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

XI] ACHIEVEMENTS AND FAILURES 249 more than two thousand years. We shall now proceed to discuss the causes of the decline in the educational system and point out its limitations and defects. DEFECTS AND LIMITATIONS Introduction : We shall now proceed to point out the main defects and limitations of the educational system along with their causes. The period-wise survey of the educational system, which was taken in the second section of the last chapter, must have already indicated to the reader what these defects were and how most of them arose during the latter half of the first millennium A. D. We shall discuss them in greater details now. Attention will also be drawn to some other limitations of the system, which were more or less common to almost all systems of education in ancient times and for which, therefore, the ancient Indian system alone cannot be blamed. The Hold of Religion :—Religion had an immense hold over the Hindu mind and many of the admirable features of the educational system have to be attribut- ed to this circumstance, as shown already. It did not make the educational outlook ‘otherworldly’, as is supposed in certain quarters. The ideals of the Vānaprastha and the Sanyāsa were no doubt purely spiritual, but such was not the case with the ideals of the educational system. It aimed at producing youths eminently fit to perform their civic and social duties ; if any spiritual merit for the life to come was to result from Brahmacharya, it was to be through the proper performance of duties, which however were principally determined with a view to make the student an efficient and God-fearing citizen. Secular Studies tend to be neglected :—The majority of teachers in ancient India were priests, as was the case all over the ancient world. They did