प्राचीन भारत में शिक्षा (डॉ. ए.एस. अल्तेकर - गुरुकुल एवं बौद्ध विहार शिक्षण इतिहास)

106 EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA [Ch. Among the 'sippas' taught at Taxila may have been included a training in Greek processes of coinage and sculpture. There was as yet no prejudice against foreign culture. It is quite possible that Greek dramas may have been performed in the courts of some of the numerous Greek princes and princelings. Some Indians also may have read and appreciated Sophocles and Eurepedes. The working knowlege of Greek language may have been possessed by several classes of society, as it was the language of the conqueror.1 Greek orientation in Taxila studies could not however have been considerable. Indo-Greek rulers themselves were cut off from their mother country, and many of the conquerors soon succumbed to the culture and religion of the conquered. It is, however, a great pity that the historian of ancient Indian education should still be unable to supply authentic information about the precise extent of Greek influence on the system of education at Taxila. No organised Institutions:—It may be observed at the outset that Taxila did not possess any college or university in the modern sense of the term. It was simply a centre of education. It had many famous teachers to whom hundreds of students flocked for higher education from all parts of northern India. But these teachers were not members of any insti-

1. From the romantic history of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus we learn that in the 1st century A.D. Indians and Greeks at Taxila knew each other's philosophy and that the villagers around the Gandhāra capital could understand and speak Greek. There may be some exaggeration in this picture, but recent excavations at Taxila have confirmed some of the topographical details given by Philostratus (Guide to Taxila by Sir John Marshal, pp. 15 & 97). We may, therefore, conclude that his information about Indians' acquaintance with Greek language and literature may be at least partly true. Greek studies, therefore, must have figured in Taxila curriculum during the Greek rule.