Ancient Institutions of learning in Pakistan
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The region of modern day's Pakistan has a long history of education and learning, from the era of Indus Valley Civilization , where Indus script, the first script in South Asia was created in what is now Harrapa in Pakistan[1] during 2700–1900 BCE.[2][3][4] Another script with the name of Kharosthi was developed independently from other regions of South Asia in Gandhara, northern Pakistan. It was used in Central Asia as well.[5] An abugida, it was introduced at least by the middle of the 3rd century BCE, possibly during the 4th century BCE,[6] and remained in use until it died out in its homeland around the 3rd century CE, it remained in use during the time period of 400 BCE-300 CE.
Important ancient institutions of learning in the region of modern day's Pakistan are as follows;
Takshashila[edit]
The University of ancient Taxila was a renowned ancient institute of higher-learning located in the city of Taxila. According to scattered references that were only fixed a millennium later, it may have dated back to at least the fifth century BC.[7] Some scholars date Takshashila's existence back to the sixth century BC.[8] The school consisted of several monasteries without large dormitories or lecture halls where the religious instruction was most likely still provided on an individualistic basis.[7]
Takshashila is described in some detail in later Jātaka tales, written in Sri Lanka around the fifth century AD.[9]
It became a noted centre of learning at least several centuries BC, and continued to attract students until the destruction of the city in the fifth century AD.
Important Teachers[edit]
Important teachers that are said to be teaching at university of Taxila include;
- Pāṇini, the great 5th century BCE Indian grammarian Pāṇini is said to have been born in Shalatula near Attock, not far from Taxila. This region was then part of Gandāra satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire, but the ethnicity in his name or the way of his life shows that he was of Indian origin.[10][11][12] He is likely to have been teaching at Taxila university.
- Chanakya, the influential Prime Minister of the founder of the Mauryan Empire, Chandragupta Maurya, is also said to have been teaching at Taxila.[13]
- Kumāralāta, according to the 3rd century Chinese Buddhist monk and traveller Yuan Chwang, Kumāralāta, the founder of Sautrāntika school was also an excellent teacher at Taxila university and attracted pupil from as far as China.[14]
- Vasubandhu, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism is said to be teaching there. His famous pupil includes Dharmakirti and Dignaga.[15]
Important Students[edit]
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Important pupil from ancient University of Taxila includes;
- King Pasenadi of Kosala, a close friend of the Buddha
- Bandhula, the commander of Pasedani's army
- Aṅgulimāla, a close follower of the Buddha. A Buddhist story about Aṅgulimāla (also called Ahiṃsaka, and later a close follower of Buddha), relates how his parents send him to Taxila to study under a well-known teacher. There he excels in his studies and becomes the teacher's favorite student, enjoying special privileges in his teacher's house. However, the other students grow jealous of Ahiṃsaka's speedy progress and seek to turn his master against him.[16] To that end, they make it seem as though Ahiṃsaka has seduced the master's wife.[17]
- Jivaka, court doctor at Rajagriha and personal doctor of the Buddha.[18]
- Charaka, the Indian "father of medicine" and one of the leading authorities in Ayurveda, is also said to have studied at Taxila, and practiced there.[19][20]
- Chandragupta Maurya, Buddhist literature states that Chandragupta Maurya, the future founder of the Mauryan Empire, though born near Patna (Bihar) in Magadha, was taken by Chanakya for his training and education to Taxila, and had him educated there in "all the sciences and arts" of the period, including military sciences. There he studied for eight years.[21] The Greek and Hindu texts also state that Kautilya (Chanakya) was a native of the northwest Indian subcontinent, and Chandragupta was his resident student for eight years.[22][23] These accounts match Plutarch's assertion that Alexander the Great met with the young Chandragupta while campaigning in the Punjab.[24][25]
Sharada Peeth[edit]
It is a ruined Hindu temple and ancient centre of learning located in present-day Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan. Between the 6th and 12th centuries CE, it was among the most prominent temple universities in the Indian subcontinent. Known in particular for its library, stories recount scholars travelling long distances to access its texts. It played a key role in the development and popularisation of the Sharada script in North India.[26]
Library at Sharada Peeth[edit]
Sharada Peeth was also valued by scholars across the Indian subcontinent for its library, and stories detail long journeys they would take to consult it.
