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

II] SOME EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES AND POSTULATES 37 supremacy among the gods not to any penance or previous merit, but to his proper training during his studenthood.¹ A few centuries later we find a patriarch praying that some of his sons should become good priests, others brave warriors and the rest successful merchants (S. Br., X.4.1.10). Obviously he did not much believe in heredity and held that a good deal depended upon proper training and education. Karman Theory; Growing Faith in Nature: In the course of time, however, the supreme confidence that was placed in nurture began to weaken to a great extent. When the Aryans settled down in a less spectacular and more peaceful life and began to investigate more carefully the phenomena of life around them, they began to feel that man is not entirely an architect of his own fortune, and that the powers and capacities with which he is born determine the scope of his prospects and activity to a considerable extent. The doctrines of Karman and Rebirth, which were unknown in the Vedic age, became universally accepted in the course of time, swinging the pendulum considerably in favour of nature as against nurture. It began to be averred that the deeds (Karman) in previous lives, rather than the training in the present one, will determine whether our intellect is to be bright² and moral propensities strong. The development of the caste system on hereditary lines did not strengthen the hands of the advocates of nurture; it began to be argued that the efficiency of a person as a priest or a warrior does not so much depend upon the training he receives in this life as upon the inherent qualities with which he is born as a consequence of his Karman in

1. इन्द्रो ह ब्रह्मचर्येण देवेभ्यः स्वराभवत् । V. 1. 19. 2, बुद्धिः कर्मानुसारिणी ।