Dr. V.K. Maheshwari, Ph.D

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

There has been so much recent talk of progress in the areas of curriculum innovation and textbook revision that few people outside the field of teaching understand how bad most of our elementary school materials still are.

Jonathan Kozol
Education is a tri-polar process, in which on the one end is the teacher ,on the second is the student and on the third is the curriculum. Curriculum refers to the means and materials with which students will interact for the purpose of achieving identified educational outcomes. In fact ,the curriculum is that mean which forms the basis of the educational process. If education is accepted as the teaching-learning process, then both teaching and learning take place through the curriculum.

The term ‘curriculum ’has been derived from a Latin word ‘currere’ which means race course .Thus ,the term ‘curriculum’ has the sense of competition and achievement of goal inherent in it. It is said that the curriculum consists of all the planned experiences that the school offers as part of its educational responsibility, but curriculum includes not only the planned, but also the unplanned experiences as well.

Another point of view suggests that curriculum involves organized rather than planned experiences because any event must flow of its own accord, the outcome not being certain beforehand.

Curriculum is total environment. The most comprehensive concept of curriculum is given by those who conceive it to include the total environment of the school. In fact, the curriculum has been described as “the environment in motion.” In modern times, the term is interpreted in this more liberal sense because there is no questioning the fact that the child’s education is influenced, by not only books but the playground, library, laboratory, reading room, extra-curricular programmes, the educational environment, and a host of other factors. In the school, both the educator and the educand are part of the curriculum because they are part of the environment. Actually the curriculum is only that part of the plan that directly affects students. Anything in the plan that does not reach the students constitutes an educational wish, but not a curriculum. Half a century ago Bruner (1960) wrote, “Many curricula are originally planned with a guiding idea . . . But as curricula are actually executed, as they grow and change, they often lose their original form and suffer a relapse into a certain shapelessness”

Basic Components of Curriculum:

Organised form of subject-matter,. Curriculum is the organized form of subject-matter, specially prepared to experiences and activities which provide the student with the knowledge and the skill he will require in facing the various situations i of real life. Obviously, the term ‘curriculum’ cannot be restricted to ; list of books, because it must include other activities which provide [the student with the knowledge and the skill he will require in facing [the various situations of life, meet the requirement of children. Hence, Snow curriculum includes those environment of the schools and numerous other elements not taught by books. In the words of Bent and Kronenburg , “Curriculum, in its broadest sense, includes the complete school environment, involving all the courses, activities, reading and associations furnished to the pupils in the school.”

Curriculum is comprehensive  experience. In the words of Munroe, “Curriculum embodies all the experiences which are utilized by the school to attain the aims of education.” Thus, the various subjects included for study in a curriculum are not intended merely for study or rote learning but to convey experiences- of various kinds .Curriculum does not mean only the academic subject traditionally taught it the school, but it includes the totality of experiences that a pupil receives through the manifold activities that go on in the school in the classroom, library laboratory, workshop, playground and in the numerous informal contacts between teachers and  pupils.

The curriculum includes all the learner’s experiences in or outside school which has been devised to help him develop mentally, physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually and morally.” it is obvious, then that, the aim of curriculum is to provide experience to the educand so that he may achieve complete development. By calling the curriculum an experience, the fact is made explicit that it includes not merely books, but all those activities and relationship which are indulged in by the educand, both inside and outside the school

Curriculum is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Curriculum Is a means or tool. It is apparent from the foregoing definitions that because it is created – in order to achieve the aims of education. That is why, one finds that different educationists have suggested different kinds of curricula to conform to the aims and objectives ascribed to education; Explaining the concept of curriculum as a tool of education, Cunningham writes, “The curriculum is the tool in the hands of the artist (the teacher) to mould his material (the pupil) according to his ideal (objective) in his studio (the school).” Here the educator is compared to an artist and the curriculum as one of the instruments of tools used by him to develop the educand according to, and in conformity with the aims of education. It is evident that the curriculum will change with every change -in the aims of education.

“The curriculum may be defined as the totality of subject ‘matter, activities, and experience which constitute a pupil’s school life.” Curriculum includes all activities Elaborating the same concept further, H.H. Horne says, “The curriculum is that which the pupil is (aught. It involves more than the acts of learning and quiet study, it involves occupations, production, achievements, exercise, activity. “Pragmatists, too, have included the entire range of the educand’s activities in the curriculum because according to them, the child learns by doing. In the light of the various definitions of curriculum given it is possible to arrive at a definition of the term which includes all the points mentioned in these definitions. Briefly, then, curriculum is the means of achieving the goals of education . It includes all those . experience activities and environments which the educand receives during his educational career. Such a definition of curriculum comprehends the edueand’s entire life, a contention borne out by all modern educationists who believe that .the child learns not only inside the school, but also outside it, on the playground, at home, in society, in fact, every where. That is why, there is nowadays so much insistence on the participation of the parents in the child’s education and on not restricting the environment of the curriculum to the school environment but taking it means every possible kind of environment encountered by the child. Besides, it includes all those activities which the child does, irrespective of the time and place of these activities. It also includes the entire range of experiences that the child has in the school, at home, in the world at large. Considering from his liberal standpoint, one finds that is preparing the curriculum one has much wider background than would otherwise be possible.

The Purpose of Curriculum

The purpose of the curriculum is to prepare the student to thrive within the society as it is—and that includes the capacity for positive change and growth .Clarifying the  purpose of curriculum, it has been pointed out in the report of the Secondary Education Commission( 1952-53 India) that, “The starting point for curricular reconstruction must, therefore, be the device to bridge the gulf between the school subjects and to enrich the varied activities that make up the warp and woof of life.” Hence, the curricular should be so designed that it strains the educand to face the situations of real life, a curriculum can be said to have the following major purposes

Synthesis of subjects and life. The aim of the curriculum is to arrange and provide those subjects For an edueand’s study which will enable the educand to destroy any gulf between school life and life  outside  the  school.  The  opinion  of the  Secondary  Education Commission has already been quoted.

Harmony between individual and activity. In a democracy, such social qualities as social skills, cooperation, the desire to be of service, sympathy, etc., are very significant because without them, no society can continue to exist. On the other hand, development of the individual’s own character and personality arc also very important. Hence, the curriculum must create an environment and provide those books which enable the individual to achieve his own development at the same time as he learns these social qualities.

Development of democratic values. In all democratic countries, the curriculum of education must aim to develop the democratic values of equality, liberty and fraternity, so that the educands may. develop into fine democratic citizens. But the development should not only aim at national benefit. The curriculum must also aim to introducing a spirit of internationalism in the cducand.

Satisfaction of the educand’s need. In defining curriculum, many educationists have insisted that it must be designed to satisfy the needs and requirements of the educand. It is seen that one finds a great variety of interests, skills, abilities, attitudes, aptitudes,’ etc., among educands. A curriculum, should be so designed as satisfy the general and specific requirements of the educands.

Realization of values. One aim of education is development of character, -and what is required for this is to create in the educand a faith in the various desirable values. Hence, one of the objectives of education is to create in the educand a definite realization of the prevailing system of values.

Development of knowledge .and Addition to knowledge In its most common connotation, the term curriculum is taken to mean development of knowledge or acquisition of facts and very frequently, this is the aspect kept in mind while designing a curriculum. But it must be remembered that it is not the only objective, although it is the most fundamental objective of a curriculum.

. In the contemporary educational patterns that curriculum is believed to the suitable which can create a harmony between the various branches of knowledge so that the educand’s attitude should be comprehensive and complete, not one sided.

Creation of a useful environment. Another objective of curriculum is to create an environment suitable to the educand. Primarily the environment must assist the educand in achieving the maximum possible development of his facilities, abilities and capabilities.

Principles of Curriculum Construction

Different educationists have expressed their own views about the fundamental principles of curriculum construction, the difference being created by their different philosophies of education. Briefly, the main principles of curriculum construction are the following:

Principle of utility. T.P. Nunn, the educationist, believes that the principles of utility is the most important principle underlying the formation of a curriculum. He writes, “While the plain man generally likes his children to pick up some scraps of useless learning for purely decorative purpose, he requires, on the whole, that they shall be taught what will be useful to them in later life, and he is inclined to give ‘useful’ a rather strict interpretation.” As a general rule, parents are in favour of including all those subjects in the curriculum which are likely to prove useful for their child in his life, and by means of which he can be fade a responsible member of society.

Principle of Training in the proper patterns of conduct. According to Crow and Crow, the main principle underlying the construction of a curriculum is that, through education the educand should be able to adopt the patterns of behavior proper to different circumstances. Man is a social animal who has to constantly adapt himself to the social environment. Therefore, education must aim at developing all these qualities in the educand which will facilitate this adaptation to the social milieu. The child is by nature self-centered, but education must tech him to attend the needs and requirements of others besides him. One criterion of an educated individual is that he should be able to adapt himself to different situations with which he is comforted. In his context, the term conduct must be understood in its widest sense. Only then can this principle of curriculum construction be properly understood. “All our activities in social, economic, family and cultural environment constitute behavior or conduct, and it is the function of education of teach us how he behaves in different situation.”

Principle of Synthesis of play and work. Of the various modern techniques of education, some try to educate through work and others through play. But a great majority of educationists agree that the curriculum should aim at achieving a balance between play and work. In other words, the work given to the educand should be performed in such a manner that the child may believe it to be play. There is a difference between work and play. That is why, parents want to engage the child in work instead of allowing him to play all the time, but the child is naturally inclined to spend his time in playing. Keeping this in view, T.P. Nunn has written, “The school should be thought* of not as a knowledge-monger’s shop, but a place where the young a^-e disciplined in certain forms of activity. All subjects should be laugh; in the ‘play way’ care being taken that the ‘way’ leads continuously from the irresponsible frolic of childhood to the disciplined labors of manhood.”

Principle of Synthesis of all activities of life. In framing a curriculum, attention should be paid to the inclusion, in it, of all¹ the various activities of life, such as contemplation, learning, acquisition of various kinds of skill, etc. In the individual and social sphere of life, every individual has to perform a great variety of activities, and this success in life is determined by the success of all these activities. ‘Hence, the curriculum should not neglect any form of activity related to any aspect of life. A curriculum constructed on this basis will be both comprehensive and closely related to life. In other words, it should include all the activities that educand is likely to require in later life.

Principle of individual differences. Modern educational psychology has brought to light, and stressed the significance of individual differences that exist between one individual and another. It has been discovered that people differ in respect of theft mental processes, interests, aptitudes, attitudes, abilities, skills, etc., and these differences are innate. All modern education is paid centric that is, it is centered on the ‘child. Psychologists insist that the curriculum should be so designed as to provide an opportunity for complete and comprehensive development to widely differing individuals. One of the basic qualities of such a curriculum is flexibility; for it must be flexible, in order to accommodate, educands of low, verge or high intelligence and ability, and to provide each one a chance to develop all his the greatest possible extent.

Principle of Constant development.  Another basis for curriculum construction is the principle o a dynamic curriculum, based on the realization that no curriculum can prove adequate for all times and in all Places. For this reason, the  should be flexible and changeable. This is all the more true in the modern context when new discoveries in the various branches of science are taking place everyday. Hance, it becomes necessary to reshape the curriculum fairly, frequently in order to incorporate the latest development.

Principle of Creative training. Another important principle of curriculum construction is that of creative training. Raymont has correctly stated that a curricuhm appropriate for the needs of today and the future must definitely have a positive bias towards creative subjects. And, one of the aim of education is to develop the creative faculty of the educand. All that is finest in human culture is the creation of man’s creative abilities. Children differ from other in respect of this ability. Hence, in franking a curriculum, attention must be paid to the fact that it should encourage each educand to develop his creative ability as far as is possible.

Principle of Variety. Variety is another important principle of curriculum construction. The innate complexity make it necessary that the .curriculum should be valid, because no one kind of curriculum can develop all to facilities of an individual. Hence, at every level the curriculum rust have variety, it will, on the one hand, provide an opportunity development of the different faculties of the educand, while on the other, it will retain his interest in education.

Principle of Education for leisure. One of the objective ascribed to education is training fr leisure, because it is believed that education is not merely for employment or work. Hence, it is desirable that the curriculum should also include a training in those activities which will make the individual’s leisure more pleasurable. A great variety of social, artistic and sporting activities can be included in this kind of training., Brides, educands should be encouraged to foster some of the other besides,  so that they can put their leisure to constructive and pleasant use.

Principle of Related to community life. Curriculum can also be based on the principle that school and community life must be intimately related to each there. One cannot forget that the school is only a miniature form of immunity. Hence, the school curriculum should include all those activate which are performed by members of larger community outside the’ boundaries of the school. This will help in evolving social qualities for the individual, in developing the social aspect of his personal band finally, in helping his final adaptation to the social environs & into which he must ultimately go.

Principle of Evolution of democratic values. The construction of a curriculum in a democratic society is conditioned by the need to develop democratic qualities in the individual. The curriculum should be, so dogged that it develops a democratic feeling and creates a positive £h in democratic values. The progrmmes devise in the college qualities the educand so that he may be able to participate usefully and successfully in democratic life. In all the democratic societies of the wool this is the chief consideration in shaping the curricula for primary, secondary and higher education.

When I teach the formal curriculum, I have the chance to think about it ahead of time. I can rehearse it. I can illustrate it with self-deprecating humor and humble-sounding personal disclosure. I can try to make it comes out just right.

John Ortberg

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.

John Taylor Gatto

 

As per the modern thinking, education is a tri-polar process, in which on the one end is the teacher, on the second is the student and on the third is the curriculum. The most comprehensive concept of curriculum is given by those who conceive it to include the total environment of the school. In fact, the curriculum has been described as “the environment in motion.”

The curriculum includes all the learner’s experiences in or outside school which has been devised to help him develop mentally, physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually and morally.

Thus, the various subjects included for study in a curriculum are not intended merely for study or rote learning but to convey experiences- of various kinds .Curriculum does not mean only the academic subject traditionally taught it the school, but it includes the totality of experiences that a pupil receives through the manifold activities that go on in the school in the classroom, library laboratory, workshop, playground and in the numerous informal contacts between teachers and pupils.

Curriculum is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Curriculum is a means or tool. Explaining the concept of curriculum as a tool of education, Cunningham writes, “The curriculum is the tool in the hands of the artist (the teacher) to mould his material (the pupil) according to his ideal (objective) in his studio (the school).” Here the educator is compared to an artist and the curriculum as one of the instruments of tools used by him to develop the student  according to, and in conformity with the aims of education.

Evaluation of Curriculum

Formative Assessment:

Formative assessment made in a situation when the curriculum is answerable to the public. Assessment in such a situation must ensure objectivity, credibility and relevance. To ensure these, it-will follow the get standardized norms/ procedures of lest construction, administration and interpretation. Informal assessment is applicable to situations where an individual or a voluntary body is a curriculum to obtain some information to fulfil some personal requirements. The informal assessment also needs to be objective and reliable, but the evaluator is not bound to satisfy about these qualities of his assessment. Hence, the process of assessment need not follow the set procedures of evaluation.

Summative Assessment:

Formative assessment is concerned with identifying learner weaknesses in attainment in order to help the learner and the teacher overcome/remedy. Summative assessment aims at certifying and grading the attainment of the learner at the end of a given course.

(i) Tests for formative assessment are given at regular and frequent intervals during a course, while the tests for summative assessment are given at the end of a course or at the end of a fairly long period, say a term or a semester or a year. In a course that extends over six months, a test at the end of say, every fortnight will be a fomative test, while the test at the end of the six months will be summative.

(ii) The level of generalisation sought by the items of a summative test will be must higher compared to that sought by the items of a formative test. For instance, if the items of a formative test check the ability to apply a given rule or principle to a given unfamiliar situation, the items in a summative test may check the ability to apply one or more to the appropriate rules/principles from among the many given in a variety of situations.

(iii) The functions of formative and summative assessments are different in the context of EOEP. Formative assessment includes tests and other forms of measurement intended to give a measure or of success of the parts of a curriculum even when the curriculum is. in the process of development. Summative evaluation includes such forms of measurement that would give a measure of success of the course as a whole.

Developmental Assessment:

Besides formative assessment and summative assessment in education, yet another term is in use. It is ‘development assessment”. Used in the context of curriculum development, it refers to the evaluation of the preliminary versions of curriculum with representative sample of learners. It is generally treated as a part of the curriculum development schedule. Formative assessment in this context refers to the evaluation of a course made with larger group of learners. The purpose of such assessment is not to help the process of curriculum development but to help the activities of maintenance and revision of curriculum already developed.

Criteria for Curriculum Evaluation

The review about literature related to curriculum indicates that there are four major criteria for assessing the workability of the curriculum.

1.Subject-Content.

Various subjects are included in the curriculum, such as-Hindi, English, Sanskrit, History, Geography, Social Science, Physical Sciences, Bio-science, Home science, Maths,Economics, Psychology, Sociology, Physical education, Art, and Drawing etc. The structure of content of these subjects is determined for the curriculum development.

2. Experiences.

The curriculum provides the following type of experiences to the students, social, historical, geographical (time and place sense), physical, political, civics senses, religious, spiritual and reactive experiences, expression of ideas facts and events.

3. Skills.

Curriculum provides the situations for developing skills or psychomotor actives-languages reading, writing, speaking, observations, perception, use of different type, instrument in the workshops and field works, communications skills, craft work, and verbal and non-verbal communication skills. It is related to psychomotor objectives.

4. Attitude and Values.

Curriculum provides the experiences for developing affective domain of the learners. The feeling, beliefs, attitudes and values are developed. It develops self-confidence, honesty, sensitivity sincerity, morality, objectivity, character and adjustment.

Related to cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains, the factors are given due weight age in good curriculum.

Critical Appraisal of Existing Syllabus

The concept of curriculum is very wide and extensive. It includes all those experiences which a student gets in the aegis of the school. It includes all educational and co-curricular activities inside and outside the classroom. The curriculum can be understood in the form of activity and experience.

Curriculum is the organized form of subject-matter, specially prepared to experiences and activities which provide the student with the knowledge and the skill he will require in facing the various situations of real life.

The term ‘syllabus’ is often used in the sense of the term ‘curriculum’. In fact, the matter for an intellectual subject is called content. When this content is organised in view of teaching in the classroom, this is called syllabus.

Thus, the syllabus presents the definite know ledge regarding the amount of knowledge to be given to students during the course of teaching of different subjects; while the curriculum demolish which educational activities, the teacher would complete the needs of the syllabus. In other words, the syllabus determines the content to teaching, while the curriculum determines the methods of teaching for imparting it.

Teaching can be made more effective if a science teacher is fully satisfied with the curriculum which he has to teach. Also, he should know its utility. It can be possible only when he studies the prevalent syllabus critically. It should be fully clear to him that each subject has certain specific aims which students have to achieve. A teacher should examine these aims and how they can be achieved on the basis of the present syllabus.

From this view, the prevalent syllabus can be placed under the following bases for its critical study:

Syllabus in Relation to Objectives:

The syllabus is a means to attain the objectives. If aims and means are not in consonance, then the desirable outcomes would only be a pipedream. The utility of the syllabus depends on the fact whether the topics included in it are helpful in the realization of the concerned teaching objectives. In this context, it would be necessary to evaluate the syllabus. The following table can be used

S No.	Topic		Cognitive Domain	Affective Domain	Psychomotor Domain
1.	Theoretical	2
	Topics	3 4
2	Practical	1 2
	Topics	2 3 4

Selection of Organization of Syllabus:

The selection of syllabus is the second most important test on the basis of which critical analysis should be conducted. The details of syllabus organisation can be used in the following table beneficially:

 

S No.	Approaches of Syllabus	Topic (1)	Topic (2)	Topic (3)	Topic (4)	Topic (5)
1.	Logical approach
2.	Topical approach
3.	Concentric
	approach
4.	Interest and need
	-oriented approach
5.	Democratic
	approach

Comprehensiveness of Syllabus:

The selection of the syllabus should be as per the level of students. So, the subject matter included in the topics should be neither floating nor deep.

