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

120 EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA [Ch. a thousand could explain, as we have seen already, twenty collections, of Sūtras. This means that there were about a thousand competent teachers to look after the education of about 4,000, but in no case, more than 9,000 monk students. On the average therefore each teacher was in charge of about not more than nine students. Personal attention was thus possible to each student and the teaching therefore must have been very efficient. The college had eight big halls and 300 smaller apartments and every day the authorities used to arrange for about a hundred lectures. Learned monk teachers were held in high veneration and were provided with sedan chairs. They were experts in the art of teaching and expounding; I-tsing gratefully observes, 'I have been very glad that I have had an opportunity of aquiring knowledge personally from them, which I should otherwise have never possessed.' Curriculum : The curriculum at Nālandā was very comprehensive and catholic. The establishment belonged to the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism, but the works of the rival school, the Hīnayāna one, were also taught. This necessitated a study of Pali language, in which most of the Hīnayāna works were composed. Works of the famous Mahāyāna scholars like Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Asaṅga and Dharmakīrti must have been specially studied. But it is not to be supposed that the curriculum of the University was a sectarian one in the sense that it neglected Hindu subjects. In the first place it must be noted that subjects like grammar, logic and literature were common to both the Hindus and the Buddhists. Secondly, we have to remember that Bauddha and Hindu religion and philosophy had become so intricately interconnected with each other that to study