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Vol. XXIV, 2001
REVIEW
141
on Buddhism, and the Prakrit works on Jainism, as also the account of the Chinese traveller Fa-hien aredrawn upon.
In the fifth chapter, the Gupta inscriptions concerned mainly with the glorious reign of the Gupta monarchs and partly with the achievements of their contemporaries, have been discussed.
In the sixth chapter of conclusion, a general trend of education in Gupta India and its possible legacy or deviation in the educational syem prevalent in te modern age have been taken up for discussion. Here the author has found that social efficiency has been setup as the aim of education from time immemorial. The moral purpose dominated the school life of ancient Indians. The teacher took the greatest possible care to train the will of his disciple. Through attendance on the preceptor, the student taught self-abnegation, paience, , endurance, loyalty and devotion. Thesystem helped the boy toform habits of courtesy and giving expression to the ideas of harmonious and virtuous conduct of life. THe system of education prevalent in the Gupta Age emphasized a sort of a democratic society in which education should be as far as practicable free nd compulsory. The educators of the Gupta age urged that religion, inusry an emperance should mark their system of education. Co-education was not rare, and the custom was similar to that obtaining in the modern age. Popularaity of listening to the Puraas and the great Epics proves the existence of non-formal education, especially for the adults and common people.
She has also noticed that the ancient Indians of the Gupta Age realised the importance of library. In Nalanda, there was nine-storyed building called Ratnodadhi where the library was located and it was considered to be the largest in India. The books of the library were classified and according to the subject. The observatory of Nalana proves the existence of the scientific observation, as in modern days.
This enables us to discover, through the author, tht the edutcational system prevalent in thoe days was not an utopia, devoid oftouch with reality. It was rather based on experiene and observation; nd anicipated some of the fundamentals of the educational theories of the great educators, like Kirkpatrick, Kneller, Pestalozzi, Rasdall and Rusk of modern times. N.M.K.
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