Recently I listened to a BBC radio program
in which Melvyn Bragg interviewed Jessica Frazier (Lecture in Religious
Studies, University of Kent), Naomi Appleton (University of Edinburgh) and
Richard Gombrich (Buddhist scholar formerly of Oxford) on king Asoka. The
program starts with Frazier waxing lyrical about the glories of the pre-Mauryan
world, claiming that there were Buddhist
universities including at Taxila, and giving details about the careers of Asoka
and his grandfather Chandragupta. Bragg then turns to Appleton who says
correctly that we know very little about Asoka’s life but then goes on to give
a detailed account of it. Listening to all this I could hardly believe my ears
that this was two academics talking, because most of what they said is
completely nonsense. Then Bragg turned to Gombrich who said exactly that, that the
only thing we know for certain about Asoka comes from his edicts and that all
the “stuff” that had just been presented is legend dating from centuries after his time. Frazier and Appleton
laughed awkwardly.
However, a point from this program I wish to take up today is the one Jessica Frazier made about Taxila. She claimed,
as literally hundreds of publications including academic ones have done, that
there was a great university at Taxila or that “Taxila was the world’s first
university.” Since the late 19th
century more and more details about this supposed university has been accumulating.
In B. Prakash’s book on the subject book he even gave a curriculum from the
university; “archery, hunting, elephant
lore, political economy, law and other arts, humanities and sciences…” In the Wikipedia
entry on Taxila, notes 22, 48 to 55, it gives information about some of the
luminaries supposedly associated with the university. All of this is either
legend from centuries after the people mentioned, or
originates from 20th century unfounded speculation. A. H. Dani’s
excellent monograph The Historical City
of Taxila (1986) published by UNSCO,
cautiously says that Taxila was a centre for Brahmanical learning, pointedly
not using the magic word “university”.
The reality is that we know almost nothing
about Taxila other than what can be gleaned from brief mentions in ancient
texts (usually only the name) numismatics, and archaeological findings during
the 20th century. Interestingly, the most detailed information we
have about the city of Taxila come from Greek and Latin accounts of Alexander
the Great's visit written by Arrian, Curtius Rufus, Diodorus Siculus, etc, none of which
mention a university. The Chinese pilgrims Faxian and Xuanzang both visited Taxila
but mention no university either, or even a tradition of learning. Richard
Gombrich put it well in his respones to Frazier’s claim: “I don’t know how
they managed with universities when they had no writing.”
So when, where or by whom did this
spurious claim that there was a university at Taxila originate? I don’t know,
but it seems to have become currant in the late 19th century,
probably after the publication of the Cowell et el. translation of the Jatakas. In many of these stories princes and others are said to have
gone to Taxila to study. It usually says
that they went at the age of 16, that they learned the three Vedas by heart (e.g Ja.I,259), and sometimes from “a world renowned teacher” (e.g Ja.I,317). One Jataka mentions study
of the eighteen branches of knowledge (Ja.I,356). That’s it! Nothing else! No
other details at all. Although the Jatakas in their present form post-date the suttas
and vinaya, many of the stories they tell are pre-Buddhist. They look back to a
distant, partly mythological past.
It would seem therefore that in the
centuries before Buddhism Taxila was a centre for Brahmanical learning. In keeping
of what we know of the Vedic education, young Brahmin students would probably
have lived in the gurus home where they would be taught the Vedas, Vedic rituals and
associated knowledge; prosody, grammar
legends, perhaps astrology, etc. It is likely that the more learned gurus earned
reputations that attracted a good number of students. But there is a big
difference between this small-scale, private, traditional learning, home schooling if you like, and a
university. It also seems likely that by the time of the Buddha Taxila had
faded as a centre for Vedic learning. The very name Taxila (Pali Takkasila) is
not mentioned by the Buddha or indeed anywhere in the Sutta Pitaka, other than
in the Jatakas. But memory of it lived on, in the Jatakas, the
Puranas, the Mahabharata, etc. where the name, and little beyond it, evoked the
idea of excellence in religious knowledge. The only institutions approximating what we
now understand as a university were those Buddhist ones that grew up in medieval
Bihar and Bengal, the first being Nalanda founded around the late 4th century
CE. As for Taxila university, it was nothing more than a university of the air, hot air.