Comprehensiveness is a qualitative concept. So, it will have to be evaluated in a relative manner. For it, a rating scale will have to be used. If common analysis has to be conducted, then the three-point rating scale should be used, and if more intensive study has to be carried out, then five-point rating scale should be desirable.

S No	Five-point Rating Scale	Theoretical Topics				Practical Topics
1.	Most comprehensive
2	Very comprehensive
3.	Comprehensive
4.	Less comprehensive
5.	Not comprehensive

Data in the above table can be given numerical value in order to calculate comprehensiveness of the syllabus, (for it, all tallies of most comprehensive should be multiplied by 5, very comprehensive by 4, comprehensive by 3, less comprehensive by 2 and not comprehensive by 1, and thus calculate relative comprehensiveness.

Theoretical, Practical or Both:

Both theoretical and practical aspects of science are equally important. If the syllabus is only theoretical, it would make the syllabus bookish and abstract. Due to this, the content in different topics would have to be analysed to see how much theoretical aspect it contains and what practical possibilities exist in it. This can be analysed objectively as follows :

 

S No.	Topic	Theoretical Content (%)	Practical Content (%)	Total Percentage
1.	_—_
2	—
3.	—
4.	—
5.	—

Examination-centred:

For both students and teachers, the importance of a topic is determined on the basis of its importance in the examinations. The amount of emphasis of a topic varies with the value of the topic from examination viewpoint for both teachers and students. It has influenced to such extent that the number of marks allotted for each topic are given in the syllabus itself. The analysis of examination effect can be done by the following table :

S No.	Topic	Number of Questions in Question Paper	Score
1.	—
2.	—
3.	—
4.	—
5.	—

Child-centred:

The syllabus should not only be meant for common students, but it should have due provisions for talented and backward students also. The syllabus should be analyzed from this viewpoint also.

The focal point of the syllabus should be the student. The syllabus should be selected keeping in view the age, previous knowledge, interest, aptitude, needs etc. of students. It should be found out the importance given to these factors in the syllabus. It would only the be possible to evaluate its utility for students.

Correlation:

Because a student attains knowledge as a whole unit, so the importance of science being related with other subjects, its influence or. other subjects and influence of other subjects on it cannot be ignored. Therefore, it should be known whether the form of syllabus is partial or not, which can be done on the basis of the following table :

S No.	Topic	Subjects of Unilateral Correlation	Subjects of Collateral Correlation	Subjects of Multilateral Correlation
1.	—
2	—
3.	—
4.	—
5.	—

Interpretation of Evaluation Results

Evaluation results are interpreted in various ways from different said prints and for different purposes such as guidance, performance .etc.

For Future Education:

The syllabuses for the secondary level and higher education should be inter-connected, so that continuity of knowledge can be maintained. The syllabus should be analyzed on this basis by which it can be ascertained which topics can form the basis for future higher education, so that the capability of the syllabus in view of its can be evaluated.

Although no one, and no teacher, can predict the future with any certainty, people in leadership capacities such as teachers are required to make guesses about the probable future and plan appropriately. Teachers therefore need to plan their curriculum according to the more likely future their students face while at the same time acknowledging that the students have a future. The competent leader cannot plan according to past successes, as if doing so will force the past to remain with him. The most competent leader and manager, in fact, is not even satisfied with thoughts of the future, but is never satisfied, always sure that whatever is being done can be improved.

 

 

 

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Hilda Taba is known worldwide as an outstanding American educator and curriculum theorist, she was born, brought up and educated in Estonia. Taba, belongs to the list of the most outstanding educators of the twentieth century.

Taba’s theoretical ideas and thinking, was the collision between German and American educational traditions that she experienced in her studies of pedagogy. For instance, the undergraduate educational preparation that she received at the University of Tartu had a strong disposition towards German didactics and educational philosophy. However, her subsequent post-graduate studies in the United States of America were strongly influenced by the ideas of progressive education, which she came to admire and which became a cornerstone of her educational thinking.

Hilda Taba’s road to excellence was in some parts due to chance, her enormous desire to succeed and the favourable conditions for educational research in the United States, and she became one of the brightest stars in the educational constellation of the 1960s. Nowadays, her work in the field of curriculum design, alongside that of Ralph W. Tyler, belongs to the classics of pedagogy. Several contemporary authors still frequently refer to Hilda Taba’s ideas and base their work in the field of curriculum theory and practice on her conceptions developed decades ago.

As far as the personality of Hilda Taba , Elizabeth H. Brady’s  one of her closest colleagues during the days of intergroup education projects , wrote: ‘Taba was very energetic, enthusiastic, active, seemingly tireless; she led life at a tempo which sometimes led to misunderstandings and often wore out friends and staff. She was small in stature, perky in manners and in dress, and always intent on the next thing’.

Hilda Taba’s childhood and university studies

The future prominent educator Hilda Taba was born in Kooraste, a small village in the present Põlva county, in south-east Estonia, on 7 December 1902. She was the first of nine children of Robert Taba, a schoolmaster. Hilda was first educated at her father’s elementary school, and then at the local parish school.

In 1921, after graduating from Võru High School for Girls, she decided to become an elementary school-teacher, but she did not begin work at a primary school. Instead, she became a student of economics at the University of Tartu. Economics, however, did not appeal to Taba and a year later she applied to be transferred to the Faculty of Philosophy where she majored in history and education

After graduating from the University of Tartu in 1926, Taba had the opportunity to undertake her post-graduate studies in the United States, supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Her excellent knowledge of educational subjects acquired at Tartu University made it possible for her to complete a master’s degree at Bryn Mawr College in a year. During her studies at Bryn Mawr, she started to visit progressive schools and became interested in the practice of the Dalton Plan . Surveying American educational literature, Taba discovered Fundamentals of education by Boyd. H. Bode , a then widely known author and educator in the United States. Taba was very impressed by Bode’s  approach and she grew interested in the philosophy of progressive education. In particular, she enjoyed the child-centeredness and the novelty and flexibility of this educational approach.

In 1927 she applied for doctoral studies in educational philosophy at Columbia University. During the following five years of studies Taba met many American scientists of world renown, among them the psychologist E.L. Thorndike , the educator and historian P. Monroe , the sociologist G.C. Gounts, and the founder of the Winnetka Plan, C. Washburne . The principal advisor of her doctoral work became William H. Kilpatrick , one of John Dewey’s colleagues, known in the history of education as the initiator of the project method. Kilpatrick ended his foreword to Taba’s dissertation with prophetic words about its author, stating that ‘hard will be that reader to please and far advanced his previous thinking who does not leave this book feeling distinctly indebted to its very capable author’.

Hilda Taba’s scientific career

In the United States,  in 1933 Taba was given a post as a German teacher, and later on she became the director of curriculum in the Dalton School, in Ohio.

Hilda Taba became involved in educational research by a lucky chance. She was hired just at the start of the Eight-Year Study in which the Dalton School was actively involved. Taba’s participation in the study brought her together with Ralph Tyler, who was the head of the field evaluation staff of the study.

In 1939, when the evaluation staff was transferred to the University of Chicago, Taba became the director of the curriculum laboratory, which she headed until 1945.

By the mid-1940s Taba had become a capable and widely recognized educational researcher. She initiated, designed and directed several research projects centered on two major topics: intergroup education (1945–51); and the reorganization and development of social studies curricula in California (1951–67). Hilda Taba also served as a consultant to many local institutions and school districts, and she took part in UNESCO seminars in Paris and Brazil.

Studies in the field of  intergroup Education

Intergroup education became topical in the United States following the Second World War. Taba’s research group submitted to the American Council on Education one of many proposals aimed at the investigation of possibilities for increasing the level of tolerance between students from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The Intergroup Education Project was accepted and launched in New York City in 1945. Hilda Taba became its director. The success of the experimental project led to the establishment of the Center of Intergroup Education at the University of Chicago, which was headed by Taba (1948– 51).

Elizabeth H. Brady’s comment that one of Taba’s ‘major contributions was to recognize that social science could provide a strong foundation for education, with sociology, social pedagogy and cultural anthropology in particular illuminating issues in human relations education’.

Development of Social Studies Curricula

The second and final period of Hilda Taba’s independent scientific career began in 1951, she became a full professor of education at San Francisco State University. This was the period when her expertise in the areas of curriculum design, inter group education and development of cognitive processes won her international recognition.

Taba  saw the problems connected with the social studies curriculum and the reasons for selecting a specific strategy for curriculum development in this way: The analysis of the problems required change in the curriculum and the approach to making this change was made by the county curriculum staff in co-operation with the school principals. This analysis suggested that the usual efforts—institutes, lectures, required attendance of college classes—had not over a period of years produced much curriculum improvement and did not seem promising for making changes in the structure of curriculum. Furthermore, the teachers in various districts tended to regard the county as authoritarian and it was difficult to kindle their initiative for curriculum improvement.

So, the beginning of the study was largely concerned with the identification and analysis of teachers’ problems in the field of social studies. The teachers, after they had identified mismatches in the curricula they were using with their expectations for them, were asked to develop their own teaching/learning units. As the teachers’ expertise was not sufficient for curriculum development, seminars and consultancy sessions were organized. The members of the research team primarily provided this kind of in-service training for co-operating teachers. Consequently, the research programme was aimed at the re-education of the whole staff and at producing pilot models of curriculum development and teaching.

The main purpose of the study was to provide a flexible model of curriculum renewal, based on conjoint efforts of practising teachers and educational administrators responsible for school curricula. It is important to mention that many ideas underlying Taba’s curriculum model, such as the notion of a ‘spiral’ curriculum, inductive teaching strategies for the development of concepts, generalizations and applications; organization of content on three levels—key ideas, organizational ideas and facts—and her general strategy for developing thinking through the social studies curriculum significantly influenced curriculum developers during the 1960s and early 1970s. Many general principles and ideas of curriculum design developed by Hilda Taba belong to the foundations of modern curriculum theories, and are frequently referred to by other authors.

This approach allowed Hilda Taba to relate specific teaching/learning strategies to each category of objectives. In this sense, her classification of educational objectives.  The selection and organization of content implements only one of the four areas of objectives—that of knowledge. The selection of content does not develop the techniques and skills for thinking, change patterns of attitudes and feelings, or produce academic and social skills. These objectives only can be achieved by the way in which the learning experiences are planned and conducted in the classroom. Achievement of three of the four categories of objectives depends on the nature of learning experiences rather than on the content .

Hilda Taba died unexpectedly on 6 July 1967, at the peak of her academic capabilities and power.

Taba’s – theoretical rationale on curriculum development

A preliminary, and incomplete, analysis of her scientific heritage suggests at least four principles that seem to govern her vision of curriculum theory and curriculum development:

Social processes, including the socialization of human beings, are not linear, and they cannot be modelled through linear planning. In other words, learning and development of personality cannot be considered as one-way processes of establishing educational aims and deriving specific objectives from an ideal of education proclaimed or imagined by some authority.

Social institutions, among them school curricula and programmes, are more likely to be effectively rearranged if, instead of the common way of administrative reorganization— from top to bottom—a well-founded and co-ordinate system of development from bottom to top can be used.

The development of new curricula and programmes is more effective if it is based on the principles of democratic guidance and on the well-founded distribution of work. The emphasis is on the partnership based on competence, and not on administration.

The renovation of curricula and programmes is not a short-term effort but a long process, lasting for years.

The principle of considering social processes as non-linear is the most important one, and it probably governs all of Hilda Taba’s educational work. Applying the principle to curriculum design, this means that it is unreal and impossible to set up rigid general goals of education from which more specified objectives would be derived for a concrete plan. The general goals are also subject to modification in order to become adapted to the real circumstances, whereby they are dependent more or less on the content and character of the educational step planned.

The second principle of the efficiency of the bottom-up approach suggests the most convenient way to help individuals and human social organizations to accept and to adapt to new situations and ideas. The expected changes in the individual or social consciousness will take place only if individuals or groups, under pressure to introduce these changes, conserve or acquire the ability to learn. So, the changes and learning underlying it take place more easily, and meet less opposition if they are not imposed by the central institutions but are initiated in the periphery, and gradually spread all over the structure.

The third and fourth principles underline the necessity for the democratic guidance of curriculum development and the long-term nature of this process, and are essentially derived from the first two principles.

Hilda Taba Model of Curriculum Development

Curriculum is the heart of schooling. The difficulty, however, is that not everyone agrees what curriculum is or what is involved in curriculum development.  One way of developing a curriculum plan is through modeling. Models are essentially patterns that serve as guidelines to action.  Unfortunately, the term model as used in the education profession often lacks precision. A model may, propose a solution to a piece of a problem, attempt to solve to a specific problem, create or replicate a pattern on a grander scale. Models can be found for almost every form of educational activity.

Curriculum models are just as instructional designs. They bring competency in educational process and teaching-learning. They are the best ways to proceed in formulating theories of teaching training; instruction should begin with what is known about leaning and instruction. Teaching models are the basis of teaching theories. The curriculum models are very useful for teachers for planning and agenizing educational process. They can use models in the traction of curriculum preparing an outline for guiding students’ activity and developing instructional procedure for realizing objectives. Curriculum models are very close to models of teaching.

Hilda Taba the   Curriculum theorist, curriculum reformer, and teacher educator, contributed to the theoretical and pedagogical foundations of concept development and critical thinking in social studies curriculum and helped to lay the foundations of education for diverse student populations.

Hilda Taba more focused on a model of how to develop the curriculum as a process improvement and curriculum improvement. Hilda Taba believed that the curriculum should be designed by the teachers rather than handed down by higher authority. Further, she felt that teachers should begin the process by creating specific teaching-learning units for their students in their schools rather than by engaging initially in creating a general curriculum design. Hilda Taba advocated an inductive approach to curriculum development. In the inductive approach, curriculum workers start with the specifics and build up to a general design as opposed to the more traditional deductive approach of starting with the general design and working down to the specifics,

Hilda Taba developed Inductive Teaching Model which backbone to social studies curriculum.

Focus. Its main focus is to develop the mental abilities and lay emphasis  upon  concept  formation.   It  involves  cognitive tasks in concept formation.

Syntax. The teaching is organized in nine phases. The first three phases are concerned with the concept formation involving enumeration, grouping and labeling categories. The second three phases are related to the interpretation of data by identifying relationship, explaining relationship and drawing inferences. The last three .phases arc concerned with an application of principles by hypothesizing, explaining and verifying the hypothesis.

Social System. In the all nine phases, the classroom climate is conducive to learning and cooperative. A good deal of freedom should be given for pupil-activities. The teacher is usually the controller and initiator of information. Teaching activities arc arranged in a logical sequence in advance.

Support System. The teacher should help the students in dealing with  the  more  complex data  and  information.   He  should encourage them in processing the data, basically designed to develop thinking capacity.  A  particular  mental  and cognitive task  requires  specific strategy to improve thinking.

Classroom Application. Taba designed his model to create inductive thinking among learners. It helps to organize social studies curriculum so that cognitive process may be facilitated. The learning experiences are the basis of information to arrange the content in an effective sequence. The first three phases arc useful in dealing with elementary classes, while the last three phases are useful for higher classes especially for science and language curriculum.

Evaluation. Hilda Taba has developed teaching model as well as curriculum model. His curriculum model is based on the evaluation concept.That In designing the outline of the curriculum, evaluation plays significant role.

Hilda Taba’s  four steps of curriculum construction:

1. Identification of objectives.

2. Evidence for teaching-learning operation.

3. Evidences of factors affecting learning.

4. Evidences of pupil behavior pertaining objectives

Step1. The curriculum is a evaluated in the light of educational objectives identified for preparing learning experiences. These objectives include-cognitive,   affective, psycho-motor  creativity  and   perceptions,  The evidences are collected for the identification of the objectives

 

Comprehensive Evaluation Curriculum  Models [Hilda Taba]

Step 2. Appropriate teaching method, teaching technique and audio-visual aids are used for generating appropriate learning situations, so that desirable objectives can be achieved. Evidences are collected for the learning experiences.

Step 3. The evidences are collected for teaching-learning operations such as motivation reinforcement which help in learning of the student. This influences the learning exercise. Audio-visual aids makes learning experiences interesting. The students do not memorize the content.

Step 4. The utility of the curriculum is evaluated on the basis of changes of behavior .’These are evidences for realizing the education objectives. The examination system is objectives-centred. It is both qualitative and quantitative. An attempt is made to assess the total change of behavior.

Stages of Curriculum Development

Stage 1. Deciding the kinds of evaluation data needed.

Stage 2. Selecting or constructing the needed instruments and procedure.

Stage 3. Analysing and interpreting the data to develop the hypothesis regarding needed change.

Stage 4. Converting hypothesis into action.

Hilda Taba curriculum model is based on the evaluation approach of B.S.Bloom designed for examination reform. Evidences collected in different stages are used to diagnose the weaknesses of T curriculum. These evidences are further used for formulating hypothesis. The structure of the curriculum is mollified on the basis ol verification of the hypothesis. Thus, an empirical approach is used for the curriculum development. The hypothesis indicate the type of modification needed in curriculum development.

The above steps and stages are used in sequences. This model of curriculum is highly empirical. The modification is done on the basis of evidences.

In short Taba  advocated for a flexible model of curriculum renewal based on joint efforts of practicing teachers, educational administrators and researchers. Her curriculum model covers many of the critical topics, from aims and goals of education, the selection of the content, the process of organizing learning and school development, and evaluation at different levels. Several general principles and ideas of curriculum design developed by Hilda Taba belong to the foundations of modern curriculum theories.

Probably the most characteristic feature of Hilda Taba’s educational thinking was the ability to see the forest for the trees, pointing to her capability to discriminate between the essential and the non-essential or the important and the unimportant. She was never misled by the outside lustre of an idea even when facing the most advanced educational innovations of the day, and she always scrutinized them for their educational purpose or value.

REFERANCES

Blenkin, G. M. et al (1992) Change and the Curriculu,, London: Paul Chapman.

Bobbitt, F. (1918) The Curriculum,  Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Bobbitt, F. (1928) How to Make a Curriculum, Boston: Houghton MifflinCornbleth, C. (1990) Curriculum in Context, Basingstoke: Falmer Press.

Curzon, L. B. (1985) Teaching in Further Education. An outline of principles and practice 3e, London: Cassell.

Dewey, J. (1902) The Child and the Curriculum, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and Education, New York: Macmillan.

Jeffs, T. J. and Smith, M. K. (1999) Informal Education. Conversation, democracy and learning, Ticknall: Education Now.

Kelly, A. V. (1983; 1999) The Curriculum. Theory and practice 4e, London: Paul Chapman.

Stenhouse, L. (1975) An introduction to Curriculum Research and Development, London: Heineman.

Taba, H. (1962) Curriculum Development: Theory and practice, New York: Harcourt Brace and World.

Tyler, R. W. (1949) Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Learning means to bring changes in the behaviour of the organism. It is very difficult to give a universally acceptable explanation of learning because various theories developed by psychologists attempt to explain the process from different angles.

