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

X] CONTRIBUTION OF THE BUDDHISM 231 important texts to memory ; this stood them in good stead in debates and controversies. But Buddhist education was far from being mere cramming of texts. Reasoning and analysis formed an important part in the method of teaching ; what critical foreign students like Yuan Chwang and I-tsing admired in their Indian teachers was not their keen memory, which stored numberless texts, but their remarkable powers of ex- planation and exposition. Individual attention was paid to students ; at Nālandā each teacher had not more than ten students under his charge. Female Education : Buddhist nunneries went out of vogue from about the 4th century A. D.; so at the time when Buddhist monasteries had developed into colleges of international reputation, women were not receiving any advantages of the education imparted in them. Their marriages were at that time taking place very early. In the early history of Buddhism however, the permission given to women to enter the Order gave a fairly good impetus to the cause of female education, especially in aristo- cratic and commercial sections of society. A large number of ladies from these circles joined the Order and became life-long students of religion and philosophy. Their example must have given an indirect encouragement to the spread of education among lay women as well. Buddhism and Primary Education: It is well known that in modern Burma Buddhist monasteries afford valuable help in spreading literacy, as a result of which the percentage of male literate population in that country was as high as 38 even in 1902. It is therefore not improbable that what Buddhist monasteries are doing in modern Burma