Education in Ancient India

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The book Education in Ancient India provided a comprehensive review of all aspects of education in India until around AD 1200, with some additional treatment of topics up to the start of the British Raj. In this book, Altekar collected extensive historical information on education in India from Sanskrit, Brahminic, Pali and Buddhist literature, along with inscriptions and accounts by foreign travellers. He also included defects in this study in the last chapter. In the book, Altekar proposes a theory of steady decline in Indian literacy from an earlier golden age, which later scholars such as Hartmut Scharfe dismissed as "sheer phantasy". Scharfe called Altekar an apologist, that his anti-British theory may have been influenced by his participation in the freedom struggle against British colonialism in 1930s when the book was first published. Scharfe acknowledges Altekar collected useful historical information.

Anant Sadashiv Altekar (24 September 1898 25 November 1960) was a historian, archaeologist, and numismatist from Maharashtra, India. He was the Manindra Chandra Nandy's Professor and Head of the Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India and later the director of the Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute and University Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture at the Patna University, both in Patna, India.

Considerable changes have been made in Edu- cation in Ancient India while presenting its second edition to the public. The first edition was in the form of a research work primarily intended for the students of Ancient Indian History and Culture. The reception that was given to it, however, showed that the general public was also interested in the subject and would welcome its presentation in a less technical and more popular form. Several Universities prescribed the work as one of the text-books for the paper dealing with the History of Indian Education at the B. T. examination, and it appeared that the teachers and students of the Training Colleges would welcome the treatment of the subject matter of the book, not only from the point of the orientalist but also from that of the educationalist. Further thought given to the subject also showed that a few more topics should be included in the book in order to make the treatment complete and comprehensive.

A considerable portion of the book has, therefore, been entirely rewritten for the second edition. Technical and detailed discussions have been transferred to foot-notes and appendices. A new appendix (appendix V) has been added, which explains technical terms and gives the dates of authors, works, kings and travellers incidentally refer- red to in the work. It is hoped that this appendix will give a proper chronological background to readers not acquainted with ancient Indian political and cultural history.