some additional
   heads of information may probably be found of some use.
3. If these statements are at all to be depended upon, and
   (they are founded on very minute returns of my public servants)
   the actual state of education in this district must be pronounced
   anything but satisfactory inasmuch as it would appear that out
   of 1,200 villages composing the zillah of Rajamundry and total
   population of 7,38,308 souls there are 207 villages only in which
   reading and writing are taught, the number of schools in the
   villages in question being 291 and the number of scholars, Hin-
   doos and Mussulman 2,658. The time that scholars usually
   continue at school varies from 5 to 7 years. The fifth day of the
   fifth month of the fifth year of the boy’s age is the ‘lucky day’ for
   his first entrance into school. The monthly charge to the
   scholars is as high as one rupee each in some places and as low
   as two annas in others, but the average rate may be stated at 7
   annas. I have not found that any of the schools are endowed by
   the public.
4. The number of colleges, or rather teachers* of Theology,
   Law, Astronomy, etc., is 279, the number of scholars 1,454. The
   particulars are as follows (see next page).
   The teachers of the Vedum here alluded to are not
   generally men of much science. The scholar is barely taught so
   much of the Vedum as will enable him to perform the usual
   196

Table 36
*Ts: Teachers; Ss: Scholars
ceremonies of his religion, nor is it thought at all essential that
he should understand what little he does read. Hence it happens
that this class of people are often very deficient in their
education.
5. Of the total number of 279 teachers mentioned above 69
possess allowances in land and 13 in money both the one and
the other being granted by former Zemindars. 196 individuals
teach their scholars without fee or reward and 1 person is
supported by his scholars.
6. In those villages under my immediate management
where there are no schools, I have found the inhabitants very
willing to have such established among them, but some
assistance from government will be necessary to set things
agoing, say monthly allowance of 2 rupees to each teacher, the
scholars to make up the remainder. I shall be prepared to
address your Board more fully upon the subject should this
proposal meet your approval.
Zillah Rajamundry, F.W. Robertson,
Mugaluteer, 19th Sept. 1823. Collector.
(Statements on following pages)
197

198

199