________________
72
TULSI-PRAJNA
Elementary Education :
2.1. The elementary education was started with the knowledge of alphabates. It is obvious that without the knowledge of alphabates, it is not possible to persue the study further. Kautilya remarks that "having undergone the ceremony of tonsure the student shall learn the art of writing and the scripts (lipi) "and after the investiture of the sacred thread he shall study the triple vedas.8 Now it may be presumed that the students were used to learn the alphabates before the ceremony of upanayang. I-Tsing, the chinese traveller observed that, during his time, the students were being educated with the scripts at the age of six years, 4 However, Yuan Chwang inform that children passed on to the study of arts and sciences at seven years of age, so that elementary education must have begun earlier,
2.2. So many Buddhist scriptures mention about the subject and the system of the elementary education. The Lalitavistara has a chapter which is dedicated to the art of writing of the letters, their varieties and the sense of each letter. Tbus, this text gives a modern system of teaching the letters, as the teacher then taught each of them in association with a sentence beginning with a letter. Again, we know from this text that there were sixtyfour kind of scripts, as the student asked the teacher that which scripts he will taught out of sixty-four varieties viz, āsām bho upādhyāya catuhsasțilipinām katamām tvam sisyāpayisyasi ?
2.3. The Siksā enumerates the course of elementary education as comprising the act of writing (lipi), prayers (stuti), meanings of words and their mutual relationships (nighantu) and elementary grammar including terminations and tenses, declensions and inflections (Sabda). The Divyāvadāna refers that pencils were used in writing the letters and the abacus was used to teach arithmetic. The abacus was called as janitra.
Now we would like to mention here the report of the Chinese travellers which furnish some idea about the curricula of studies carried on the monastic schools. Yuan Chwang suggests that a student should learn the alphabet followed by the Siddhir-astu, a primer of twelve chapters. Then began the study of five vidyās viz., Śabdavidyā, Silpasthānavidyā. Cikit săvidyā, Hetuvidyā and the Adhyātmavidyā. 1-Tsing, however, narrates the subjects in more details and we are not going to discuss these here.
2.4. Beside the tulā and janttra the phalaka "wooden writingboard and barnaka 'wooden pen' were used as the materials for writing the letters. We have the reference of phalaka in the Lalitavistara viz., atha bodhisatya uragasăracandanamayam lipiphalakamādāya
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
