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

Preface A great deal of scholarly work has been published on the history of education in India, especially during the 1930s, and 1940s. In fact, writings on the subject, initially by British officials-cum- scholars, started to appear as early as the mid-nineteenth cen- tury. Most of these histories, however, relate to the ancient period, sometimes going as far back as the tenth or twelfth century A.D. Others deal with the history of education during British rule and thereafter. Besides detailed scholarly works on specific ancient educational institutions (such as those at Nalanda or Taxila), there are more general works like that of A.S. Altekar¹ on the ancient period. For the later period, there have been several publications: besides the two volumes of Selections from Educational Records, published and recently reprinted by the Government of India itself,² the work of S. Nurullah and J.P. Naik may be mentioned here.³ The latter work is interestingly described by the two authors (thus indicating its time and mood) as an attempt at a ‘well-documented and comprehensive account of Indian educational history during the last one hundred and sixty years and to interpret it from the Indian point of view.’⁴ Reaching a far wider audience is the voluminous work of Pandit Sundarlal, first published in 1939,⁵ though perhaps less academic. The 36th chapter of this celebrated work entitled, ‘The Destruction of Indian Indigenous Education’, runs into 40 pages, 1