- In the 11th century, the Vaishnava saint Swami Ramanuja traveled from Srirangam to Sharada Peeth to refer to the Brahma Sutras, before commencing work on writing his commentary on the Brahma sutras, the Sri Bhasya.[27]
- The 13th century CE (1277 – 78) text Prabhāvakacarita contains a story of the Śvētāmbara scholar Hemachandra. As Sharada Peeth was the only place with a library known to have all such works available in their complete form,[28][29][30] Hemachandra requested King Jayasimha Siddharaja to send a team to retrieve copies of the existing eight Sanskrit grammatical texts preserved there. These supported his own text of Sanskrit grammar, the Siddha-Hema-Śabdanuśāśana.[31]
Important Students[edit]
The important pupil who studied here include:
- Kumarajiva (344 – 413 CE) was born to a Kashmiri father, Kumārāyana, and a Chinese mother from Kucha. He was sent to Kashmir at a young age to gain a grounding in Buddhism, where he studied under a Kashmiri scholar of the Sarvastivada school.[32]
- Thonmi Sambhota (7th century CE) was sent on a mission to Kashmir to procure an alphabet for the Tibetan language.[33] There, he learned various scripts and grammar treatises from learned pandits, and then devised a script for Tibetan based largely on the Sharada alphabet.[34][35]
- Rinchen Zangpo, a principal lotsawa or translator of Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Tibetan, is also said to be studied here.[36]
- The Kashmiri historian Kalhana Pandit[37]
- Hindu philosopher Adi Shankara.[38]
See also[edit]
- List of people from Gandhara
- Sharada Peeth
- University of ancient Taxila
- Pre-Islamic scripts of Pakistan
References[edit]
- ↑ Locklear, Mallory (January 25, 2017). "Science: Machine learning could finally crack the 4,000-year-old Indus script". The Verge. Manhattan, New York, NY: Vox Media. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
After a century of failing to crack an ancient script, linguists turn to machines.
- ↑ David Whitehouse (May 4, 1999). "'Earliest writing' found". BBC News. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
- ↑ "Evidence for Indus script dated to ca. 3500 BCE". Retrieved 2 September 2014.
- ↑ Edwin Bryant. The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford University. p. 178. Search this book on
- ↑ R. D. Banerji (April 1920). "The Kharosthi Alphabet". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 52 (2): 193–219. doi:10.1017/S0035869X0014794X. JSTOR 25209596.
- ↑ Salomon 1998, pp. 11–13.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Scharfe, Hartmut; Bronkhorst, Johannes; Spuler, Bertold; Altenmüller, Hartwig (2002). Handbuch Der Orientalistik: India. Education in ancient India. p. 141. ISBN 978-90-04-12556-8. Search this book on
- ↑ "History of Education", Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007.
- ↑ Marshall 1975:81
- ↑ Scharfe, Hartmut (1977). Grammatical Literature. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 89. ISBN 9783447017060. Search this book on
- ↑ Bakshi, S. R. (2005). Early Aryans to Swaraj. Sarup & Sons. p. 47. ISBN 9788176255370. Search this book on
- ↑ Ninan, M. M. (2008). The Development of Hinduism. Madathil Mammen Ninan. p. 97. ISBN 9781438228204. Search this book on
- ↑ Schlichtmann, Klaus (2016). A Peace History of India: From Ashoka Maurya to Mahatma Gandhi. Vij Books India Pvt Ltd. p. 29. ISBN 9789385563522. Search this book on
- ↑ Watters, Thomas (1904-01-01). On Yuan Chwang's travels in India, 629-645 A.D. Dalcassian Publishing Company. Search this book on
- ↑ Lusthaus, Dan; Vasubandhu
- ↑ Malalasekera 1960.
- ↑ Wilson 2016, p. 286.