During the first quarter of 20th century the quarrels within academic psychology lay chiefly inside the framework of association psychology .Structuralism, functionalism and behaviourism  were all members of the association family. They are all examples of the working out of an empirical methodology of science, where by the accumulation of facts was supposed to lead one to the proper conception of nature.

Meaning of Gestalt Theory

The Gestalt theorists were the first group of psychologists to systematically study perceptual organisation around the 1920’s, in Germany. They were Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ernst Mach, and particularly of Christian von Ehrenfels and the research work of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Koffka, and Kurt Lewin According to the Gestalt psychologists certain features in visual perception are universal. In semiotic terms, these universal features can be thought of as a perceptual code.

Gestalt is a sensual theory, what we see is a result of light and dark objects, edges and contours that we form into a whole image. Sensual theories are of a lower order of thinking than perceptual theories, such as semiotics, that are concerned with the meaning we attach to what we see.

Dissatisfied with the behaviourist approach of learning, the psychologists tried to see learning as a more deliberate and conscious effort of the individual rather than a mere product of habit formation or a machine-like stimulus-response connection. According to them the learner does not merely respond to a stimulus, but mentally processes what he receives or perceives. Thus learning is a purposive, explorative and creative activity instead of trial and error.Things cannot be understood by the study of its constituent parts only ,bu actually it is understood only by perceiving it  as a totality or whole.

Gestalt theory focused on the mind’s perceptive. The word ‘Gestalt’ has no direct translation in English, but refers to “a way a thing has been gestalt; i.e., placed, or put together”; common translations include ‘form’ and ‘shape’. Gaetano Kanizca refers to it as ‘organized structure’. Gestalt theorists followed the basic principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, the whole (a picture, a car) carried a different and altogether greater meaning than its individual components (paint,canvas,brush;or tire, paint, metal, respectively). In viewing the “whole,” a cognitive process takes place –the mind makes a leap from understanding the parts to realizing the whole.

Gestalt theory was introduced as a contrast to at the time dominant structuralism, which claimed that complex perceptions could be understood through breaking them into smaller elementary parts of experience, like splitting graphical forms into sets of dots or melody into sequence of sounds. Gestalt theory attacked this theory and holds that same melody can be recognized if transposed into another key and perception of a rectangle can be achieved through other forms than four lines. The idea of Wertheimer was that the ability to perceive objects was an ability of the nervous system, which tends to group together objects that are nearby, similar, form smooth lines, form most of the shape we can recognize.

According to Gestalt psychology, the whole is different than the sum of its parts. Based upon this belief, Gestalt psychologists developed a set of principles to explain perceptual organization, or how smaller objects are grouped to form larger ones. These principles are often referred to as the ‘laws of perceptual organization.’

Gestalt is a theory that the brain operates holistically, with self-organizing tendencies. The statement, whole is different from the sum of its parts sums up the way we recognize figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines, curves and shapes.

e.g. describing a tree – it’s parts are trunk, branches, leaves, perhaps blossoms or fruit. But when you look at an entire tree, you are not conscious of the parts, you are aware of the overall object – the tree. Parts are of secondary importance even though they can be clearly seen.

Perhaps the best known example of a gestalt is the vase/face profile which is fully explained in the six Gestalt Principles detailed below.

However, it is important to note that while Gestalt psychologists call these phenomena ‘laws,’ a more accurate term would be ‘principles of perceptual organization.’ These principles are much like heuristics, which are mental shortcuts for solving problems.

Fundamental Experiment

Much of the scientific knowledge concerning learning derives from work on animal behaviour that was conducted by 20th-century German Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Köhler. Kohler conducted many experiments with his chimpanzee ‘Sulthan’ at island of Teniriffa in Africa  to describe the term ‘insight’. These experiments are the illustration of Learning by Insight.

1.  In one experiment, a banana was kept far outside the cage and two sticks – one larger than the other- were kept inside the box. . In one experiment Köhler placed a banana outside the cage of a hungry chimpanzee, Sultan, and gave the animal two sticks, each too short for pulling in the food but joinable to make a single stick of sufficient length. Sultan tried unsuccessfully to use each stick, and he even used one stick to push the other along to touch the banana. . When failed to reach the banana by one stick, with a sudden bright idea the chimpanzee tried to reach the banana by joining the two sticks  Apparently after having given up, Sultan accidentally joined the sticks, observed the result, and immediately ran with the longer tool to retrieve the banana. When the experiment was repeated, Sultan joined the two sticks and solved the problem immediately.

2.  In another experiment the chimpanzee was shut up in a room with unsalable walls. A banana was hanging with the ceiling. The animal was hungry. He jumped at the fruit but it was too high. He left the efforts and sat down.

There was a box lying in the corner of the room. The animal began to play with the box. He then suddenly got up and pushed the box to the centre of the room below the banana, jumped from it and got the fruit.

3.   In another experiment Kohler made this problem a little more complicated that two or three boxes were required to reach the banana.

These experiments demonstrated the role of intelligence and cognitive abilities in higher learning and problem solving situations.

The Insight Learning

This was observed in the experiments of Wolfgang Kohler involving chimpanzees. Kohler found that chimpanzees could use insight learning instead of trial-and error to solve problems.

Learning by conditioning is common to all animals and human beings and useful for early education. But learning by insight is suitable only for intelligent creatures both human and animals and useful for higher learning. It is a kind of learning done by observation, by perceiving the relationship and understanding the situation.

When an individual or intelligent animal faces a problem, he thinks and looks over the whole situation and tries to find out solutions. He tries to get some clues in the ways he should proceed to solve the problem, the method he should pursue and a general awareness of the results of his actions. Then suddenly, he arrives at a solution through his mental exercises. But for this, the total view of the situation should be exposed to the individual who must feel urgency of the problem and its solution.

Insightful learning is also known as Gestalt learning which means that learning is concerned with the whole individual and arises from the interaction of an individual with his situations or environment. Through this interaction emerge new forms of perception, imagination and ideas which altogether constitute insight.

Insight operates when an individual tries to find solutions to problems. A gestalt means the pattern, configuration or a form of perceiving the whole. In this situation stimuli and responses are combined in an organized and unified pattern.

It is a theory regarding ‘perception’. Gestalt considers learning as the development of insight, which is primarily concerned with the nature of perception.  Perception is a process by which an organism interprets and organizes sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world.  It is the ultimate experience of the world and typically involves further processing of sensory input.

While learning, the learner always perceives the situation as a whole and after seeing and evaluating the different relationships takes the proper decision intelligently. Gestalt psychology used the term ‘insight’ to describe the perception of the whole situation by the learner and his intelligence in responding to the proper relationships.  Insight refers the sudden flash in the mind about the solution of the  problem.

Insight Learning: This is an extension of the term, insight which was identified by Wolfgang Kohler while studying the behaviour of chimpanzees. He said that insight learning is a type of learning or problem solving that happens all-of-a-sudden through understanding the relationships various parts of a problem rather than through trial and error.

Gestalt views on learning and problem-solving were opposed to at the time dominant pre-behaviourist and behaviourist views. It emphasized importance of seeing the whole structure of the problem. Discovery of correct solution to the problem was followed by insight occurrence. This presents insightful learning, which has following properties:

o             Transition from pre-solution to solution is sudden and complete.

o             When problem solution is found, performance is smooth and without errors.

o             Insightful learning results in longer retention.

o             The principle learned by insight can easily be applied to other problems

o             Its an Aha experience. Flash of understanding which comes to us all of sudden

o             A type of learning that uses reason, especially to form conclusions, inferences, or judgments, to solve a problem.

Insight, in learning theory, immediate and clear learning or understanding that takes place without overt trial-and-error testing. Insight occurs in human learning when people recognize relationships (or make novel associations between objects or actions) that can help them solve new problems.

Steps in Insight Learning

1. Identification of the problem: The learner identify the presence of a block as an intervening obstacles on his way to the goal.

2. Analysis of the Problem situation: The learner observes the problematic situation, analyse the different components in the problematic situation and perceive the relation between the goal and the block.

3. Establishing mental association in between similar previously acquired ideas :  After analyzing the total situation he selects probable solutions  in conclusions by means of hesitation, pause, concentrated attention etc.

4.  Trail of Mode of Response: The learner makes initial efforts in the form of a simple trial and error mechanism.

5.  Sustained Attention: The learner maintains frequently recurrent attention to the goal and motivation.

6.  Establishing cause-effect relationship:   In a certain moment there is a sudden perception of the relationship in the total situation and the organism directly performs the required acts. This is Insight development.

7.  Steady Repetition of Adaptive Behaviour: After getting an insightful solution, the individual tries to implement it in another situation.

Gestalt laws  (law of pragnanz )

In perception, there are many organizing principles called gestalt laws.  The most general version is called the law of pragnanz.  Pragnanz is German for pregnant, but in the sense of pregnant with meaning, rather than pregnant with child.  This law says that we are innately driven to experience things in as good a gestalt as possible. “Good” can mean many things here, such a regular, orderly, simplicity, symmetry, and so on, which then refer to specific gestalt laws.

The Law of Similarity

As Gestalt principles go, the principle of similarity would seem to be one of the simplest to grasp. It states things that are similar are perceived to be more related than things that are dissimilar. Similarity occurs when objects look similar to one another. People often perceive them as a group or pattern.

Similarity means there is a tendency to see groups which have the same characteristics The principle of similarity states that things which share visual characteristics such as shape, size, color, texture, value or orientation will be seen as belonging together.

Let’s make it a bit easier to perceive some similarity:

There are differences between the many elements above, but there are also similarities. If asked to categorize the elements above, almost anyone would say that the strongest communication toward categorization is dependent upon shape. Based on shape, it seems that the squares are related to one another and the circles are related to one another. It is important to note that in this example shape, not proximity or size provides the strongest communication.

In all likelihood,  the large squares are related to one another and the small squares are related to one another. Size is a way to provide contrast, therefore consistency of size can be exploited to suggest relationships.

Glance quickly at the image below .

Here similarity of colour (or consistent contrast) is the strongest way to suggest relationships. It is also the characteristic that registers first in our perception when our brain is working to make sense of our surroundings. Patterns and chaos can camouflage size and shapes and these characteristics might have only minor variations, but colour penetrates these factors efficiently. Because of this fact (or possibly as the reason for this fact) colour is often used in nature as a powerful communication tool for danger. Throughout history, a clear perception of colour’s communication has been vital to the survival of humans and other organisms.

Perceiving similarities not only helps us to assume what elements in a layout are related to one another, it also then implies structure based on the patterns that emerge, as demonstrated by the following examples:

The above example shows a grid of elements where no divisional structure is evident. All of the elements seem to be equally related.This example above clearly shows that the shapes are consistent,.The example above shows that the elements are split into two categories, where all of the squares are related and all of the circles are related.

The law of contrast.

The Law of Contrast states that when two items are presented one after another, “If the 2nd item is fairly different from the 1st, we tend to see it as more different than it actually is.” The principle based on the assumption that individuals base their behavior on comparison of opposites not with sameness. The phenomenon that when two different but related stimuli are presented close together in space and/or time they are perceived as being more different than they really are.

On the other hand, seeing or recalling something may also trigger the recollection of something completely opposite.  If you think of the tallest person you know, you may suddenly recall the shortest one as well.  If you are thinking about birthdays, the one that was totally different from all the rest is quite likely to come up;

 

Law of Proximity

Proximity occurs when elements are placed close together. They tend to be perceived as a group. The principle of proximity or contiguity states that things which are closer together will be seen as belonging together.

Things that are close to one another are perceived to be more related than things that are spaced farther apart. As this principle does not rely on any extraneous structure, it is among the first principles to impact our perception and from which we derive understanding. All of us intuitively understand that the simplest way to indicate relatedness is to manipulate proximity. What we might not intuitively understand, however, is how powerful the principle of proximity is.

In the example below, proximity clearly indicates relatedness and relative association:

Fundamental mechanisms of our perception are almost always competing with one another, as exemplified in the image above.

Example two

The fifteen figures above form a unified whole (the shape of a tree) because of their proximity.

Similarly the groups we see below are

1 + 2 = as one group

3 + 4 = as another group

Elements that share uniform visual characteristics are perceived as being more related than elements with disparate visual characteristics.

Law of Uniform Connectedness

The principle of uniform connectedness is the strongest of the Gestalt Principles concerned with relatedness. It refers to the fact that elements that are connected by uniform visual properties are perceived as being more related than elements that are not connected. As with the principle of proximity, uniform connectedness causes us to perceive groups or chunks rather than unrelated, individual things.

In practice, uniform connectedness is quite simple: draw a box around a group of elements and you’ve indicated that they’re related. Alternately, you can draw connecting lines (or arrows or some other tangible connecting reference) from one element to the next for the same effect.

For instance: Here even though the spacing and colour is consistent with in this collection of elements, those inside of the connecting lines are perceived to the more related than the rest.

As are the one connected by lines

The final principle employed here is good continuation, which references the fact that elements arranged on a line or curve are perceived to be more related than elements not on the line or curve.

Continuation occurs when the eye is compelled to move through one object and continue to another object.

Continuation occurs in the example above, because the viewer’s eye will naturally follow a line or curve. The smooth flowing crossbar of the “H” leads the eye directly to the maple leaf.

Law of Figure and Ground

Our perception of the figure ground relationship allows us to organize what we see by how each object relates to others. The short and sweet version is: it allows us to determine what we’re supposed to look at and what we might safely ignore.

We do this instantly and without effort in most cases, as we’re often in familiar surroundings and looking at familiar things.

Examples:

A simple example of figure and ground relationships

Balancing figure and ground can make the perceived image clearer. Using unusual figure/ground relationships can add interest and subtlety to an image.

In this image, the figure and ground relationships change as the eye perceives the form of a shade or the silhouette of a face.

Similarly in the picture given below;

This image uses complex figure/ground relationships which change upon perceiving leaves, water and tree trunk.

The Law of Closure

Related to principle of good continuation, there is a tendency to close simple figures, independent of continuity or similarity. This results in a effect of filling in missing information or organizing information which is present to make a whole.

The principle of closure is literally about drawing conclusions. We humans are very adept at drawing conclusions from less-than-all the information. When presented with less than the full picture, we attempt to employ the principle of closure to fill in missing information and form a complete image or idea based on common or easily recognizable patterns from our past experience and understanding.

The degree to which the principle of closure works is inversely proportional to the effort required to make it work. So if it is easy to fill in the missing pieces to see a recognizable pattern or form, closure occurs and we perceive the completed form. If too much of the form or pattern is missing, requiring

that we work hard to make sense of it, closure is less likely to occur. So in order to utilize closure as an effective design mechanism, you must make it easy for closure to occur.

Closure occurs when an object is incomplete or a space is not completely enclosed. If enough of the shape is indicated, people perceive the whole by filling in the missing information In full, the principle of closure is much grittier.

When looking at a complex arrangement of individual elements, humans tend to first look for a single, recognizable pattern.

Although the panda below is not complete, enough is present for the eye to complete the shape. When the viewer’s perception completes a shape, closure occurs.

Similarly we see the figure of a chair in the picture given below,

 

Closure is dangerous, volatile, seductive, hypnotic, and even playful. It works to show us an image that does not actually exist before our eyes; it reaches into our experience and into our psyche to create a fiction and compels us to believe it.

Gestalt theory and the Typical Problems of Learning-

1.Capacity-Because learning requires differentiation and restructuring of fields, the higher forms of learning depend very much on natural capacities for reacting in these ways. Increasing capacities for perceptual organisation the ability to understand problems leads to increases in learning ability.

2.Practice- Our memories are traces of perceptions; association is a by-product of perceptual organisation. The laws of perceptual grouping also determine  coherence of elements in memory. Repetition of an experience builds cumulatively on earlier experiences only if the second event is recognized as a recurrence of the earlier one. Successive exposure to a learning situation provides repeated opportunities for the learner to notice new relationships so as to provide for restructuring the task.

3.Motivation- The law of effect was accepted differently by Gestalt. They believed that after-effects did not act automatically and unconsciously to strengthen prior acts. Rather, the effect had to be perceived as belonging to the prior act- position. Motivation was viewed as placing the organism into a problem situation; reward and punishment acted to confirm or dis confirm attempted solutions of problems.

4.Understanding- The perceiving of relationships awareness of the relationships between parts and whole, of means to consequences, are emphasized by Gestalt. Problems are to be solved sensibly, structurally, organically, rather than mechanically, stupidly, or by the running off of prior habits. Insightful learning is thus more typical or appropriately presented learning tasks than is trial and error.

5.Transfer-A pattern of dynamic relationships discovered in one situation may be applicable to another. There is something in common between the earlier learning and the situation in which transfer is found, but what exists in common is not identical piecemeal elements but common pattern or relationship.

6.Forgetting- Forgetting is related to the course of changes in the trace. Traces may disappear either through gradual decay, through destruction because of being part of a chaotic ill-structured field, or through assimilation to new traces or processes. The last possibility is familiar as a form of theory of retroactive inhibition. In addition to such forgetting, there are the dynamic changes which take place in recall, so that what is reproduced is not earlier learning with some parts missing, but a trace distorted in the direction of a ‘good gestalt’.

Educational Implications of Gestalt Theory

Problem Solving Approach: This theory emphasis that as the learner is able to solve problems by his insight, meaningful learning, learning by understanding, reasoning, etc. must be encouraged in the school.

From Whole to Part: The teacher should present the subject matter as a whole to facilitate insight learning.

Integrated Approach: While planning curriculum, gestalt principles should be given due consideration. A particular subject should not be treated as the mere collection of isolated facts. It should be closely integrated into a whole.

Importance of Motivation: the teacher should arouse the child’s curiosity, interest and motivation. He should gain full attention of the whole class before teaching.

Goal Orientation: As learning is a purposeful and goal oriented task, the learner has to be well acquainted with these objectives.  He should be fully familiar with the goals and purposes of every task.

Emphasis on Understanding: It has made learning an intelligent task requiring mental abilities than a stimulus – response association. So the learner must be given opportunities for using his mental abilities.

Checking of Previous Experiences: As insight depends upon the  previous experiences of the learner, the teacher must check the previous experiences of the child and relate them with the new learning situation.

Gestalt theory was mostly criticized for being too descriptive instead of offering explanations and models for described phenomena, investigating subjective experiences like perception ,lack of precision in descriptions and just qualitative description ,denying the basic scientific approach of understanding a whole as a set of its parts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

“It is easier to change the location of a cemetery, than to change the school curriculum-“

Woodrow T Wilson

As per the modern thinking, education is a tri-polar process, in which on  one end is the teacher ,on the second is the student and on the third is the curriculum .In fact ,the curriculum is that pole which forms the central point of the educational process. If education is accepted as the teaching-learning process, then both teaching and learning  only take place through the curriculum. In this context, it can be said that education is related to our life.

The term ‘curriculum ’has been derived from a Latin word ‘currere’ which means race course .Thus ,the term ‘curriculum’ has the sense of competition and achievement of goal inherent in it.         .

