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

III] THE TEACHER AND THE STUDENT 61 expect this work if the student was a paying boarder and would limit it to the minimum in the case of poor students.¹ Under such circumstances the relations bet- ween the teacher and the student were naturally very cordial and intimate; they were united, to quote the words of the Buddha, 'by mutual reverence, confidence and communion of life'.² Students usually did not desert one teacher for another merely out of freakishness.³ Teachers would often entertain genuine affection for their students and would sometimes select some of them as their sons-in-law. Later authorities have laid it down that a student cannot marry his teacher's daughter, because she stood in the relation of a sister to him ; Kacha refused to marry Devayānī on that account. This rule seems to have been framed to prevent complications likely to arise in practice when young students used to live and board with their teachers. But earlier practice seems to have been different. In Jātakas we come across sev- eral cases of teachers marrying their daughters to their 1 Cf. न चैनमध्ययनविघ्नेन आत्मार्थेषूपरुन्ध्यादनापत्सु । Ap Dh S., I 2. 8 The teacher was also responsible for the safety of students when he sent them out for his own work; if any mishap overtook them he was held guilty. Cf. गुरुप्रयुक्तश्चेन्म्रियेत (शिष्यः) त्रीन्कृच्छ्रांश्चरेत् । Bau. Dh. S., II. 1. 27 2 M. V.. I. 32. 1 3 Students deserting their teachers without any reason are ridiculed as crows by Patañjali, cf. यो गुरुकुलं गत्वा न चिरन्तिष्ठति स उच्यते तीर्थकाक इति । Vol. I. P. 391 In Uttararamacharit, II, we no doubt find Ātreyī leaving Vālmīki, and going to Agastya But the reason was that she was too dull to read along with Kuśa and Lava. Of course if a student wanted to learn a different branch of learning, he would leave his old teacher and go to the expert in the particular branch.