द ब्यूटीफुल ट्री: १८वीं सदी में भारत की स्वदेशी गुरुकुल शिक्षा (धर्मपाल)

the instruction of youth in the district, either public or private, and, as I suppose must be understood, either elementary or learned. If, as I suspect, this statement is incorrect, it is the more extraordinary, because the agent appears to have taken a great deal of trouble to collect information regarding the means existing in the district supposed to be applicable to the encour- agement of education. From the analogy of other neighbouring districts, it seems incredible that there should be no schools of any kind amongst a population in which there is a proportion of thirty Hindoos to one Mahomedan. In 1820, a Hindoo named Sarbanand, who claimed succession to the office of ojha or high-priest of the temple of Baidyanath already mentioned, made an offer to the government through the local agent to give 5,000 rupees as an endowment for a Native school in the district on condition that his claim to the succession of the ojhaship might be sanctioned and established by the authority of government. From a notice of this transaction contained in the records of the General Committee, it would appear that he actually sent the money to the Collector’s office, and that in addition to the establishment of a school he wished it to be, in part, expended on the excavation of a tank at Soory, the chief town of the district. The offer was declined, and Sarbanand informed that he must abide the regular adjudication of the law courts on his claim, which proved unfavourable. The acting Agent and Collector in Beerbhoom in 1823 seems to have considered that the funds of the temple were liable to be applied to the establishment of public institutions, but it does not appear on what grounds this opinion was formed. According to one account the collections of the temple average 30,000 rupees per annum, the amount depending on the number and liberality of the pilgrims. According to an official estimate made in 1822, the resources of the temple were supposed to be 1,50,000 rupees annually. A specific fact stated is that in two months the collections amounted to 15,000 rupees, but it is not said whether the two months were in the season of the year when the temple is most frequented. The present appropriation of the revenue after providing, I conclude, for the current expenses of the temple, is to the support of religious mendicants and devotees. The acting Agent and Collector also submitted two statements of the quantity of land dedicated to various religious purposes, expressing at the same time the opinion that the produce 307