Curriculum is total environment. The most comprehensive concept of curriculum is given by those who conceive it to include the total environment of the school. In the words of H.L. Caswell, “The curriculum is all that goes on in the lives of the children, their parents and their teachers. The curriculum is made up of everything that surrounds the learner in all his working hours.” In fact, the curriculum has been described as “the environment in motion.” In modern times, the term is interpreted in this more liberal sense because there is no questioning the fact that the child’s education is influenced, by not only books but the playground, library, laboratory, reading room, extra-curricular programs, the educational environment, and a host of other factors. In the school, both the educator and the student are part of the curriculum because they are part of the environment, while in the family the child is expected to progress and achieve the goals of education

Organized form of subject-matter: Curriculum is the organized form of subject-matter, specially prepared to experiences and activities which provide the student with the knowledge and the skill he will require in facing the various situations i of real life. Obviously, the term ‘curriculum’ cannot be restricted to; list of books, because it must include other activities which provide [the student with the knowledge and the skill he will require in facing [the various situations of life, meet the requirement of children. Hence, Snow curriculum includes those environments of the schools and numerous other elements not taught by books. In the words of Bent and Kronenburg , “Curriculum, in its broadest sense, includes the complete school environment, involving all the courses, activities, reading and associations furnished to the pupils in the school.”

Curriculum is comprehensive  experience: In the words of Munroe, “Curriculum embodies all the experiences which are utilized by the school to attain the aims of education.” Thus, the various subjects included for study in a curriculum are not intended merely for study or rote learning but to convey experiences- of various kinds .Curriculum does not mean only the academic subject traditionally taught it the school, but it includes the totality of experiences that a pupil receives through the manifold activities that go on in the school in the classroom, library laboratory, workshop, playground and in the numerous informal contacts between teachers and  pupils.

The curriculum includes all the learner’s experiences in or outside school: All experiences which are devised to help the child to develop mentally, physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually and morally.” it is obvious, then that, the aim of curriculum is to provide experience to the student so that he may achieve complete development. By calling the curriculum an experience, the fact is made explicit that it includes not merely books, but all those activities and relationship which are indulged in by the student, both inside and outside the school

.Curriculum is not an end in itself, but a means to an end: Curriculum is a means or tool?  It is apparent from the foregoing definitions that because it is created – in order to achieve the aims of education. That is why, one finds that different educationists have suggested different kinds of curricula to conform to the aims and objectives ascribed to education; Explaining the concept of curriculum as a tool of education, Cunningham writes, “The curriculum is the tool in the hands of the artist (the teacher) to mould his material (the pupil) according to his ideal (objective) in his studio (the school).” Here the educator is compared to an artist and the curriculum as one of the instruments of tools used by him to develop the  student according to, and in conformity with the aims of education. It is evident that the curriculum will change with every change -in the aims of education.

The curriculum may be seen as the totality of subject matter, activities, and experience which constitute  a  pupil’s school life : Curriculum includes all activities Elaborating the same concept further, H.H. Horne says, “The curriculum is that which the pupil is (aught. It involves more than the acts of learning and quiet study, it involves occupations, production, achievements, exercise, activity. “Pragmatists, too, have included the entire range of the student activities in the curriculum because according to them, the child learns by doing. In the light of the various definitions of curriculum given it is possible to arrive at a definition of the term which includes all the points mentioned in these definitions. Briefly, then, curriculum is the means of achieving the goals of education. It includes all those experience activities and environments which the educand receives during his educational career. Such a definition of curriculum comprehends the student entire life, a contention borne out by all modern educationists who believe that .the child learns not only inside the school, but also outside it, on the playground, at home, in society, in fact, every where. That is why, there is nowadays so much insistence on the participation of the parents in the child’s education and on not restricting the environment of the curriculum to the school environment but taking it means every possible kind of environment encountered by the child. Besides, it includes all those activities which the child does, irrespective of the time and place of these activities. It also includes the entire range of experiences that the child has in the school, at home, in the world at large. Considering from his liberal standpoint, one finds that is preparing the curriculum one has much wider background than would otherwise be possible.

Clarifying the  purpose of curriculum, it has been pointed out in the report of the Secondary Education Commission( 1952-53 India) that, “The starting point for curricular reconstruction must, therefore, be the device to bridge the gulf between the school subjects and to enrich the varied activities that make up the warp and woof of life.” Hence, the curricular should be so designed that it strains the student  to face the situations of real life, a curriculum can be said to have the following major purposes

Synthesis of subjects and life: The aim of the curriculum is to arrange and provide those subjects For an student study which will enable the student to destroy any gulf between school life and life  outside  the  school.  The  opinion  of the  Secondary  Education Commission has already been quoted.

Harmony between individual and activity: In a democracy, such social qualities as social skills, cooperation, the desire to be of service, sympathy, etc., are very significant because without them, no society can continue to exist. On the other hand, development of the individual’s own character and personality arc also very important. Hence, the curriculum must create an environment and provide those books which enable the individual to achieve his own development at the same time as he learns these social qualities.

Development of democratic values. In all democratic countries, the curriculum of education must aim to develop the democratic values of equality, liberty and fraternity, so that the students may develop into fine democratic citizens. But the development should not only aim at national benefit. The curriculum must also aim to introducing a spirit of internationalism in the. student

Satisfaction of the student need: In defining curriculum, many educationists have insisted that it must be designed to satisfy the needs and requirements of the. student It is seen that one finds a great variety of interests, skills, abilities, attitudes, aptitudes,’ etc. A student curriculum, should be so designed as satisfy the general and specific requirements of the student.

Realization of values: One aim of education is development of character, -and what is required for this is to create in the  student a faith in the various desirable values. Hence, one of the objectives of education is to create in the  student a definite realization of the prevailing system of values.

Development of knowledge .and Addition to knowledge: In its most common connotation, the term curriculum is taken to mean development of knowledge or acquisition of facts and very frequently, this is the aspect kept in mind while designing a curriculum. But it must be remembered that it is not the only objective, although it is the most fundamental objective of a curriculum.

In the contemporary educational patterns that curriculum is believed to the suitable which can create a harmony between the various branches of knowledge so that the  student attitude should be comprehensive and complete, not one sided.

Creation of a useful environment: Another objective of curriculum is to create an environment suitable to the  student primarily the environment must assist the  student in achieving the maximum possible development of his facilities, abilities and capabilities.

CURRICULUM CONSTRUCTION-THE WHY ASPECT

Different educationists have expressed their own views about the fundamental principles of curriculum construction, the difference being created by their different philosophies of education. Briefly, the main principles of curriculum construction are the following:

Principle of utility: T.P. Nunn, the educationist, believes that the principles of utility is the most important principle underlying the formation of a curriculum. He writes, “While the plain man generally likes his children to pick up some scraps of useless learning for purely decorative purpose, he requires, on the whole, that they shall be taught what will be useful to them in later life, and he is inclined to give ‘useful’ a rather strict interpretation.” As a general rule, parents are in favor of including all those subjects in the curriculum which are likely to pose useful for their child in his life, and by means of which he can be fade a responsible member of society.

Principle of Training in the proper patterns of conduct: According to Crow and Crow, the main principle underlying the construction of a curriculum is that, through education the student should be able to adopt the patterns of behavior proper to different circumstances. Man is a social animal who has to constantly adapt himself to the social environment. Therefore, education must aim at developing all these qualities in the student which will facilitate this adaptation to the social milieu. The child is by nature self-centred, but education must teach him to attend the needs and requirements of others besides himself. One criterion of an educated individual is that he should be able to adapt himself to different situations with which he is comforted. In his context, the term conduct must be understood in its widest sense. Only then can this principle of curriculum construction be properly understood. “All our activities in social, economic, family and cultural environment constitute behavior or conduct, and it is the function of education of teach us how he behaves in different situation.”

Principle of Synthesis of play and work: Of the various modern techniques of education, some try to educate through work and others through play. But a great majority of educationists agree that the curriculum should aim at achieving a balance between play and work. In other words, the work given to the  student should be performed in such a manner that the child may believe it to be play. There is a difference between work and play. That is why, parents want to engage the child in work instead of allowing him to play all the time, but the child is naturally inclined to spend his time in playing. Keeping this in view, T.P. Nunn has written, “The school should be thought of not as a knowledge-monger’s shop, but a place where the young a^-e disciplined in certain forms of activity. All subjects should be laugh; in the ‘play way’ care being taken that the ‘way’ leads continuously from the irresponsible frolic of childhood to the disciplined labors of manhood.”

Principle of Synthesis of all activities of life: In framing a curriculum, attention should be paid to the inclusion, in it, of all the various activities of life, such as contemplation, learning, acquisition of various kinds of skill, etc. In the individual and social sphere of life, every individual has to perform a great variety of activities, and this success in life is determined by the success of all these activities. ‘Hence, the curriculum should not neglect any form of activity related to any aspect of life. A curriculum constructed on this basis will be both comprehensive and closely related to life. In other words, it should include all the activities that student is likely to require in later life.

Principle of individual differences: Modern educational psychology has brought to light, and stressed the significance of individual differences that exist between one individual and another. It has been discovered that people differ in respect of theft mental processes, interests, aptitudes, attitudes, abilities, skills, etc., and these differences are innate. All modern education is paid centric that is, it is centered around the ‘child. Psychologists insist that the curriculum should be so designed as to provide an opportunity for complete and comprehensive development to widely differing individuals. One of the basic qualities of such a curriculum is flexibility; for it must be flexible, in order to accommodate,   student of low,  average or high intelligence and ability, and to provide each one a chance to develop all his the greatest possible extent.

Principle of Constant development:  Another basis for curriculum construction is the principle of  dynamic curriculum, based on the realization that no curriculum can prove adequate for all times and in all places. For this reason, it  should be flexible and changeable. This is all the more true in the modern context when new discoveries in the various branches of science are taking place every day. Hence, it becomes necessary to reshape the curriculum fairly, frequently in order to incorporate the latest development.

Principle of Creative training: Another important principle of curriculum construction is that of creative training. Raymont has correctly stated that a curriculum appropriate for the needs of today and the future must definitely have a positive bias towards creative subjects. And, one of the aim of education is to develop the creative faculty of the. Student. All that is finest in human culture is the creation of man’s creative abilities. Children differ from other in respect of this ability. Hence, in franking a curriculum, attention must be paid to the fact that it should encourage each to student develop his creative ability as far as is possible.

Principle of Variety: Variety is another important principle of curriculum construction. The innate complexity make it necessary that the .curriculum should be valid, because no one kind of curriculum can develop all to facilities of an individual. Hence, at every level the curriculum rust have variety, it will, on the one hand, provide an opportunity development of the different faculties of the student, while on the other, it will retain his interest in education.

Principle of Education for leisure: One of the objective ascribed to education is training fr leisure, because it is believed that education is not merely for employment or work. Hence, it is desirable that the curriculum should also include training in those activities which will make the individual’s leisure more pleasurable. A great variety of social, artistic and sporting activities can be included in this kind of training., Besides, student should be encouraged to foster some of the other besides,  so that they can put their leisure to constructive and pleasant use.

Principle of Related to community life: Curriculum can also be based on the principle that school and community life must be intimately related to each there. One cannot forget that the school is only a miniature form of immunity. Hence, the school curriculum should include all those activate which are performed by members of larger community outside the’ boundaries of the school. This will help in evolving social qualities of the individual, in developing the social aspect of his personal band finally, in helping his final adaptation to the social environs & into which he must ultimately go.

Principle of Evolution of democratic values: The construction of a curriculum in a democratic society is conditioned by the need to develop democratic qualities in the individual. The curriculum should be, so dogged that it develops a democratic feeling and creates a positive £h in democratic values. The programs devise in the college qualities the  so  student that he may be able to participate usefully and successfully in democratic life. In all the democratic societies of the wool this is the chief consideration in shaping the curricula for primary, secondary and higher education.

It is evident from the foregoing account of the various liaises of curriculum construction that this should be duly conditioned by careful thinking on all aspects individual and social life variety, play and work, earning of livelihood, leisure, etc.

OBJECTIVES OF CURRICULUM DEVLOPMENT

• -Curriculum should provide the means for the all round develop of a child. Teaching should be organized with the help of curriculum
• . Curriculum must involve the human experiences, culture and, civilization which are to be transferred to new generation.
• . Curriculum should be the means to develop the moral character, discipline honesty, cooperation, friendship, tolerance and sympathy with others.
• . Curriculum should help in developing the ability of thinking, wisdom reasoning, judgment and other mental abilities.
• . It should consider the stages of growth and development of child for development attitude, interest, values and creative ability.
• . It should provide the awareness and understanding of physical and social environment and its components.
• . It should develop the right type of feeling and beliefs towards religions, new values and traditions.
• . It should help to develop democratic feeling ad democratic way of life among students.
• . It should integrate the knowledge of various teaching subjects in view of their future life.
• . It should determine the mode of interaction between teacher and students in school: The mode of teaching is decidedly the nature of curriculum

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT-THE HOW ASPECT

Curriculum development means a continuous or: never ending process. Its outcome is known through students’ achievement of learning. Its assessment is made on the basis of change of behavior of the learners

In curriculum development, the main focus of the curriculum is to develop the students.  The curriculum is designed to realize the objective in terms of change of their behavior.

It is cyclic process which includes. 1. Teaching objectives,

2. Methods of teaching,

3. Examination and

4. Feedback.

1. Teaching Objectives: In view of subject content be taught, three types of teaching objectives are identified as cognitive,  affective and psychomotor. These objectives are written in behavioral terms. All learning experiences are organized to achieve these objectives.

2. Method of Teaching: Teaching strategies are the most important ‘aspects of providing learning experiences. The content is the means to select the method of teaching and level of the pupils. ;

3. Process of Evaluation: The evaluation of change of behavior is made to ascertain about the realization of the teacher learning objectives. The level of pupils performance indicates the effectiveness of method of teaching and learning experiences

4. Feed back: The interpretation of performance provides the teacher to improve and modify the form of the curriculum. The curriculum is developed and teaching objectives are also revised. The methodology of teaching is changed in view of the objectives to be achieved.

Bases of Development of Curriculum

The development of curriculum is the commitment for realizing desired objectives of education. The objectives are based on various considerations and factors. The same considerations are equally important in planning or deciding the basic structure of curriculum. The following are the bases of transaction of curriculum:

1. Social philosophy of the society.

2. National needs or State needs.

3. Nature of course of study.

4. Type of examination system.

5. Form of the government.

6. Theory and assumptions of human organization.

7. Growth and development stage of students.

8. Recommendations of national commissions and committee of education.

The above basis of curriculum management and educational objectives are theoretical and practical. The last basis is more practical in transaction of curriculum.

COMPONENTS OF CURRICULUM DEVLOPMENT- THE WHAT ASPECT

There at three components of educational process i.e. teacher, students and curriculum. It ‘has three types of objectives, cognitive, affective and psychomotor. Educational process involves three major activities teaching, training and instruction

According to B.S. Bloom, it is a tri-polar process (1) Educational process, (2) Learning experiences and (3) Change of behavior. It is also a triangular process.

The  teaching process is done through interaction between teacher and students\. The curriculum is the basis for the interaction between teacher, and taught.

.Basic Elements of Curriculum Development

The educational process includes teaching, training and instructional activities. Teaching activities are performed by a Teacher. They are planned or designed by the teacher according to four components-

(l) Teaching-learning objectives

(2) Teaching content or subject-matter

(3) Teaching method and

(4) Evaluation learning outcomes.

In the curriculum development, the level of students, needs of the society and nation, the nature of content and means of voicing learning experiences are considered as important factors, “use are essential in identifying the objectives of teaching-learning. Several types of teaching objectives are attained by the same content.. Teaching is organized from memory to reflective level on the same content of subject-matter.

The specific or behavioral objectives are realized by organizing specific teaching task and activities. Thus curriculum development involves four basic elements.

(1) Objectives

(2) Content

(3) Method or strategies of teaching, and

(4) Evaluation.

These elements are interdependent.

The Objective. The subjects content structure, levels of students, and type of examination components are considered in the identification of objectives of teaching and learning. These objectives are specific. These are written in behavioral terms so as to develop learning structures aid conditions.

Content or Subject-matter. The content of any subject is usually broad. It is analyzed into sub-content and into elements. These elements are arranged in a logical sequence. The behavioral objectives are written with the help of these elements of the content. It is also known as logic of teaching.

Strategy of teaching. Specific objectives of teaching are attained with the help of appropriate teaching strategy. The behavioral objectives provide the awareness and insight about the specific learning conditions the strategy is employed for providing learning experiences and bringing desirable behavioral change.

Evaluation. The level of student’s attainment is evaluated by employ the criteria referenced test. It shows the effectiveness of strategy of teaching and other components. The interpretation of evaluation provide the feedback to the curriculum and its components. These are improved and modified to attain the objectives of teaching and learning. It is the empirical basis for the curriculum development.

CURRICULUM TRANSATION AND CURRICULUM DEVLOPEMENT

The difference between curriculum transaction and curriculum development has been summarized in the following table:

	Curriculum Transaction		Curriculum Development
1.	It is a broad concept and area of curriculum.	1.	It is a specific and narrow concept of curriculum.
2.	Management of curriculum is done at initial stage of introduction of new courses at school stages and higher levels.	2.	Curriculum development is a cyclic process use for improving and modifying the courses at particular state of level.
3.	Management   of   curriculum employs the following steps: (i) Planning, (ii) Organizing, (iii) Administering, (iv) Guiding and, (v) Controlling.	3.	It  is  a  cyclic process  using the following four steps: (i) ‘Objectives, (ii) Instructional. methods, (iii) Evaluation method, (iv) Feedback.
4.	Transaction of curriculum is a much more difficult task because it involves planning and preparing the course of discipline at school and university level		It is used for specific course for specific stage. Relatively it is an easy and simple task.
5.	Curriculum management is one by boards of study and boards of education. In some discipline councils plan and control. At university level there are Boards of studies for different subjects.		Curriculum development is done by board of studies. The new courses and content are also included it revised curriculum. On that basis of try out the new courses.
6.	It   is   based   on   theoretical aspect.		It is a continuous process based on practical aspect of curriculum.

REFERANCES

Barrow, R. (1984) Giving Teaching back to Teachers. A critical introduction to curriculum theory, Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books.

Bobbitt, F. (1928) How to Make a Curriculum, Boston: Houghton MifflinCornbleth, C. (1990) Curriculum in Context, Basingstoke: Falmer Press.

Dewey, J. (1902) The Child and the Curriculum, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and Education, New York: Macmillan.

Heineman. Tyler, R. W. (1949) Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kelly, A. V. (1983; 1999) The Curriculum. Theory and practice 4e, London: Paul Chapman.

Stenhouse, L. (1975) An introduction to Curriculum Research and Development, London: Heineman.

Taba, H. (1962) Curriculum Development: Theory and practice, New York: Harcourt Brace and World.

Tyler, R. W. (1949) Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

 

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V. (P.G) College, Roorkee, India

From the Vedic age downwards the main conception of education of the Indians has been that it is a source of illumination that gives a correct lead in the various spheres of life. Knowledge,  is the third eye of man, which gives him insight into all affairs and teaches him how to act. As per classical Indian tradition “Sa vidya ya vimuktaye”, (that which liberates us is education). He who is possessed of supreme knowledge by concentration of mind, must have his senses under control, like spirited steeds controlled by a charioteer.” says the Katha Upanishad .

An aim is a foreseen end that gives direction to an activity or motivates behaviour. Aims are guide-lines in the educational process. Like the sun, aims illumine our life. All our methods of teaching, our curriculum and our system of evaluation are shaped and molded according to our aim of education. It is the ignorance of right aims that has vitiated our educational system, its methods and its products, and has successfully resulted in the physical, intellectual and moral weaknesses of the race.

