A Study on the Ancient Indian Education System and the Contemporary World

Abstract

“The present is embedded in the Past’’ is a well known truism. The glory of ancient India, while illuminating the present, makes her future fascinating .The unique feature of ancient India was that the formation of her civilization was influenced, not so much by political, economic or social factors as by spiritualism. The educational evolution in ancient India was also founded upon this very ideal. Learning in India through the ages had been prized and pursued not for its own sake, if we may so put it, but for the sake, and as part of religion. It was sought as the means of salvation or self-realization.

Ancient Indian Education had been evolved strictly on the foundation of Indian epistemological and philosophical traditions. The idea of the ephemerality of life and the world, the concept of ultimate death and the futility of mundane pleasure, had provided them with a special angle of vision. In fact the entire educational tradition originated in these principles. That is why the Indian sages devoted themselves to the study of a Supra-sensible world and spiritual powers .Therefore the ultimate aim of education in ancient India is the Salvation or Emancipation from the materialistic world. Thus the ancient Indian Educational System based on the principles of inculcation of the spirit of plain living high thinking, universal brotherhood , equality, universal kinship etc. and development of the sense of constant omnipresence of Brahma, the great Universal being , which have great relevance in the contemporary world.