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CHAPTER-VI EDUCATION, LEARNING AND LITERATURE
Life in the monasteries was indicative of the perpetual studenthood and the Jaina monks and nuns residing therein may be compared with the Naisthika Brahmacãrins of the Vedic agel who had taken recourse to education for their spiritual salvation. The system of education thus revealed from the NC. is mainly the one as practised in the Jaina monasteries of the time although the Brāhmanic institutions like the Gurukulas have also been occasionally referred to.2 Mention has also been made of the Lehasalasor schools which mainly flourished as the centres of primary education. The existence of three distinct types of institutions, viz. Monastic schools (Jaina ), Brāhmaṇic schools (Gurukulas ) and the Lekhasalās, is thus to be seen from the text.. Besides, the Buddhist universities like Nalanda and Valabhr of the time must have also been the prominent centres of learning, as can be judged from the contemporary accounts of Yuan Chwang
1. They were the male and female students observing life long celibacy
to devoto their time entirely to religion and education for their spiritual salvation.--Altekar, A. S., Education in Ancient India,
p. 91. 2. NC. 3, pp. 294, 412, 434. 3. NC. 1, p. 15. 4. For details regarding these three types of institutions sce-Dasgupta,
D. C., Jaina System of Education, p. 8. 5. Yuan Chwang, during his visit to Valabhī, noted that it bad about
100 Buddhist monasteries with 6000 Brethern adherents of the Hinayāna Sammatiya school. He also refers to the famous Buddhist Acārya Sthiramati Gunamati who resided outside the town.--Watters, op. cit., II, p. 246; Bcal, op. cit., II, pp. 206, 268.
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