Aims of education are always influenced by the philosophy of life of the people of that country. . An education without the knowledge of aims, objective and goals of education is like a sailor navigating a ship without the knowledge of destination and the route. So, aims are a must for education and need to be laid down explicitly.

Besides, political ideologies, the social economic problems of a country, determine the aims of education. Education is vital force, which can silently; bury the socio-economic problems. It can thus evolve a society based on equality, co-operation and socialistic ideals.

Cultural heritage of a country also determine the aims of education. It is the most important function of the education to develop and preserve the cultural heritage. The changing and developing pattern of cultural factors directly influence the aims of education.

It would be interesting to compare the aims and ideals of ancient Indian education with those of some other systems, like ancient and modern, or eastern and western. We therefore now proceed to do so.

Formation of Character:

The illumination and power, which men and women received from education, was primarily intended to transform and ennoble their nature. The formation of character by the proper development of the moral feeling was an important  aim of education. Like Locke, ancient Indian thinkers held that mere intellectual attainments were of less consequence than the development of a proper moral feeling and character. The Vedas being held as revealed, educationalists naturally regarded their preservation as of utmost national importance; yet they unhesitatingly declare that a person of good character with a mere smattering of the Vedic knowledge is to be preferred to a scholar, who though well versed in the Vedas, is impure in his life, thoughts and habits.  Montaigne has observed, “Cry out, ‘there is a learned man’ and people will flock round him.”; cry out ‘there is a good man’, and people will not look at him.” Indian thinkers were aware of this natural human tendency and wanted to counteract it by pointing out that character was more important than learning. One thinker goes to the extent of saying that he alone is learned who is righteous.  This opinion tallies remarkably with that of Socrates, who held that virtue is knowledge. Evil effects of divorcing power from virtue, intellectual and scientific progress from moral and spiritual values, which are being so vividly illustrated in the west in the modern age, were well realized by ancient Indians ; they have therefore insisted that, while a man is being educated, his regard for morality ought to be developed, his feeling of good will towards human beings ought to be strengthened and his control over his mind ought to be perfected, so that he can follow the beacon light of his conscience.

In other words, education ought to develop man’s ideal nature by giving him a enabling him to control the original animal nature. The tree of education ought to flower, in knowledge as well as in manners, in wisdom as well as in virtue.

Direct injunctions to develop a sense of moral rectitude were scattered -over almost every page of books intended for students; they were also orally given to them by their teachers every now and then. Apart from them, however, the very atmosphere in which students lived was intended to give a proper turn to their character. They were under the direct and personal supervision of their teacher, who was to watch not only their intellectual progress but also their moral behavior. Ancient Indians held that good character cannot be divorced from good manners; the teacher was to see that in their everyday life students followed the rules of etiquette and good manners towards their seniors, equals and juniors. These rules afforded an imperceptible but effective help in the formation of character. The rituals compare the view of Herbert: The aim of education should be to install such ideas as will develop both the understanding of the moral order and a conscientious spirit in carrying it out. Great Educationalists, which students occasionally performed and the prayers which they regularly offered every day were calculated to emphasize upon their mind the fact that the student-life was a consecrated one and that its ideals could be realized only by those who did not swerve from the strict and narrow path of duty. Examples of national heroes and heroines were prominently placed before students, also served to mold their character in a powerful manner. Character was thus built up partly by the influence of direct injunctions, partly by the effect of continued discipline and partly by the glorification of national heroes, hold in the highest reverence by society.

Infusion of Religiousness:

Learning in India through the ages had been prized and pursued not for its own sake, if we may so put it, but for the sake, and as a part, of religion. Religious factor also influence the aims of education. Education and religion have close relationship. They affect society in different ways. Religion played a large part in life in ancient India and teachers were usually .priests. It is therefore no wonder that infusion of a spirit of piety and religiousness in the mind of the rising generation should have been regarded as the first and foremost aim of education. The rituals which were performed at the beginning of both the literary and professional education, primary as well as higher, the- religious observances (vratas), which the student had to observe during the educational course, the daily prayers which he offered morning and evening, the religious festivals that were observed with in the school or the preceptor’s house almost every month, all these tended to inspire piety and religiousness in the mind of the young student. It was the spiritual background that was thus provided which was expected to help the student to withstand the temptations of life. The very atmosphere, in which he lived and breathed, impressed upon him the reality of the spiritual world and made him realize that though his body may be a product of nature, his mind r intellect and soul belong to the world of spirit, the laws- of which ought to govern his conduct, mould his character and determine the ideals of his life.

Though the educational system provided the background of piety and religiousness, its aim was not to induce the student to renounce the world and become a wanderer in the quest of God like the Buddha. Even in the case of Vedic students, who intended to follow a religious career, only a microscopic minority used to remain lifelong Brahmachariris, pursuing the spiritual quest: the vast majority was expected to become and did become householders. The direct aim of all education, whether literary or professional, was to make the student fit to become a useful member of society.

Development of Personality:

There is a general impression that Hindu educationalists suppressed personality by prescribing a uniform course of education and enforcing it with an iron discipline. Such however was not the case. The caste system had not become hidebound down to c. 500 B.C. and till that time a free choice of profession or career was possible both in theory and practice. Later on when the system became rigid ; the theory” no doubt was that everybody should follow his hereditary profession, but the practice permitted considerable freedom to enterprising individuals, as will be shown in the following chapter. It is wrong to conclude from some stray passages that the whole of the Brahmana community, if not the whole of the Aryan community, was compelled to devote twelve years to the task of memorizing the Vedic texts.  Kshatriyas and Vaishyas never took seriously to the Vedic learning; only a section of the Brahmanas dedicated themselves to the Vedic studies, while the rest of the community learnt only a few Vedic hymns necessary for their daily use, and devoted their main energy to the study of the subjects of their own choice like logic, philosophy, literature, poetic or law. The educational curriculum of the Smritis represents the Utopian idealism of the Brahmana theologian and not the actual reality in society.

The development of personality was in fact the most important aim of the education. This was sought to be realized by eulogizing the feeling of self -respect, by encouraging the sense of self -restraint and by fostering the powers of discrimination and judgment. The student was always to remember that he was the custodian and the torch-bearer of the culture of the race. Its welfare depended upon his proper discharge of his duties. If the warrior shines on the battlefield, or if the king is successful as a governor, it is all due to their proper training and education .To support the poor student was the sacred duty of society, the non- performance of which would lead to dire spiritual calamities. A well trained youth, who had finished his education, was to be honored more than the king himself. It is but natural that such an atmosphere should develop the student’s self-respect in a remarkable manner.

Fostering of Self-confidence:

Self-confidence was also fostered equally well. The Upanayana ritual, as used to foster self- confidence by pointing out that divine powers would co- operate with the student and help him on to the achievement of his goal, if he on his part did his duty well. Poverty need not depress him ; he was the ideal student who would subsist by begging his daily food. If he was willing to work in his spare time, he could demand and get free education from any teacher or institution. Self -restraint is the mother of self-confidence, and the Hindu educational system seeks to develop it in a variety of ways. Uncertainty of the future prospect did not damp the student’s self-confidence. If he was following a professional course, his career was already determined. There was no overcrowding or cut-throat competition in professions. If he was taking religious and liberal education, poverty was to be the ideal of his life.

Enforcement of Self-restraint:

The element of self-restraint was emphasized by the educational system, further served to enrich the student’s personality. Self-restraint that was emphasized was distinctly different from self-repression. Simplicity in life and habits was all that was insisted upon. The student was to have a full meal, only it was to be a simple one. The student was to have sufficient clothing, only it was not to be foppish. The student was to have his recreations, only they were not to be frivolous. He was to lead a life of perfect chastity, but that was only to enable him to be an efficient and healthy householder when he married. It will be thus seen that what the educationalists aimed at did not result in self- repression, but only promoted self-restraint that was so essential for the development of a proper personality. Nor was this self-restraint enforced by Spartan ways of correction and punishment. The teacher was required to use persuasion and spare the rod as far as possible. He was liable to be prosecuted if he used undue force. Self-discipline was developed mainly by the formation of proper habits during the educational course.

Development of power of Discrimination and Judgment

It may be further pointed out that the powers of discrimination and judgment, so necessary for the development of proper personality, were well developed in students taking liberal education and specializing in logic, law, philosophy, poetic or literature. In these branches of study the student had to understand both the sides, form his own judgment and defend his position in literary debates. It was only with the Vedic students that education became mechanical training of memory.

This became inevitable in later times when the literature to be preserved became very extensive and the modern,; means for its preservation in the form of paper and printing were unavailable. In earlier days even Vedic students were trained in interpreting the hymns they used to commit to memory.

Inculcation of civic and social duties:

This might be considered another old school belief. However, this is held by many individuals, especially within the larger community. Students will someday be a part of a larger community and need the skills and mores to exist within that society as thoughtful citizens..  The inculcation of civic and social duties, which was the fourth aim of the educational system, was particularly emphasized. The graduate was not to lead a self-centered life. He must teach his lore to the rising generation even when there was no prospect of a fee. He was enjoined perpetuation of race and culture by raising and educating progeny.

He was to perform his duties as a son, a husband, and a father conscientiously and efficiently. His wealth was not to be utilized solely for his own or his family’s wants; he must be hospitable and charitable, particularly emphatic are the words in the convocation address, emphasizing these duties.  Professions had their own codes of honor, which laid stress on the civic responsibilities of their members. The physician was required to relieve disease and distress even at the cost of his life. The warrior had his own high code of honor, and could attack his opponent only when the latter was ready. Social structure in ancient India was to a great extent independent of government. Governments may come and go, but social arid village life and national culture were not much v affected by these changes. It was probably this circumstance that was responsible for the non-inclusion of patriotism among the civic duties, inculcated by the Educational System.

Promotion of Social Efficiency and Happiness:

The promotion of social efficiency and happiness was another aim of the education. It was sought to be realized by the proper training of the rising generation in the different branches of knowledge, professions and industries. Education was not imparted merely for the sake of culture or for the purpose of developing mental and intellectual powers and faculties. Indirectly, though effectively, it no doubt promoted these aims, but primarily it was imparted for the purpose of training every individual for the calling which he was expected to follow.

Society had accepted the theory of division of work, which was mainly governed in later times by the principle of heredity. Exceptional talent could always select the profession it liked; Brahmanas and Vaishyas as kings and fighters, Kshatriyas and even Shudras as philosophers and religious teachers, make their appearance throughout the Indian history. It was however deemed to be in the interest of the average man that he should follow his family’s calling. The educational system sought to qualify the members of the rising generation for their more or less pre-determined spheres of life. Each trade, guild and family trained its children in its own profession. This system may have sacrificed the individual inclinations of few, but it was undoubtedly in the interest of many.

Differentiation of functions and their specialization in hereditary families naturally heightened the efficiency of trades and professions, and thus contributed to social efficiency. By thus promoting the progress of the different branches of knowledge, arts and professions, and by emphasizing civic duties and responsibilities on the mind of the rising generation, the educational system contributed materially to the general efficiency and happiness of society.

Preservation of Culture:

The preservation and spread of national heritage and culture another most important aims of the Ancient Indian System of Education. It is well recognised that education is the chief means of social and cultural continuity and that it will fail in its purpose if it did not teach the rising generation to accept and maintain the best traditions of thought and action and transmit the heritage of the past to the future generations. Anyone who takes even a cursory view of Hindu writings on the subject is impressed by the deep concern that was felt for the preservation and transmission of the entire literary, cultural and professional heritage of the race. Members of the professions were to train their children in their own lines, rendering available to the rising generation at the outset of its career all the skill and processes that were acquired after painful efforts of the bygone generations. The services of the whole Aryan community were conscripted for the purpose of the preservation of the Vedic literature. Every Aryan must learn at least a portion of his sacred literary heritage.

It was an incumbent duty on the priestly class to commit the whole of the Vedic literature to memory in order to ensure its transmission to unborn generations. A section of the Brahmana community, however, was always available to sacrifice its life and talents in order to ensure the preservation of the sacred texts. Theirs was a life-long and almost a tragic devotion to the cause of learning. For, they consented to spend their life in committing to memory what others and not they could interpret. Secular benefits that they could expect -were few and /not at all commensurate with the labour involved. Remaining sections of the Brahmana community were fostering the studies of the different branches of liberal education, like grammar, literature, poetics, law, philosophy and logic. They were not only preserving the knowledge of the ancients in these branches, but constantly increasing its boundaries by their own contributions, which were being made down to the medieval times. Specialisation became a natural consequence of this tendency and it tended to make education deep rather than broad.

The interesting theory of three debts, which has been advocated since the vedic age, has effectively served the purpose of inducing the rising generation to accept and maintain the best traditions of thought and action of the past generations born in this world he incurs three debts, which he can discharge only by performing certain duties. First of  all he owes a debt to gods, and he can liquidate it only by learning how to perform proper sacrifices and by regularly offering them. Religious traditions of the race thus preserved. Secondly, he owes a debt to the savants of the bygone ages and can discharge it only by studying their works and continuing their  professional traditions. The rising generation we thus enabled to master and maintain the best literary and professional traditions. The third debt was the debt to the ancestors, which can be repaid only by raising progeny and by imparting proper education to it Steps were thus take to see that the rising generation became an efficient torch-bearer of the culture and traditions of the past.

The emphasis laid on obedience to parents, respect to elders and teachers and gratitude to savants of the bygone ages also helped to preserve the best traditions of the past. Especially significant in this connection are the rules about svddhyaya and nshitarparia ; the former enjoin a daily recapitulation of at least a portion of what was learnt during the student life and the latter require a daily tribute of gratitude to be paid to the literary giants of the past at the time of morning prayers. In later times, when archaic Sanskrit ceased to be understood and abstract and abstruse philosophy failed to appeal to masses, a new type of literature, the Puranas, was composed to popularise national culture and traditions among the masses. It was daily expounded to the masses in vernaculars, and as a consequence the best cultural traditions of the past filtered down to and were preserved by even illiterate population. Devotional literature in vernacular also served the same function.

The individual’s supreme duty is thus to achieve his expansion into the Absolute, his self-fulfillment, for he is a potential God, a spark of the Divine. Education must aid in this self-fulfillment, and not in the acquisition of mere objective knowledge.

Body, mind, intellect and spirit constitute a human being; the aims and ideals of ancient Indian education were to promote their simultaneous and harmonious development. Men are social beings ; ancient Indian education not only emphasised social duties but also promoted social happiness. No nation can be called educated which cannot preserve and expand its cultural heritage. Our education enabled us to do this for several centuries.

The ideal of education has been very grand, noble and high in ancient India. Its aim, according to Herbert Spencer is the ‘training for completeness of life’ and the moulding of character of men and women for the battle of life. The history of the educational institutions in ancient India shows how old is her cultural history. It points to a long history. In the early stage it is rural, not urban. The realization of the ultimate Reality was the ideal of India. Material progress was never the end in itself but was considered as a means to the realization of the end. Apara Vidya dealing with material progress could never bring peace. From all these it appears that the aim of education was not only material progress but also spiritual growth.

British Sanskrit scholar Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1854-1930) says “Some hundreds of years must have been needed for all that is found” in her( India’s ) culture. The aim of education was at the manifestation of the divinity in men, it touches the highest point of knowledge. In order to attain the goal the whole educational method is based on plain living and high thinking pursued through eternity.

REFERANCES:

Radha Kumud Mookerji :Ancient Indian Education -
A. S. Altekar Education in Ancient India -
Swami Tattwananda: Ancient Indian Culture at a Glance -
Benoy Kumar Sarkar: Creative India
Gurumurthy. S: Education in South India
Radha Kumud Mookerji : Hindu Civilization –

 

 

 

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Many languages have been used in the long history of Persia. The speech of the court and the nobility in the days of Darius I was Old Persian so closely related to Sanskrit that evidently both were once dialects of an older tongue, and were cousins to our own. The languages of the Zoroastrian scriptures, the Avesta, and the Hindu scriptures, the Rig Veda, are classified by linguists as part of the Indo-Iranian family of languages. Prof. Hermann Brunnhofer title durgeschichte der Arier in Vorder- und Centralasien (Prehistory of the Aryans in West- and Central-Asia), 1893.stated “the Bactrian (i.e. Avestan) is so (greatly) related to the Old-Indian language (Vedic), and in particular, that of the Vedas, that without exaggeration it can be called a dialect thereof.”  The oldest language or dialect in the Avesta, the language of the Gathas and the Yasna Haptanghaiti, is close to the language used in the Rig Veda, the older Hindu scriptures.  The people who spoke the Indo-Iranian languages are in turn called the Indo-Iranian peoples. For example:

Old Persian/   Sanskrit

Pitar   / pitar ,  nama  /  nama ,  napat  /  napat ,  bar  /   bhri ,  matar   /   matar ,  bratar  /  bhratar,

eta  /  stha

The following is an example of the closeness of the Avestan and Vedic (Sanskrit) languages:

Old Iranian/Avestan: aevo pantao yo ashahe, vispe anyaesham apantam (Yasna 72.11)

Old Indian/Sanskrit: abade pantha he ashae, visha anyaesham apantham

Translation: the one path is that of Asha, all others are not-paths.

[The Vedic-Sanskrit translation of the Avestan was provided to this writer by Dr. Satyan Banerjee.]

Old Persian developed on the one hand into Zend the language of the Zend-Avesta and on the other hand into Pahlavi, a Hindu tongue from which has come the Persian language of to- day.”

Grammatically there is little difference between the languages of the Avesta and the Vedas. Both languages underwent systematic phonetic change. However, according to Thomas-Burrow, in his book, The Sanskrit Language. “It is quite possible to find verses in the oldest portion of the Avesta, which simply by phonetic substitutions according to established laws can be turned into intelligible Sanskrit.”

At some point in history, the oral Avestan texts were committed to writing. The first record of a written text of the Avesta comes from the Middle Persian language (Pahlavi) writer Arda Viraf, in his book the Arda Viraf Nameh. In it, he writes that the the Persian Achaemenian kings (c. 700 – 300 BCE) commissioned the commitment of the Avesta to writing and deposited the texts in the royal library at Istakhr. “…the entire Avesta and Zand, written on parchment with gold ink, were deposited in the archives at Stakhar Papakan (Istakhr, near Persepolis and Shiraz in Pars province), … and the invader Alexander of Macedonia… burned them. He also killed several judges, dasturs, mobeds, herbads and other upholders of the religion, as well as the competent and wise of the country of Iran” (in an attempt to destroy the oral tradition as well). After the overthrow of the Macedonian occupation, surviving information was collected and the texts were reassembled as best as possible.

Persian legend tells how, many hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, a great prophet  appeared in Airyana-vaejo, the ancient “home of the Aryans.” His people called him Zarathustra; but the Greeks, who could never bear the orthography of the “barbarians” patiently, called him Zoroastres. As far as  the timeline for Zoroaster’s life. Greek sources placed him as early as 6000 BC. The traditional Zoroastrian date for Zarathushtra’s birth and ministry is around 600 B.C. This is derived from a Greek source that places him “300 years before Alexander” which would give that date; other rationales for the 600 BC date identify the King Vishtaspa of Zarathushtra’s Gathas with the father of the Persian King Darius, who lived around that time. According to the Zend Avesta, the sacred book of Zoroastrianism, Zoroaster was born in Azerbaijan, in northern Persia. The name Zarathustra is a Bahuvrihi compound in the Avestan language, of zarata- “feeble, old” and usatra “camel”, translating to “having old camels, the one who owns old camels”. The first part of the name was formerly commonly translated as “yellow” or “golden”, from the Avestan “zaray”, giving the meaning “having yellow camels”. The later Zoroastrians, perhaps embarrassed by their prophet’s primitive-sounding name, said that the name meant “Golden Light,” deriving their meaning from the word ‘zara’ and the word ‘ushers’, light or dawn. There is no doubt about Zarathushtra’s clan name, which is Spitama – perhaps meaning “white.” Zarathushtra’s father was named Pouruchaspa (many horses) and his mother was named Dughdova (milkmaid). . With his wife, Huvovi, Zoroaster had three sons, Isat Vastar, Uruvat-Nara and Hvare Cira and three daughters, Freni, Pourucista and Triti. His wife, children and a cousin named Maidhyoimangha, were his first converts after his illumination from Ahura Mazda at age 30.

