ABSTRACT
Although ancient and medieval Indian societies recognized teaching as a specialized activity, it was something rather different from what came to be recognized as a means of employment or ‘service’ towards the middle of the nineteenth century. The scene immediately preceding the expansion of the colonial education system has been the subject of some recent debate. 1 The earlier view that pre-colonial India was a vast sea of illiteracy marked by the absence of schooling stands clearly in need of scrutiny and correction, though it is hard to imagine that an average picture of the country as a whole in these matters can be meaningfully drawn. It is clear from presently available evidence that there was an enormous amount of geographical variation in the spread of literacy and schooling facilities. Present-day Bengal and parts of Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Kerala were among the areas that had numerous village schools supported by the local population. In several parts of central and northern India, on the other hand, there seems to have been no widespread system of imparting literacy and numeracy to children. However, even in these parts of the country, teachers of specialized arts such as music and dance were recognized. The practice of teaching in such specialized arts has remained much the same even in our times, which makes it a useful source of information about the character of teaching in the indigenous tradition. If we combine such information with the knowledge available in some nineteenth-century reports, we can obtain a view of the aspects where the indigenous tradition of teaching contrasted with the colonial system.