- ↑ Batchelor, Stephen (2010). Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. Random House Publishing Group. p. 256. ISBN 9781588369840. Search this book on
- ↑ Lowe, Roy; Yasuhara, Yoshihito (2016). The Origins of Higher Learning: Knowledge networks and the early development of universities. Routledge. p. PT62. ISBN 9781317543268. Search this book on
- ↑ Gupta, Subhadra Sen (2009). Ashoka. Penguin UK. p. PT27. ISBN 9788184758078. Search this book on
- ↑ Mookerji 1988, pp. 15-18.
- ↑ Mookerji 1988, pp. 18-23, 53-54, 140-141.
- ↑ Modelski, George (1964). "Kautilya: Foreign Policy and International System in the Ancient Hindu World". American Political Science Review. Cambridge University Press (CUP). 58 (3): 549–560. doi:10.2307/1953131. JSTOR 1953131.
- ↑ Mookerji, Radhakumud (1966). Chandragupta Maurya and His Times. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 16–17. ISBN 9788120804050. Search this book on
- ↑ "Sandrocottus, when he was a stripling, saw Alexander himself, and we are told that he often said in later times that Alexander narrowly missed making himself master of the country, since its king was hated and despised on account of his baseness and low birth". Plutarch 62-4 "Plutarch, Alexander, chapter 1, section 1".
- ↑ Qazi, Junaid Ahmad; Samad, Abdul (January 2015). Shakirullah; Young, Ruth, eds. "Śarda Temple and the Stone Temples of Kashmir in Perspective: A Review Note". Pakistan Heritage. Hazara University Mansehra-Pakistan. 7: 111–120 – via Research Gate.
- ↑ "Ramanuja's revelation of the 'secret mantra'". The Hindu. 2016-08-04. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
- ↑ Pollock, Sheldon (2006). The Language of the Gods in the World of Men. Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 182. ISBN 0520245008.
...accordingly, being stored in its most perfect form in the temple of the Goddess of Speech in the far-off land of Kashmir, from where Hemacandra acquired his supremely authoritative exemplars, grammar was at the same time clearly a precious cultural good, one that could be imported and whose very possession secured high prestige for its possessor.
Search this book on
- ↑ Suri, Chandraprabha. Prabhavakacharita. Search this book on
- ↑ Singh, Sahana (2017). The Educational Heritage of Ancient India. Chennai: Notion Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-947586-53-6.
Hemachandra is noted to have requested for a copy of all the earlier grammar works that had been written until then, and which were only available in their complete form in the library of Sharada university.
Search this book on
- ↑ Pollock 2006, pp. 588–89
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs named:52 - ↑ Thomas, Frederick William (1951). "The Tibetan Alphabet". In Eckhardt, Karl August; Pedersen, Holger; Littmann, Enno; Latte, Kurt. Festschrift zur Feier des Zweihundertjährigen Bestehens der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. Festschrift zur Feier des Zweihundertjährigen Bestehens der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen: II Philologisch-Historische Klasse (in Deutsch). Springer. pp. 146–165. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-86704-0_7. ISBN 978-3-642-86704-0. Search this book on
- ↑ Norbu, Thubten Jigme; Turnbull, Colin M. (1968). Tibet. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 140. ISBN 0-671-20559-5. OCLC 1513. Search this book on
- ↑ Shakabpa, W. D. (2010). One Hundred Thousand Moons: an Advanced Political History of Tibet. Translated by Maher, Derek F. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-474-3076-6. OCLC 717020192. Search this book on
- ↑ Rizvi (1996), pp. 58-59.
- ↑ Kalhana (1900). Kalhaṇa's Rājataraṅginī: A Chronicle of the Kings of Kaśmīr. Translated by Stein, Marc Aurel. Westminster: Archibald Constable and Company, Ltd. pp. 151–152. ISBN 9788120803718. Search this book on
- ↑ Raina, Mohini Qasba (2013). Kashur: The Kashmiri Speaking People. Trafford Publishing. pp. 85, 191. ISBN 978-1490701653. Search this book on
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