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

IX] FEMALE EDUCATION 211 Was there co-education ? The modern reader would be anxious to know whether co-education prevailed in the past. Our sources however throw but dim light on the subject. From the Mālatīmādhava of Bhavabhūti, written in the 8th century A. D., we learn that the nun Kāmandakī was educated along with Bhūrivasu and Devarāta at a famous centre of education.¹ This would show that if not in Bhava- bhūti's time, at least some centuries earlier, sometimes boys and girls were educated together while receiving higher education. In the Uttara-Rāma-charit also (of the same author) we find Ātreyī receiving her education along with Kuśa and Lava (Act II). The stories of Kahoda and Sujātā and Ruru and Pramadvarā, narrated in Purāṇas, would also point to co-education. They would further show that at a time when girls were being married at an advanced age and receiving co-education, sometimes love- marriages used to take place as a consequence of it. When however there were competent lady teachers, parents may have preferred to send their daughters to read under them ; but when they were not available, they may have sent their wards to read under male teachers, and necessarily along with male students. In an age, which looked upon love marriages as nothing abnormal,² co-education need not have frightened the parents. What percentage of girls ¹ अयि किं न वेत्सि यदेकत्र नो विद्यापरिग्रहाय नानादिगन्तवासिनां साहचर्यमासीत् । Act I. ² सुखत्वादबहुक्लेशादपि चावरणादिह । अनुरागात्मकत्वाच्च गांधर्वः प्रवरो मतः । Kāmasūtra, III. 5. 30 गांधर्वमप्येके प्रशंसंति सर्वेषां स्नेहानुगतत्वात् । B. D. S., I. 11-13. 7