Ancient alien theorists believe Zarathustra was the son of an alien god named who went by the name Ahura Mazda in this scenario. Scholars believe Zoroaster was a priest and a prophet. Linked to the Magi, he was considered a magian. In Zoroaster images he appears with a mace, the varza (Similar to the wepon Vajra of Indian Vedic god Indra)- usually stylized as a steel rod crowned by a bull’s head – that priests carry in their installation ceremony. In other depictions he appears with a raised hand and thoughtfully lifted finger, as if to make a point. Zoroaster is rarely depicted as looking directly at the viewer; instead, he appears to be looking slightly upwards, as if beseeching. Zoroaster is almost always depicted with a beard, this along with other factors bear similarities to 19th century portraits of Jesus.

No one knows how Zarathushtra died, allegedly at age 77. Many legends, and Zoroastrian tradition, say that he was killed, while praying in the sanctuary, by a foreign enemy of the king. But there is no holiday commemorating the martyrdom of the Prophet, as there would be in other religions  and other Zoroastrian traditions, and scholars, say that Zarathushtra died peacefully.His birthday is celebrated on March 21, as part of the Persian New Year Festival.

Elements of Zoroastrian philosophy entered the West through their influence on Judaism and Middle Platonism and have been identified as one of the key early events in the development of philosophy. Among the classic Greek philosophers, Heraclitus is often referred to as inspired by Zoroaster’s thinking. Contemporary Zoroastrians often point to the similarities between Zoroaster’s philosophy and the ideas of Baruch Spinoza. He was very influential.

Zoroaster’s teachings, as noted above, centered on Ahura Mazda, who is the highest god and alone is worthy of worship. He is, according to the Gathas, the creator of heaven and earth; i.e., of the material and the spiritual world. He is the source of the alternation of light and darkness, the sovereign lawgiver, and the very centre of nature, as well as the originator of the moral order and judge of the entire world. The kind of polytheism found in the Indian Vedas (Hindu scriptures having the same religious background as the Gathas) is totally absent; the Gathas, for example, mention no female deity sharing Ahura Mazda’s rule.

He is surrounded by six or seven beings, or entities, which the later Avesta calls amesha spentas, “beneficent immortals.” The names of the amesha spentas frequently recur throughout the Gathas and may be said to characterize Zoroaster’s thought and his concept of god. In the words of the Gathas, Ahura Mazda is the father of Spenta Mainyu (Holy Spirit), of Asha Vahishta (Justice, Truth), of Vohu Manah (Righteous Thinking), and of Armaiti (Spenta Armaiti, Devotion).

The other three beings (entities) of this group are said to personify qualities attributed to Ahura Mazda: they are Khshathra Vairya (Desirable Dominion), Haurvatat (Wholeness), and Ameretat (Immortality). This does not exclude the possibility that they, too, are creatures of Ahura Mazda. The good qualities represented by these beings are also to be earned and possessed by Ahura Mazda’s followers.

This means that the gods and mankind are both bound to observe the same ethical principles. If the amesha spentas show the working of the deity, while at the same time constituting the order binding the adherents of the Wise Lord, then the world of Ahura Mazda and the world of his followers (the ashavan) come close to each other.

His conception was divine: his guardian angel entered into an haoma plant,(similar to Some Rasa in Ancient India) and passed with its juice into the body of a priest as the latter offered divine sacrifice; at the same time a ray of heaven’s glory entered the bosom of a maid of noble lineage. The priest espoused the maid, the imprisoned angel mingled with the imprisoned ray, and Zarathustra began to be.  He laughed aloud on the very day of his birth, and the evil spirits that gather around every life fled from him in tumult and terror.” Out of his great love for wisdom and righteousness he withdrew from the society of men, and chose to live in a mountain wilderness on cheese and the fruits of the soil. The Devil tempted him, but to no avail. His breast was pierced with a sword, and his entrails were filled with molten lead; he did not complain, but clung to his faith in Ahura- Mazda the Lord of Light as supreme god. Ahura-Mazda appeared to him and gave into his hands the Avesta, or Book of Knowledge and Wisdom, and bade him preach it to mankind. For a long time all the world ridiculed and persecuted him; but at last a high prince of Iran Vishtaspa or Hystaspcs heard him gladly, and promised to spread the new faith among his people. Thus was the Zoroastrian religion born. Zarathustra himself lived to a very old age, was consumed in a flash of lightning, and ascended into heaven.” We cannot tell how much of his story is true; perhaps some Josiah discovered him. The Greeks accepted him as historical, and honoured him with an antiquity of 5500 years before their time; M Berosus the Babylonian brought him down to 2000 B.C.; 07 modern historians, when they believe in his existence, assign him to any century between the tenth and the sixth before Christ. ( If the Vishtaspa who promulgated him was the father of Darius I, the last of these dates seems the most probable.)

Zoroaster sees the human condition as the mental struggle between asa (truth) and druj (lie). The cardinal concept of asa – which is highly nuanced and only vaguely translatable – is at the foundation of all Zoroastrian doctrine, including that of Ahura Mazda (who is asa), creation (that is asa), existence (that is asa) and as the condition for Free Will, which is arguably Zoroaster’s greatest contribution to religious philosophy.

When he appeared, among the ancestors of the Medes and the Persians, he found his people worshiping animals, ancestors,  the earth and the sun, in a religion having many elements and deities in common with the Hindus of the Vedic age. The chief divinities of this pre-Zoroastrian faith were Mithra, god of the sun, Anaita, goddess of fertility and the earth, and Haoma the bull-god who, dying, rose again, and gave mankind his blood as a drink that would confer immortality; him the early Iranians worshiped by drinking the intoxicating juice of the haama herb found on their mountain slopes. Zarathustra was shocked at these primitive deities and this Dionysian ritual; he rebelled against the “Magi” or priests who prayed and sacrificed to them; and with all the bravery of his contemporaries Amos and Isaiah he announced to the world one God here Ahura-Mazda, the Lord of Light and Heaven, of whom all other gods were but manifestations and qualities. Perhaps Darius I, who accepted the new doctrine, saw in it a faith that would both inspire his people and strengthen his government. From the moment of his accession he declared war upon the old cults and the Magician priesthood, and made Zoroastrianism the religion of the state.

The Bible of the new faith was the collection of books in which the disciples of the Master had gathered his sayings and his prayers. Later followers called these books Avesta; by the error of a modern scholar they are known to the Occidental world as the Zend-Avesta derived.( Anquetil-Duperron (ca. 1771 A.D.) introduced the prefix Zend, which the Persians had used to denote merely a translation and interpretation of the Avesta. The last is a word of uncertain origin, probably, like Veda, from the Aryan root v id, to know. )

The contemporary non-Persian reader is terrified to find that the substantial volumes that survive, though much shorter than our Bible, are but a small fraction of the revelation vouchsafed to Zarathustra by his god.

Ahura Mazda (also known as Ohrmazd, Ahuramazda, Hormazd, and Aramazd) is the Avestan name for a divinity of the Old Iranian religion who was proclaimed the uncreated God by Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism. Ahura Mazda is described as the highest deity of worship in Zoroastrianism, along with being the first and most frequently invoked deity in the Yasna. Ahura Mazda is the creator and upholder of asha (truth). Ahura Mazda is an omniscient, but not an omnipotent God, however Ahura Mazda would eventually destroy evil. Ahura Mazda’s counterpart is Angra Mainyu, the “evil spirit” and the creator of evil who will be destroyed before frashokereti (the destruction of evil).

(Native tradition tells of a larger Avesta in twenty-one books called Nasks; these in turn, we are told, were but part of the original Scriptures. One of the Nasks remains intact the Vendidad; the rest survive only in scattered fragments in such later compositions as the Dinkard and the Bundahish. Arab historians speak of the complete text as having covered 12,000 cowhides. According to a sacred tradition, two copies of this were made by Prince Vishtaspa; one of them was destroyed when Alexander burned the royal palace at Persepolis; the other was taken by the victorious Greeks to their own country, and being translated, provided the Greeks (according to the Persian; authorities) with all their scientific knowledge. During the third century of the Christian Era Vologesus V, a Parthian king of the Arsacid Dynasty, ordered the collection of all fragments surviving cither in writing or in the memory of the faithful; this collection was fixed in its present form as the Zoroastrian canon in the fourth century, and became the official religion of the Persian state. The compilation so formed suffered further ravages during the Moslem conquest of Persia in the seventh century.”

The extant fragments may be divided into five parts:

(1) The Yasna- forty-five chapters of the liturgy recited by the Zoroastrian priests, and twenty-seven chapters (chs. 28-54) called Gat has, containing, apparently in metric form,the discourses and revelations of the Prophet;

(2) The Vispered- twenty-four additional chapters of liturgy;

(3) The Vendidad -twenty-two chapters or fargards expounding the theology and moral legislation of the Zoroastrians, and now forming the priestly code of the Parsees;

(4) The Yashts i.e., songs of praise twenty-one psalms to angels, interspersed with legendary history and a prophecy of the end of the world; and

(5) The Khordah Avesta or Small Avesta prayers for various occasions of life.*

What remains is, to the foreign and provincial observer, a confused mass of prayers, songs, legends, prescriptions, ritual and morals, brightened now and then by noble language, fervent devotion, ethical elevation, or lyric piety. Like our Old Testament it is a highly eclectic composition. The student discovers here I and there the gods, the ideas, sometimes the very words and phrases of the Rig-vedato such an extent that some Indian scholars consider the Avesta to have been inspired not by Ahura-Mazda but by the Vedas? at other times one comes upon passages of ancient Babylonian provenance, such as the creation of the world in six periods (the heavens, the waters, the earth, plants, animals, man,) the descent of all men from two first parents, the establishment of an earthly paradise,”  the discontent of the Creator with his creation, and his resolve to destroy all but a remnant of it by a flood. 87 But the specifically Iranian elements suffice abundantly to characterize the whole: the world is conceived in dualistic terms as the stage of a conflict, lasting twelve thousand years, between the god Ahura-Mazda and the devil Ahriman; purity and honesty arc the greatest of the virtues, and will lead to everlasting life; the dead must not be buried or burned, as by the obscene Greeks or Hindus, but must be thrown to the dogs or to birds of prey.

The god of Zarathustra was first of all “the whole circle of the heavens” themselves. Ahura-Mazda “clothes himself with the solid vault of the firmament as his raiment; … his body is the light and the sovereign glory; the sun and the moon are his eyes.” In later days, when the religion passed from prophets to politicians, the great deity was pictured as a gigantic king of imposing majesty. As creator and ruler of the world he was assisted by a legion of lesser divinities, originally picturedas forms and powers of nature fire and water, sun and moon, wind and rain; but it was the achievement of Zarathustra that he conceived his god as supreme over all things, in terms as noble as the Book of Job:

This I ask thee, tell me truly, O Ahura-Mazda: Who determined the paths of suns and stars who is it by whom the moon waxes and wanes? . . . Who, from below, sustained the earth and the firmament from falling who sustained the waters and plants who yoked swiftness with the winds and the clouds who, Ahura-Mazda, called forth the Good Mind?

This “Good Mind” meant not any human mind, but a divine wisdom, almost a Logos*(Darmesteter believes the “Good Mind” to be a semi-Gnostic adaptation of Philo’s logos theios, or Divine Word, and therefore dates the Yasna about the first century B.C.) used by Ahura-Mazda as an intermediate agency of creation. Zarathustra had interpreted Ahura-Mazda as having seven aspects or qualities: Light, Good Mind, Right, Dominion, Piety, Well- being, and Immortality. His followers, habituated to polytheism, interpreted these attributes as persons (called by them amesha spenta, or immortal holy ones) who, under the leadership of Ahura-Mazda, created and managed the world; in this way the majestic monotheism of the founder became as in the case of Christianity the polytheism of the people. In addition to these holy spirits were the guardian angels, of which Persian theology supplied one for every man, woman and child. But just as these angels and the immortal holy ones helped men to virtue, so, according to the pious Persian (influenced, presumably, by Babylonian demonology), seven dtevas, or evil spirits, hovered in the air, always tempting men to crime and sin, and forever engaged in a war upon Ahura- Mazda and every form of righteousness. In the field of religion there are some interesting contrasts. Words such as devá have the meaning of god in the Vedas have the meaning of devil in the Avesta. Likewise some names for Vedic gods show up in the Avesta as evil spirits. This is likely due to the ancestors of the migrants to North India being a competing tribe of the tribe responsible for the creation of the Avesta

The leader of these devils was Angro-Mainyus or Ahriman, Prince of Darkness and ruler of the nether world, prototype of that busy Satan whom the Jews appear to have adopted from Persia and bequeathed to Christianity. It was Ahriman, for example, who had created serpents, vermin, locusts, ants, winter, darkness, crime, sin, sodomy, menstruation, and the other plagues of life; and it was these inventions of the Devil that had ruined the Paradise in which Ahura-Mazda had placed the first progenitors of the human race.  Zarathustra seems to have regarded these evil spirits as spurious deities, popular and superstitious incarnations of the abstract forces that resist the progress of man. His followers, however, found it easier to think of them as living beings, and personified them in such abundance that in after times the devils of Persian theology were numbered in millions.

As this system of belief came from Zarathustra it bordered upon monotheism. Even with the intrusion of Ahriman and the evil spirits it remained as monotheistic as Christianity was to be with its Satan, its devils and its angels; indeed, one hears, in early Christian theology, as many echoes of Persian dualism as of Hebrew Puritanism or Greek philosophy. The Zoroastrian conception of God might have satisfied as particular a spirit as Matthew Arnold: Ahura-Mazda was the sum-total of all those forces in the world that make for righteousness; and morality lay in cooperation with those forces. Furthermore there was in this dualism a certain justice to the contradictoriness and perversity of things, which monotheism never provided; and though the Zoroastrian theologians, after the manner of Hindu mystics and Scholastic philosophers, sometimes argued that evil was unreal,  they offered, in effect, a theology well adapted to dramatize for the average mind the moral issues of life.

The last act of the play, they promised, would be for the just man a happy ending: after four epochs of three thousand years each, in which Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman would alternately predominate, the forces of evil would be finally destroyed; right would triumph everywhere, and evil would forever cease to be. Then all good men would join Ahura- Mazda in Paradise, and the wicked would fall into a gulf of outer darkness, where they would feed on poison eternally.

“I must pay tribute to Zarathustra, a Persian. Persians were the first who thought of history in its full entirety.” Nietzsche’s philosophical ideas included “Ubermensch” (“Superman”) or the evolution of human consciousness in the alchemy of time.

Nietzsche

 

 

REFERANCES:

DARMESTETER, JAS., ed. and tr.: The Zend-Avesta. 2V. Oxford, 1895.

DAWSON, MILES: The Ethical Religion of Zoroaster. New York, 1931.

DHALLA, M. N.: Zoroastrian Civilization. New York, 1922.

HERODOTUs: Histories, tr. by Cary. London, 1901.

HUART, CLEMENT: Ancient Persian and Iranian Civilization. New York, 1927

MASPERO, G.: The Dawn of Civilization: Egypt and Chaldaea. London, 1897.

MASPERO, G.: The Struggle of the Nations: Egypt, Syria and Assyria. Lon- don, 1896.

RAWLINSON, GEO.: Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World. 3V. NewYork,1887.

SCHNEIDER, HERMANN: History of World Civilization. Tr. Green. 2V. New York, 1931.

STRABO: Geography. 8v. Loeb Classical Library. New York, 1917-32.

WILL DURANT: Our Oriental Heritage. Simon and Schuster. New York 1954

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be a dead language in the most common usage of the term.

—Hanneder

The language of the Indo-Aryans should be of special interest to us, for Sanskrit is one of the oldest in that “Indo-European” group of languages to which our own speech belongs. When a language is spoken by unqualified people the pronunciation of the word changes to some extent; and when these words travel by word of mouth to another region of the land, with the gap of some generations, it permanently changes its form and shape to some extent.  We feel for a moment a strange sense of cultural continuity across great stretches of time and space when we observe the similarity in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and English of the numerals, the family terms, and those insinuating little words that, by some oversight of the moralists, have been called the copulative verb.  Cf. English one, two, three, four, five with Sanskrit ek, dwee, tree, chatoor, panch;Latin unus, duo, tres, quattuor, quinque; Greek heis, duo, tria, tettara, pente. (Quattuorbecomes four, as Latin quercus becomes fir.) Or cf. English am, art, is with Sanskrit asmi, asi, asti; Latin sum, es, est; C -eek eimi, ei, esti.

Some examples of the correlation:

Old Persian   Sanskrit   Greek   Latin   German   English

bar             bhri              fcrein       ferre      fuhren     bear

bratar        bhratar      phrater      frater      Brudcr   brother

eta           stha             istemi         sto         stchcn     stand

matar        matar        meter         mater     Mutter   mother

nama           nama        onoma       nomen   Nahmc    name

napat         napat        anepsios     nepos     Neffe    nephew

Pitar           pitar             pater       pater       Vater     father

Grimm’s Law, which formulated the changes effected in the consonants of a word through the different vocal habits of separated peoples, has revealed to us more fully the surprising kinship o Sanskrit with our own tongue. The law may be roughly summarized by saying that in most cases:

1. Sanskrit k (as in kratu, power) corresponds to Greek k (kartos, strength), Latin c

or qu (cornu, horn), German h, g or k (hart), and English h, g or f (hard);

2. Skt. g or j (as in jan, to beget), corresponds to Gk. g (genos, race), L. g (genus),

Ger. cb or k (kind, child), E. k (kin)-,

3. Skt. gb or h (as in by as, yesterday), corresponds to Gk. ch (chthes), L. h, f, g, or v

(heri), Ger. k or g (gestern), E. g or y (yesterday);

4. Skt. t (as in tar, to cross) corresponds to Gk. t (terma, end), L. t (ter-minus), Ger.

d (durch, through), E. tb or d (through);

5. Skt. d (as in das, ten) corresponds to Gk. d (deka), L. d (decent), Ger. z (zehn),

E. t (ten);

6. Skt. dh or h (as in dha, to place or put) corresponds to Gk. tb (ti-the-mi, I place),

L. f y dorb (fa-cere, do), Ger. t (tun, do), E. d (do, deed);

7 Skt. p (as in patana, feather) corresponds to Gk. p (pteros, wing), L. p (penna,

feather), Ger. f or v (feder), E. f or b (feather);

8. Skt. bh (as in bhri, to bear) corresponds to Gk. ph (pherein), L. f or b (fero), Ger.

p, / or ph (fahren), E. b or p (bear, birth, brother, etc.).

