Education in the Vedic Civilization of India
The ancient India had several universities, many of them devoted to higher learning, which attracted scholars and students from as far away as China, Persia, and Greece. India's Vedic civilization had given great prominence to education in the society. The two most famous ancient Indian universities, and also the oldest ones in the world, are Takshashila and Nalanda.
Takshashila (or Taxila ), an early Hindu and Buddhist center of learning, existed more than 2600 years back in the ancient capital city of the Buddhist kingdom of Gandhara (now north-west Pakistan). The campus had law school, medical school, and school of military science. In this great center of Vedic learning, students entered at the age of sixteen, and were taught the Vedas and eighteen Arts including skills such as archery, hunting, and elephant lore. It was eventually destroyed by the nomadic Hunas in the 5th century BCE.
Famous scholars Chanakya (who composed Arthashastra, a treatise on statecraft, economic policy, and military strategy), Charaka (who compiled the foundational medical treatise, the Charaka Samhita on the Indian system of medicine Ayurveda) taught here.
Nalanda University was established by Shakraditya of Gupta dynasty in the Indian state of Bihar during 400 CE and was a Buddhist center of learning till 1200 CE. Unlike Takshashila, the relatively modern campus of Nalanda had purpose-built lecture halls and residential quarters.
Nalanda was destroyed by Bakhtiyar Khalji, a military general from southern Afghanistan, who led the Muslim conquests of the eastern Indian regions of Bengal and Bihar and established himself as their ruler in about 1200 CE.
Today I came across this small book (82 pages), 'The Educational Heritage of Ancient India' by Sahana Singh published in 2017. It provides a glimpse into the history of Indian culture and civilization from an educational perspective. Listen to the author Sahana Singh talking about her book.
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