Introduction

Indian historical knowledge, by and large, has been derived, at
least until recent decades, from the writings and accounts left by
foreigners. This applies equally to our knowledge about the
status of Indian education over the past five centuries. The
universities of Taxila and Nalanda, and a few others until
recently have been better known and written about primarily
because they had been described centuries ago by some Greek
or Chinese traveller, who happened to keep a journal which had
survived, or had communicated such information to his
compatriots who passed it down to our times.

Travellers and adventurers of a new kind began to wander
around parts of India from about 1500 A.D., and more so from
about the close of the 16th century. Since for centuries the areas
they came from had had no direct links with India, and as they
had come from wholly different climates and societies, to them
most aspects of India—its manners, religions, philosophies,
ancient and contemporary architecture, wealth, learning, and
even its educational methods—were something quite different
from their own backgrounds, assumptions and experience.

Prior to 1770, (by which time they had become actual
rulers of large areas), the British, on whose writings and reports
this book is primarily based,^1 had rather a different set of
interests. These interests, as in the subsequent period too, were
largely mercantile, technological, or were concerned with
comprehending, and evaluating Indian statecraft; and, thereby,
extending their influence and dominion in India. Indian
religions, philosophies, scholarship and the extent of
education—notwithstanding what a few of them may have
written on the Parsis, or the Banias of Surat—had scarcely
interested them until then.

Such a lack of interest was due partly to their different
expectations from India. The main reason for this, however, lay
in