Few examples:

aṭṭaka -         attic , an apartment on the roof

krūra  -    cruel

ḍimbha   -   dumb an idiot, an infant

gou-  cow

hantṛ  -  hunter   a slayer, killer

kuka -  cook,a cook

lok -   look,to see,

mad-      mad  drunk

masa -  mass       measure

mith  -  meet       to unite, pair,

maṇi -   money     jewel, gem, pearl (also fig.)

pres-      preṣs  to drive on, urge, impel

prauḍha -  proud, arrogant, confident, bold, audacious, impudent

rīti-   rite, custom, practice, method, manner

sāda -   sad          , sinking down, exhaustion, weariness

santa -   saint      successful, effectual, valid

sakala  -  scale    consisting of parts, divisible

śoka  shock,sorrow,

sūri  -   Sir,a learned man, sage

samartha -   smart,very strong or powerful, competent, capable of. able to

spaś  -  spy,one who looks , a watcher,

jhampa -  jump

ūrj  -  urge,to strengthen, invigorate

van  – win,to conquer,

vaś  -  wish

tul  – toll,to lift up, raise

tas -   toss,to throw

vahana – wagon   a square chariot with a pole

Few examples with amazing etymological similarity

BANDH, “bind around” (BIND, BAND, BANDAGE)

BHUUTI, “wealth, fortune”.. BOOTY/BUTY, “anything

DANTA, “tooth” (DENTURE, INDENT)

MANU, “man”.

MUUSH, “mouse”

NAS, “nose” (NOSTRIL, NASAL)

NAU, “ship” akin to NAVYA (NAVY, NAVIGATE, NAUTICAL)

NAVA, “new”

PAD, “foot PEDESTRIAN, “foot­walker”; PEDATE, “having feet”;

PATHA, “path”

SARPA, “serpent”

SHATAM, “hundred” CENTUM (CENT, CENTURY, CENTIME)

SVADU, “sweet”

TAT, “that”

TVA, “you”THOU,

It is quite unlikely that this ancient tongue, which Sir William Jones pronounced “more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either,”  should have been the spoken language of the Aryan invaders. What that speech was we do not know;

we can only presume that it was a near relative of the early Persian dialect in which the Avesta was composed. The Sanskrit of the Vedas and the epics has already the earmarks of a classic and literary tongue, used only by scholars and priests; the very word Sanskrit means “prepared, pure, perfect, sacred.” The language of the people in the Vedic age was not one but many; each tribe had its own Aryan dialect.  India has never had one language.

The Vedas contain no hint that writing was known to their authors. It was not until the eighth or ninth century B.C. that Hindu probably Dravidian merchants brought from western Asia a Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician; and from this “Brahma script,” as it came to be called, all the later alphabets of India were derived.” For centuries writing seems to have been confined to commercial and administrative purposes, with little thought of using it for literature; “merchants, not priests, developed this basic art.” ( Perhaps poetry will recover its ancient hold upon our people when it is again recited rather than silently read.) Even the Buddhist canon does not appear to have been written down before the third century B.C. The oldest extant inscriptions in India are those of Ashoka.” We who (until the air about us was filled with words and music) were for centuries made eye-minded by writing and print, find it hard to understand how contentedly India, long after she had learned to write, clung to the old ways of transmitting history and literature by recitation and memory. The Vedas and the epics were songs that grew with the generations of those that recited them; they were intended not for sight but for sound. From this indifference to writing comes our dearth of knowledge about early India.

रात्रिर्गमिष्यति भविष्यति सुप्रभातम्
भास्वानुदेष्यति हसिष्यति पंकजश्रीः।

इति विचारयति कोषगते द्विरेफे

हा हंत हंत नलिनीं गज उज्जहार॥

Night will be over, there will be morning,
The sun will rise, lotus flower will open.
While the bee inside the lotus flower was thinking thus,
The lotus plant was uprooted by an elephant.

 

 

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Primitive communism is a concept originating from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that hunter-gather societies of the past practiced forms of communism. In Marx’s model of socioeconomic structures, societies with primitive communism had no hierarchical social class structures or capital accumulation.

Frederick Engels ,in 1884 he described what human society was like “before class divisions arose”, writing, “Everything runs smoothly without soldiers, gendarmes or police, without nobles, kings, governors, prefects or judges, without prisons, without trials”.  “There can be no poor and needy—the communistic household… know their responsibility towards the aged, the sick and those disabled in war… All are free and equal, including the women.”For most of human history people lived in very small groups, hunting and gathering food. Few archaeological remains have survived.

Engels called this pre-class society “primitive communism”

There were three main phases in human history, called (using the 19th century language) savagery, barbarism and civilisation. During the first two phases of savagery and barbarism, society was largely organised around kinship rather than economic relationships.

We are told that competition and division are hard-wired into humanity, evidence from pre-history points in the opposite direction.

These societies are not characterised by permanent leaders either. In the 1970s, an anthropologist asked a member of another hunter-gatherer people, the !Kung of Botswana, if they had chiefs. He replied, “Of course we have headmen! In fact, we are all headmen, each one of us is headman over himself.” “Leaders” among the !Kung had no real authority. They could persuade, but not enforce their opinions. At different times in hunter-gatherer societies, individuals take on leading roles, but this tends to be temporary, based on their ability at navigation, hunting or similar skills.The Hadza people are a community of hunter-gatherers who live in northern Tanzania.  A classic study of their lives showed that in times past the Hadza worked on average less than two hours a day collecting food.

So for hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors lived lives that were more communal and more equal than today.

However, at a specific point in human history this changed. This occurred with the rise of class society. The old ways of organising society were transformed. We are a revolutionary species. We were born in complete equality and fraternity. There were no social classes, there was no state, there was no filth, there was no war. Those were our origins, but this was all lost with the neolithic revolution.

Trade was the great disturber of the primitive world, for until it came, bringing money and profit in its wake, there was no property, and there- fore little government. In the early stages of economic development property was limited for the most part to things personally used; the property sense applied so strongly to such articles that they (even the wife) were often buried with their owner; it applied so weakly to things not personally used that in their case the sense of property, far from being innate, required perpetual reinforcement and inculcation.

Almost everywhere, among primitive peoples, land was owned by the community. The North American Indians, the natives of Peru, the Chittagong Hill tribes of India, the Borneans and South Sea Islanders seem to have owned and tilled the soil in common, and to have shared the fruits together. “The land,” said the Omaha Indians, “is like water and wind what cannot be sold.” In Samoa the idea of selling land was unknown prior to the coming of the white man. Professor Rivers found communism in land still existing in Melanesia and Polynesia; and in inner Liberia it may be observed today.

Only less widespread was communism in food. It was usual among “savages” for the man who had food to share it with the man who had none, for travellers to be fed at any home they chose to stop at on their way, and for communities harassed with drought to be maintained by their neighbors. 88 If a man sat down to his meal in the woods he was  expected to call loudly for some one to come and share it with him, before he might justly eat alone.  When Turner told a Samoan about the poor in London the “savage” asked in astonishment: “How is it? No food? No friends? No house to live in? Where did he grow? Are there no houses belonging to his friends?”  The hungry Indian had but to ask to receive; no matter how small the supply was, food was given him if he needed it; “no one can want food while there is corn anywhere in the town.”  Among the Hottentots it was the custom for one who had more than others to share his surplus till all were equal. White travellers in Africa before the advent of civilization noted that a present of food or other valuables to a “black man” was at once distributed; so that when a suit of clothes was given to one of them the donor soon found the recipient wearing the hat, a friend the trousers, another friend the coat. The Eskimo hunter had no personal right to his catch; it had to be divided among the inhabitants of the village, and tools and provisions were the common property of all. The North American Indians were described by Captain Carver as “strangers to all distinctions of property, except in the articles of domestic use. .. . They are extremely liberal to each other, and supply the deficiencies of their friends with any superfluity of their own.” “What is extremely surprising,” reports a missionary, “is to see them treat one another with a gentleness and consideration which one does not find among common people in the most civilized nations. This, doubt- less, arises from the fact that the words ‘mine’ and ‘thine,’ which St. Chrysostom says extinguish in our hearts the fire of charity and kindle that of greed, are unknown to these savages.” “I have seen them,” says another observer, “divide game among themselves when they sometimes had many shares to make; and cannot recollect a single instance of their falling into a dispute or finding fault with the distribution as being unequal or otherwise objectionable. They would rather lie down themselves on an empty stomach than have it laid to their charge that they neglected to satisfy the needy. . . . They look upon themselves as but one great family.”

Why did this primitive communism disappear as men rose to what we, with some partiality, call civilization? Sumner believed that communism proved un-biological, a handicap in the struggle for existence; that it gave insufficient stimulus to inventiveness, industry and thrift; and that the failure to reward the more able, and punish the less able, made for a levelling of capacity which was hostile to growth or to successful competition with other groups.  Loskiel reported some Indian tribes of the northeast as “so lazy that they plant nothing themselves, but rely entirely upon the expectation that others will not refuse to share their produce with them. Since the industrious thus enjoy no more of the fruits of their labor than the idle, they plant less every year.”  Darwin thought that the perfect equality among the Fuegians was fatal to any hope of their becoming civilized;  or, as the Fuegians might have put it, civilization would have been fatal to their equality.

Communism brought a certain security to all who survived the diseases and accidents due to the poverty and ignorance of primitive society; but it did not lift them out of that poverty. Individualism brought wealth, but it brought, also, insecurity and slavery; it stimulated the latent powers of superior men, but it intensified the competition of life, and made men feel bitterly a poverty which, when all shared it alike, had seemed to oppress none.( Perhaps one reason why communism tends to appear chiefly at the beginning of civilizations is that it flourishes most readily in times of dearth, when the common danger of starvation fuses the individual into the group. When abundance comes, and the danger subsides, social cohesion is lessened, and individualism increases; communism ends where luxury begins. As the life of a society becomes more complex, and the division of labor differentiates men into diverse occupations and trades, it becomes more and more unlikely that all these services will be equally valuable to the group; inevitably those whose greater ability enables them to perform the more vital functions will take more than their equal share of the rising wealth of the group. Every growing civilization is a scene of multiplying inequalities; the natural differences of human endowment unite with differences of opportunity to produce artificial differences of wealth and power; and where no laws or despots suppress these artificial inequalities they reach at last a bursting point where the poor have nothing to lose by violence, and the chaos of revolution levels men again into a community of destitution.

Hence the dream of communism lurks in every modern society as a racial memory of a simpler and more equal life; and where inequality or insecurity rises beyond sufferance, men welcome a return to a condition which they idealize by recalling its equality and forgetting its poverty. Periodically the land gets itself redistributed, legally or not, whether by the Gracchi in Rome, the Jacobins in France, or the Communists in Russia; periodically wealth is redistributed, whether by the violent confiscation of property, or by confiscatory taxation of incomes and bequests. Then the race for wealth, goods and power begins again, and the pyramid of ability takes form once more; under whatever laws may be enacted the abler man manages somehow to get the richer soil, the better place, the lion’s share; soon he is strong enough to dominate the state and rewrite or interpret the laws; and in time the inequality is as great as before. In this aspect all economic history is the slow heart-beat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of naturally concentrating wealth and naturally explosive revolution.)

Communism could survive more easily in societies where men were always on the move, and danger and want were ever present. Hunters and herders had no need of private property in land; but when agriculture became the settled life of men it soon appeared that the land was most fruitfully tilled when the rewards of careful husbandry accrued to the family that had provided it. Consequently since there is a natural selection of institutions and ideas as well as of organisms and groups the passage from hunting to agriculture brought a change from tribal property to family property; the most economical unit of production became the unit of ownership. As the family took on more and more a patriarchal form, with authority centralized in the oldest male, property became increasingly individualized, and personal bequest arose. Frequently an enterprising individual would leave the family haven, adventure beyond the traditional boundaries, and by hard labour reclaim land from the forest, the jungle or the marsh; such land he guarded jealously as his own, and in the end society recognized his right, and another form of individual property began.  As the pressure of population increased, and older lands were exhausted, such reclamation went on in a widening circle, until, in the more complex societies, individual ownership became the order of the day. The invention of money cooperated with these factors by facilitating the accumulation, transport and transmission of property. The old tribal rights and traditions reasserted themselves in the technical owner-ship of the soil by the village community or the king, and in periodical redistributions of the land; but after an epoch of natural oscillation between the old and the new, private property established itself definitely as the basic economic institution of historical society.

Agriculture, while generating civilization, led not only to private property but to slavery. In purely hunting communities’ slavery had been unknown; the hunter’s wives and children sufficed to do the menial work. The men alternated between the excited activity of hunting or war, and the exhausted lassitude of satiety or peace. The characteristic laziness of primitive peoples had its origin, presumably, in this habit of slowly recuperating from the fatigue of battle or the chase; it was not so much laziness as rest. To transform this spasmodic activity into regular work two things were needed: the routine of tillage, and the organization of labour.

Such organization remains loose and spontaneous where men are working for themselves; where they work for others, the organization of labour depends in the last analysis upon force. The rise of agriculture and the inequality of men led to the employment of the socially weak by the socially strong; not till then did it occur to the victor in war that the only good prisoner is a live one. Butchery and cannibalism lessened, slavery grew.  It was a great moral improvement when men ceased to kill or eat their fellowmen, and merely made them slaves. A similar development on a larger scale may be seen today, when a nation victorious in war no longer exterminates the enemy, but enslaves it with indemnities. Once slavery had been established and had proved profitable, it was extended by condemning to it defaulting debtors and obstinate criminals, and by raids undertaken specifically to capture slaves. War helped to make slavery, and slavery helped to make war.

Probably it was through centuries of slavery that our race acquired its traditions and habits of toil. No one would do any hard or persistent work if he could avoid it without physical, economic or social penalty. Slavery became part of the discipline by which man was prepared for industry. Indirectly it furthered civilization, in so far as it increased wealth and for a minority created leisure. After some centuries men took it for granted; Aristotle argued for slavery as natural and inevitable, and St. Paul gave his benediction to what must have seemed, by his time, a divinely ordained institution.

Gradually, through agriculture and slavery, through the division of labor and the inherent diversity of men, the comparative equality of natural society was replaced by inequality and class divisions. “In the primitive group we find as a rule no distinction between slave and free, no serfdom, no caste, and little if any distinction between chief and followers.”  Slowly the increasing complexity of tools and trades subjected the unskilled or weak to the skilled or strong; every invention was a new weapon in the hands of the strong, and further strengthened them in their mastery and use of the weak. ( So in our time that Mississippi of inventions which we call the Industrial Revolution has enormously intensified the natural inequality of men. ) .Inheritance added superior opportunity to superior possessions, and stratified once homogeneous societies into a maze of classes and castes. Rich and poor became disruptively conscious of wealth and poverty; the class war began to run as a red thread through all history; and the state arose as an indispensable instrument for the regulation of classes, the protection of property, the waging of war, and the organization of peace.

REFERENCES:

BRIFFAULT, ROBERT: The Mothers. 3V. New York, 1927.

BUCHER, KARL: Industrial Evolution. New York, 1901.

HOBHOUSE, L.T.: Morals in Evolution. New York, 1916.

KROPOTKIN,PETER.: Mutual Aid. New YORK 1917

LIPPERT, JULIUS: Evolution of Culture. New York, 1931.

LUBBOCK, SIR JOHN: The Origin of Civilization. London, 1912.

MASON, O. T.: Origins of Invention. New York, 1899.

SUMNER, W. G. and KELLER, A. G.: Science of Society. 3V. New Haven, 1928.

WILL DURANT: Our Oriental Heritage. Simon and Schuster. New York 1954

 

 

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

“In the whole world,” said Schopenhauer, “there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life it will be the solace of my death.” Here, excepting the moral fragments of Ptah-hotep, are the oldest extant philosophy and psychology of our race; the surprisingly subtle and patient effort of man to understand the mind and the world, and their relation. The Upanishads are as old as Homer, and as modern as Kant. The Upanishads form the core of Indian philosophy. They are an amazing collection of writings from original oral transmissions, which have been aptly described by Shri Aurobindo as “the supreme work of the Indian mind”. It is here that we find all the fundamental teachings that are central to Hinduism — the concepts of ‘ karma ‘ (action), ‘ samsara ‘ (reincarnation), ‘ moksha ‘ (nirvana), the ‘ atman ‘ (soul), and the ‘Brahman’ (Absolute Almighty). They also set forth the prime Vedic doctrines of self-realization,

Upanishad means the inner or mystic teaching. The word is composed of upa  near, and shad, to sit. From “sitting near” the teacher the term came to mean the secret or esoteric doctrine confided by the master to his best and favorite pupils.” In the quietude of the forest hermitages the Upanishad thinkers pondered on the problems of deepest concerns and communicated their knowledge to fit pupils near them. Samkara derives the word Upanishad as a substitute from the root sad, ‘to loosen.,’ ‘to reach’ or ‘to destroy’ with Upa and ni as prefixes and kvip as termination. If this determination is accepted, upanishad means brahma-knowledge by which ignorance is loosened or destroyed. The treatises that deal with brahma-knowledge are called the Upanishads and so pass for the Vedanta. The different derivations together make out that the Upanishads give us both spiritual vision and philosophical argument. There is a core of certainty which is essentially incommunicable except by a way of life. It is by a strictly personal effort that one can reach the truth.

The Upanishads more clearly set forth the prime Vedic doctrines like Self-realization, yoga and meditation, karma and reincarnation, which were hidden or kept veiled under the symbols of the older mystery religion. The older Upanishads are usually affixed to a particularly Veda, through a Brahmana or Aranyaka. The more recent ones are not. The Upanishads became prevalent some centuries before the time of Krishna and Buddha.

There are one hundred and eight of these discourses, composed by various saints and sages between 800 and 500 B.C. 97 They represent not a consistent system of philosophy, but the opinions, apergus and lessons of many men, in whom philosophy and religion were still fused in the attempt to understand and reverently unite with the simple and essential reality under-lying the superficial multiplicity of things. They are full of contradictions, and occasionally they anticipate all the wind of Hegelian verbiage,but they impress us as the profoundest thinking in the history of philosophy.

Out of the 108 Upanishads, only 13 have been commented upon by several Acharyas like Adi Shankaracharya. They are the Chandogya, Kena, Aitareya, Kaushitaki, Katha, Mundaka, Taittriyaka, Brihadaranyaka, Svetasvatara, Isa, Prasna, Mandukya and the Maitri Upanishads. These have also been popularized by many savants like Swami Vivekananda, Swami Chinmayananda etc. They all deal with highest category of philosophy and metaphysics. Because of this, there is a general impression that all Upanishads are texts of Hindu Philosophy. This is not true. There are Upanishads which even tell you how to wear the sacred ash, how to worship a particular God and so on. But the majority of them deal with methods of Yoga and Renunciation (Sanyasa).

We know the names of many of the authors,  but we know nothing of their lives except what they occasionally reveal in their teachings. The main figure in the Upanishads, though not present in many of them, is the sage Yajnavalkya. Most of the great teachings of later Hindu and Buddhist philosophy derive from him. He taught the great doctrine of “neti-neti”, the view that truth can be found only through the negation of all thoughts about it. Other important Upanishadic sages are Uddalaka Aruni, Shwetaketu, Shandilya, Aitareya, Pippalada, Sanat Kumara. Many earlier Vedic teachers like Manu, Brihaspati, Ayasya and Narada are also found in the Upanishads. These Indian thinkers were not satisfied with their intellectual speculations. They discovered that the universe remained a mystery and the mystery only deepened with the advance of such knowledge, and one of the important components of that deepening mystery is the mystery of man himself. The Upanishads became aware of this truth, which modern science now emphasizes. In the Upanishads we get a glimpse into the workings of the minds of the great Indian thinkers who were unhampered by the tyranny of religious dogma, political authority, pressure of public opinion, seeking truth with single-minded devotion, rare in the history of thought. As Max Muller has pointed out, “None of our philosophers, not accepting Heraclitus, Plato, Kant, or Hegel has ventured to erect such a spire, never frightened by storm or lightnings.”

