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Jain System of Education
Prof. D.N. Bhargava
Dr. B.R. Dugar
All social systems of Indian Society are an admixture of the three main currents of Indian culture-Brahminic, Buddhistic and Jainistic. As such, there are no water-tight compartments in respect of the social systems which they follow. Nevertheless, each of these three have their own distinguishing feature which enrich and mould the Indian Society for betterment as a whole. The contribution of the Jain in the field of education is to be studied in the light of this phenomina of unity in diversity.
Three types of Education
Coming to the Jain Agamas, we find that the purpose of education has been clearly mentioned as building of the character of the student. As regards job oriented education, no system could overlook it, and the Jains are no exception. The Rāyapaseņaijja clearly makes mention of three categories of teachers:
(1) Kalāyariya, the teacher of arts (2) Sippāyariya, the teacher of crafts (3) Dhammāyariya, the teacher of religion.
The first two of these, imparted job oriented education. It can be presumed that each religious system should have separate teacher for educating its students in the intricacies of the religion whereas, teacher of arts and crafts would have been common to
all.
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