which prevail amongst the Mahomedan population; but they are
not so few as to be wholly neglected. There are probably, I am
told, about 40 in the district. It may be offered as a general
remark to account for such incorrect statements, that the
greater attention given by Europeans to the Mahomedan than to
the Hindoo languages and literature, combined with the
unobtrusive and retiring character of learned Hindoos,
sometimes leads the public functionary to overlook institutions
of Hindoo origin. It is probably from some such official authority
that Hamilton has borrowed the statement to which I refer.
CUTTACK: (p.54)
Mr Stirling, in the elaborate account of this district, from
which the preceding details are abridged, gives no information
whatever on the state of education as conducted by natives,
either in elementary schools or schools of learning. In the
description of the town of Puri Jugunnath, it is stated that ‘the
principal street is composed almost entirely of the religious
establishments called maths’, a name applied in other parts of
the country, both in the west and south, to convents of ascetics
in which the various branches of Hindoo learning are taught. It
may be inferred that they are applied to the same use in Jugun-
nath Puri.
HUGLY: (pp.57-59)
The number of Hindoo schools of learning in this district is
considerable. Mr Ward in 1818 stated that at Vansvariya, a vil-
lage not far from the town of Hugly, there were twelve or fourteen
colleges, in all of which logic was almost exclusively studied.
There were then also seven or eight in the town of Triveni, one of
which had been lately taught by Jugannath Tarka Panchanan,
supposed to be the most learned as well as the oldest man in
Bengal, being 109 years old at the time of his death. He was
acquainted in some measure with the veda, and is said to have
studied the vedanta, the sankhya, the patanjala, the nyaya, the
smriti, the tantra, the kavya, the pooranas and other shastras.
Mr Ward also mentions that Gundulpara and Bhudreshwuru
contained each about ten nyaya schools, and Valee two or three,
all villages in this district. Hamilton states that in 1801 there
were altogether about 150 private schools in which the
principles of Hindoo law were taught by Pundits, each school
containing from five to twenty scholars. There is no reason to
suppose that the number of schools is now less, and the