34 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY
civilisation at various epochs. What were the various functions performed by these great extra-civic priories? No Englishman has reason to be prouder of Oxford than the Hindu of Ajanta. The eternal antithesis of Europe between "town and gown" was never a source of rioting and disorder in the East, only because from the beginning they were recognised by universal consent as distinct entities, whose separateness of interests demanded a certain geographical distance. What was the life lived in these royal abbeys, whose foundations date back in so many cases—notably Bodh-Gaya, Sarnath, Dhauli, and Sanchi—even earlier than the reign of Asoka himself? They were a symbol of democracy to the eyes of the whole community, of the right of every man to the highest spiritual career. It is not conceivable that they should lhave been entirely without influence on the education of youth. But undoubtedly their main value intellectually lay in their character of what we should now call post-graduate universities.
Here must have been carried on such researches as were recorded, in the lapse of centuries, by Patanjali, in his Yoga Aphorisms, one of the most extraordinary documents of ancient science known to the world. Here must have been the home of that learning which made the golden age of the Guptas possible, between 300 and 500 A.D. We must think too of the international relations of these ancient monastic colleges. Fa Hian (400 A.D.) and Hiouen Tsang (650 A.D.) were not the only
