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Satya Ranjan Banerjee : Jain Society in the ReignofJain Kings
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was the time of the birth of modern Northern Indian languages like Mārāghi, Gujarātī, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya and others. It can be surmised that Sanskrit studies were mainly in vogue; and the Prakrit language was also studied mainly by the Jain sādhus and sādhvis. As it was the time of Apabhramsa, lots of Jain scholars composed their treatises in Apabhraíśa. Pali was studied by the Buddhists only.
The subjects' which were taught at the time of Kumārapāla were the four Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas and Upanişads. The șadangas were also equally studied. The Purāņas, Grammar and Philosophy got prominence in the Vidyāmathas. The arthaśāstra, Poeties and Medicine were also in their curriculum. Hemacandra mentions in his Kumārapālacarita the study of the Upanişad, as a jñānagūhya Vidyā (xi. 23). Hemacandra also mentions șadanga in several places of his Kāvya (xv. 120-21, 1. 108; xvi. 75). From his book we also come to know that all systems of philosophy were taught at the time of Kumārapāla. The Cārvāka philosophy, also called Lāukāyita (xv. 12021) was also taught. The Mīmāmsā philosophy (xv. 124) was also taught at that time.
Whether this system of education was equally applicable to the Jains or not, is not clear from Hemacandra. But at a much later time from Merutunga (1306 A.D.) we come to know the nature of educational policy of the Jains among the kings. Merutunga says in his Prabandhacintāmaņi (p. 138), “The king Kumārapāla, desiring to acquire learning, had the treatise of Kāmandaki on polity read to him for a time after dinner by a certain learned man with the approbation of the minister Kapandi” : Merutunga further says that debates on religious themes were regularly conducted, and sometimes intra-monastic debates took place when learned monks from far-off regions came to participate in the debates. In the Debate Hall, the king was the presiding officer. He further says that there were libraries attached to every monastery, and the learned monks used to read and write books for the additions to the library.” Rājasekhara sūri (1349 A.D.) has also emphasized that people used to go to Jain monks for getting encyclopaedic courses of studies - religion, secular arts and physical
1. See S.R. Banerjee, Prolegomena to Prakritica et Jainica, 2005, p. 191. 2. For this see my Foreword to Jaina System of Education, 1999, p. xvi.
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