The Vedas and Upanishads

The breakdown among the 108 Upanishads according to the 5 Vedas are as follows:

 

Name of Veda	No of Upanishads	Name of Upanishads
RIG VEDA	10	Akshamala, Atmabodha, Bahvracha, Kaushitaki ,Mudgala,Nadabindu, Nirvana ,Aitareya
SAMA VEDA	16	Avyakta, Arunika, Chhandogya, Jabaladarsana, Jabali, Kundika,Mahat, Maitrayani,Maitreyi, Rudrakshajabala,Sanyasa, Savitri, Vajrasuchi, Vasudeva,Yogachudamani, Kena
ATHARVA VEDA	31	Narada Parivrajaka,Ganapati,Annapurna Atharvasikha,Atharvasira,Atma,Bhasmajabala, Bhavana,Brahajjabala,Dattatreya,Devi, Garuda, Gopalatapini,Hayagriva,Krishna, Maandukya,Mahavakhya,Mundaka, Nrsimhatapini,Parabrah, Paramahamsaparivrajaka,Pasupatabrahma Ramarahasya, Ramatapini,Sandilya,Sarabha Sita, Surya,Tribadvibhutimahanarayana, Tripuratapini, Prasna
1.KRISHNA YAJUR VEDA                       2.SHUKLA YAJUR VEDA	32                       19	Avadhuta, Akshi,Amritabindhu, Amritanada Brahma, Brahmavidya,Dakshinamurti, Dhyanabindhu, Ekakshara,Garbha,Kaivalya Kalagnirudra, Kalisantarana, Katharudra Kshurika, Narayana, Panchabrahma, Pranaagnihotra, Skanda, Sarvasara, Katha Rudrahrudhaya,Sarasvatirahasya, Sariraka Sukharahasya,Svetasvatara,Taittiriya Tejobindhu,Varaha,Yogakundalini Yogasikha,Yogatattva     Yajnavalkya,Adhyatma,Advayataraka Bhikshuka, Brahadaranyaka, Hamsa,Jabala Mandalabrahmana, Mantrika, Muktika Niralamba, Paingala, ParamaHamsa, Subala Satyayani,Tarasara,Trisikhibrahmana Turiyatita, Isavasya

 

The Principal Upanishads are:

Chandogya Upanishad

The Chandogya Upanishad is the Upanishad that belongs to the followers of the Sama Veda. It is actually the last eight chapters of the ten-chapter Chandogya Brahmana , and it emphasizes the importance of chanting the sacred Aum , and recommends a religious life, which constitutes sacrifice, austerity, charity, and the study of the Vedas, while living in the house of a guru. Along with Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, the Chandogyopanishad is an ancient source of principal fundamentals for Vedanta philosophy. Considering the number of references made to this Upanishad in Brahma sutras, this Upanishad is given special importance in Vedanta philosophy. Important spiritual practices like Dahara Vidya and Shandilya Vidya are its speciality. This Upanishad contains the doctrine of reincarnation as an ethical consequence of  Karma . It also lists and explains the value of human attributes like speech, will, thought,  meditation , understanding, strength memory and hope.

Kena Upanishad

The Kena Upanishad derives its name from the word ‘Kena’, meaning ‘by whom’. . It belongs to the Talavakara Bahmana of Sama Veda and is therefore also referred to as Talavakara Upanishad.  It has four sections, the first two in verse and the other two in prose. The metrical portion deals with the Supreme Unqualified Brahman, the absolute principle underlying the world of phenomenon, and the prose part deals with the Supreme as God, ‘Isvara’. whom’In short, it says that “The One power that illumines everything and every one is indivisible. It is the Ear behind the ears, Mind behind the mind, Speech behind speech, the Vital Life behind life. The ears cannot hear it; it is what makes the ears hear. The eyes cannot see it; it is what makes the eyes see. You cannot speak about it; it is what makes you speak. The mind cannot imagine it; it is what makes the mind think. It is different from what all we know; yet it is not known either. Those who feel they know Him, know Him not. Those who know that anything amenable to the senses is not Brahman, they know it best. When it is known as the innermost witness of all cognitions, whether sensation, perception or thought, then it is known. One who knows thus reaches immortality.

The Kena Upanishad concludes, as Sandersen Beck puts it, that austerity, restraint, and work are the foundation of the mystical doctrine; the Vedas are its limbs, and truth is its home. The one who knows it strikes off evil and becomes established in the most excellent, infinite, heavenly world.

Aitareya Upanishad

The Aitareya Upanishad belongs to the Rig Veda, is one of the oldest of the Upanishads. It belongs to the Aitareya Aranyaka of the Rig Veda. It is divided into three chapters and contains thirty three verses. This Upanishad deals with the process of creation. It is the purpose of this Upanishad to lead the mind of the sacrificer away from the outer ceremonial to its inner meaning. It deals with the genesis of the universe and the creation of life, the senses, the organs and the organisms. It also tries to delve into the identity of the intelligence that allows us to see, speak, smell, hear and know.

Kaushitaki Upanishad

This Upanishad is taught by Sage Chithra to Sage Udhalaka and his son, Shwethakethu. It deals with the science of the soul. The temporary nature of rituals and good deeds and permanent nature of doing everything without desire is emphasized. It also tells the need for a father to give up all his personality and knowledge to his son and enter Sanyasa.

The Kaushitaki Upanishad explores the question whether there is an end to the cycle of reincarnation , and upholds the supremacy of the soul (‘atman’), which is ultimately responsible for everything it experiences.

Kathopanishad

Katha Upanishad, which belongs to the Yajur Veda, consists of two chapters, each of which has three sections. The Kathopanishad is divided into six Vallis. Valli literally means a creeper. A Valli, like a creeper, is attached to the Sakhas or Branches of the Veda. This Upanishad is also divided into two Adhyayas (chapters) of three Vallis each. This is one of the most beautiful Upanishads, in which the eternal truths are given in the form of a narrative. The narrative is taken from Taittiriya Brahmana (3-11-8), with some variations. It employs an ancient story from the Rig Veda about a father who gives his son to death (Yama), while bringing out some of the highest teachings of mystical spirituality. There are some passages common to the Gita and Katha Upanishad. Psychology is explained here by using the analogy of a chariot. The soul is the lord of the chariot, which is the body; the intuition is the chariot-driver, the mind the reins, the senses the horses, and the objects of the senses the paths. Those whose minds are undisciplined never reach their goal, and go on to reincarnate. The wise and the disciplined, it says, obtain their goal and are freed from the cycle of rebirth. The same story is told in the Taittiriya Brahmana, the only difference being that in the Brahmana, freedom from death and birth is obtained by a peculiar performance of a sacrifice, while in the Upanishad, it is obtained by knowledge only.

Mundaka Upanishad

The Mundaka Upanishad  is assigned to the Fourth Veda, the Atharvana. and has three chapters, each of which has two sections. The name is derived from the root ‘mund’ (to shave) as he that comprehends the teaching of the Upanishad is shaved or liberated from error and ignorance. This Upanishad begins with an Invocation that the eye may see auspicious things, the ear may hear auspicious sounds, and that life may be spent in the contemplation of the Lord. The teaching of this Upanishad is referred to as Brahmavidya, either because it describes first the message of Hiranyagarbha, the casual Brahma, or because the message relates the glory of Brahmam. Apart from this, this Upanishad is honoured as the crest of all, since it expounds the very essence of Brahma Jnana.

The Upanishad clearly states the distinction between the higher knowledge of the Supreme Brahman and the lower knowledge of the empirical world — the six ‘Vedangas’ of phonetics, ritual, grammar, definition, metrics, and astrology. It is by this higher wisdom and not by sacrifices or worship, which are here considered ‘unsafe boats’, that one can reach the Brahman. Like the Katha, the Mundaka Upanishad warns against “the ignorance of thinking oneself learned and going around deluded like the blind leading the blind”. Only an ascetic (‘sanyasi’) who has given up everything can obtain the highest knowledge. The teaching of this Upanishad is referred to as Brahmavidya, either because it describes first the message of Hiranyagarbha, the casual Brahma, or because the message relates the glory of Brahmam.. Apart from this, this Upanishad is honoured as the crest of all, since it expounds the very essence of Brahma Jnana.

Taittiriya Upanishad

The Taittireeya Upanishad belongs to the Taittireeya school of the Yajur Veda. It is divided into three sections called Vallis. The first is the Siksa Valli. Siksa is the first of the six Vedangas (limbs or auxiliaries of the Veda); it is the science of phonetics and pronunciation the second is the Brahmananda Valli  and the third third is the Bhrugu Valli, deal with the knowledge of the Supreme Self (‘Paramatmajnana’). Once again, here, Aum is emphasized as peace of the soul, and the prayers end with Aum and the chanting of peace (‘Shanti’) thrice, often preceded by the thought, “May we never hate.” There is a debate regarding the relative importance of seeking the truth, going through austerity and studying the Vedas. One teacher says truth is first, another austerity, and a third claims that study and teaching of the Veda is first, because it includes austerity and discipline. Finally, it says that the highest goal is to know the Brahman, for that is truth.

Svetasvatara Upanishad

This Upanishad is taught by a sage called Svetasvatara. Its main emphasis is on the teaching of Sankhya Yoga and the philosophy of illusion (Maya).The Svetasvatara Upanishad derives its name from the sage who taught it. It is theistic in character and identifies the Supreme Brahman with Rudra ( Shiva ) who is conceived as the author of the world, its protector and guide. The emphasis is not on Brahman the Absolute, whose complete perfection does not admit of any change or evolution, but on the personal ‘Isvara’, omniscient and omnipotent who is the manifested Brahma. This Upanishad teaches the unity of the souls and world in the one Supreme Reality. It is an attempt to reconcile the different philosophical and religious views, which prevailed at the time of its composition.

Isavasya Upanishad

It is a very succinct summary of Indian philosophy that explains life itself.The Isavasya Upanishad derives its name from the opening word of the text ‘Isavasya’ or ‘Isa’, meaning ‘Lord’ that encloses all that moves in the world. Greatly revered, this short Upanishad is often put at the beginning of the Upanishads, and marks the trend toward monotheism in the Upanishads. Its main purpose is to teach the essential unity of God and the world, being and becoming. It is interested not so much in the Absolute in itself (‘Parabrahman’) as in the Absolute in relation to the world (‘Paramesvara’). It says that renouncing the world and not coveting the possessions of others can bring joy. The Isha Upanishad concludes with a prayer to Surya (sun) and Agni (fire).

Prasna Upanishad

The Prashna Upanishad belongs to the Atharva Veda and has six sections dealing with six questions or ‘Prashna’ put to a sage by his disciples. In Sanskrit, Prashna means ‘question’. This book consists of six questions and their answers. It is in a question-answer format. The questions are: From where are all the creatures born? How many angels support and illumine a creature and which is supreme? What is the relationship between the life-breath and the soul? What are sleep, waking, and dreams? What is the result of meditating on the word Aum? What are the sixteen parts of the Spirit? This Upanishad answers all these six vital questions. Except the first and last questions, all other questions are actually a group of smaller sub-questions. As narrated in the beginning of this Upanishad, six pupils interested in knowing divinity or Brahman come to the sage Pippalada and ask questions of great spiritual importance. Pippalada asks them to take up a penance of one year. Upon completion of the penance, they again come to the sage and ask questions, and then the sage answers their questions.

Mandukya Upanishad

According to Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, in this Upanishad, we find the fundamental approach to the attainment of reality by the road of introversion and ascent from the sensible and changing, through the mind which dreams, through the soul which thinks, to the divine within but above the soul.The Mandukya Upanishad belongs to the Atharva Veda and is an exposition of the principle of Aum as consisting of three elements, a, u, m, which may be used to experience the soul itself. It contains twelve verses that delineate four levels of consciousness: waking, dreaming, deep sleep, and a fourth mystical state of being one with the soul. This Upanishad by itself, it is said, is enough to lead one to liberation. The Muktikopanishad, which talks about all other Upanishads, says that if a person cannot afford to study all the hundred and more Upanishads, it will be enough to read just the Māndūkya Upanishad.

Maitri Upanishad

The Maitri Upanishad is the last of what are known as the principal Upanishads. This Upanishad tells us about the penance of a king called Brahadratha. The king asked the sage Sakanya about the feeling of desire in this meaningless world. Sage Sakanya relates to him what had been told to him by Sage Maithreya. He teaches him the great science of Brahma Vidya. Finally he tells him that the mind and illusion are responsible for this contradiction.

It recommends meditation upon the soul (‘atman’) and life (‘prana’). It says that the body is like a chariot without intelligence but it is driven by an intelligent being, who is pure, tranquil, breathless, selfless, undying, unborn, steadfast, independent and endless. The charioteer is the mind, the reins are the five organs of perception, the horses are the organs of action, and the soul is unmanifest, imperceptible, incomprehensible, selfless, steadfast, stainless and self-abiding.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad means the “great forest-book”. This Upanishad is one of the oldest of all the Upanishads. It consists of three sections or kandas: the Madhu kanda, the Yajnavalkya or the Muni kanda and the Khila kanda.

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which is generally recognized to be the most important of the Upanishads, consists of three sections (‘Kandas’), the Madhu Kanda which expounds the teachings of the basic identity of the individual and the Universal Self, the Muni Kanda which provides the philosophical justification of the teaching and the Khila Kanda, which deals with certain modes of worship and meditation, (‘upasana’), hearing the ‘upadesha’ or the teaching (‘sravana’), logical reflection (‘manana’), and contemplative meditation (‘nididhyasana’). Here the Brahman is portrayed as universal and undifferentiated consciousness. The doctrine of the indescribability of the absolute and the doctrine of ‘Neti, Neti’ are explained. This Upanishad concludes by stating the three virtues that one should practice, i.e. self-restraint, giving, and compassion.  T.S.Eliot’s  landmark work The Waste Landends with the reiteration of the three cardinal virtues from this Upanishad: ‘Damyata’ (restraint), ‘Datta’ (charity) and ‘Dayadhvam’ (compassion) followed by the blessing ‘Shantih shantih shantih’, that Eliot himself translated as “the peace that passeth understanding.”

Bertrand Russell rightly said: “Unless men increase in wisdom as much as in knowledge, increase in knowledge will be increase in sorrow.” While the Greeks and the others specialized in the subject of man in society, India specialized in man in depth, man as the individual, as Swami Ranganathananda puts it. This was one ruling passion of the Indo-Aryans in the Upanishads. The great sages of the Upanishads were concerned with man above and beyond his political or social dimensions. It was an inquiry, which challenged not only life but also death and resulted in the discovery of the immortal and the divine self of man.

The most vivid figure Yajnavalkya, the man, and Gargi, the woman who has the honor of being among the earliest of philosophers. Of the two, Yajnavalkya has the sharper tongue. His fellow teachers looked upon him as a dangerous innovator; his posterity made his doctrine the cornerstone of unchallengeable orthodoxy. 101 He tells us how he tried to leave his two wives in order to become a hermit sage; and in the plea of his wife Maitreyi that he should take her with him, we catch some feeling of the intensity with which India has for thousands of years pursued religion and philosophy.

The theme of the Upanishads is all the mystery of this unintelligible world. “Whence are we born, where do we live, and whither do we go? O ye who know Brahman, tell us at whose command we abide here. . . . Should time, or nature, or necessity, or chance, or the elements be considered the cause, or he who is called Purusha” the Supreme Spirit?  India has had more than her share of men who wanted “not millions, but answers to their questions.” In the Maitri Upanishad we read of a king abandoning his kingdom and going into the forest to practice austerities, clear his mind for understanding, and solve the riddle of the universe. After a thousand days of the king’s penances a sage, “knower of the soul,” came to him. “You are one who knows its true nature,” says the king;

“do you tell us.” “Choose other desires,” warns the sage. But the king insists; and in a passage that must have seemed Schopenhauerian to Schopenhauer, he voices that revulsion against life, that fear of being reborn, which runs darkly through all Hindu thought:

“Sir, in this ill-smelling, unsubstantial body, which is a conglomerate of bone, skin, muscle, marrow, flesh, semen, blood, mucus, tears, rheum, feces, urine, wind, bile and phlegm, what is the good of en- joyment of desire? In this body, which is afflicted with desire, anger, covetousness, delusion, fear, despondency, envy, separation from the desirable, union with the undesirable, hunger, thirst, senility, death, disease, sorrow and the like, what is the good of enjoyment of desires? And we see that this whole world is decaying like these gnats, these mosquitoes, this grass, and these trees that arise and perish. . . . Among other things there is the drying up of great oceans, the falling-away of mountain-peaks, the deviation of the fixed pole- star, … the submergence of the earth. … In this sort of cycle of existence what is the good of enjoyment of desires, when, after a man has fed upon them, there is seen repeatedly his return here to the earth?”

The first lesson that the sages of the Upanishads teach their selected pupils is the inadequacy of the intellect. How can this feeble brain, that aches at a little calculus, ever hope to understand the complex immensity of which it is so transitory a fragment? Not that the intellect is useless; it has its modest place, and serves us well when it deals with relations and things; but how it falters before the eternal, the infinite, or the elementally real! In the presence of that silent reality which supports all appearances, and wells up in all consciousness, we need some other organ of perception and understanding than these senses and this reason. “Not by learning is the Atman (or Soul of the World) attained, not by genius and much knowledge of books. . . . Let a Brahman renounce learning and become as a child. Let him not seek after many words, for that is mere weariness of tongue.”  The highest understanding, as Spinoza was to say, is direct perception, immediate insight; it is, as Bergson would say, intuition, the inward seeing of the mind that has deliberately closed, as far as it can, the portals of external sense. “The self-evident Brahman pierced the openings of the senses so that they turned outwards; therefore man looks outward, not inward into himself; some wise man, however, with his eyes closed and wishing for immortality, saw the self behind.”

If, on looking inward, a man finds nothing at all, that may only prove the accuracy of his introspection; for no man need expect to find the eternal in himself if he is lost in the ephemeral and particular. Before that inner reality can be felt one has to wash away from himself all evil doing and thinking, all turbulence of body and soul.  For a fortnight one must fast, drinking only water;  then the mind, so to speak, is starved into tranquillity and silence, the senses are cleansed and stilled, the spirit is left at peace to feel itself and that great ocean of soul of which it is a part; at last the individual ceases to be, and Unity and Reality appear. For it is not the individual self which the seer sees in this pure inward seeing; that individual self is but a series of brain or mental states, it is merely the body seen from within. What the seeker seeks is Atman the Self of all selves, the Soul of all souls, the immaterial, formless Absolute in which we bathe ourselves when we forget ourselves.

This, then, is the first step in the Secret Doctrine: that the essence of our own self is not the body, or the mind, or the individual ego, but the silent and formless depth of being within us, Atman.

The second step is Brahman, ( Brahman as here used, meaning the impersonal Soul of the World, is to be distinguished from the more personal Brahma, member of the Hindu triad of gods (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva); and from Brahman as denoting a member of the priestly caste. The distinction, however, is not always carried out, and Brahma is sometimes used in the sense of Brahman. Brahman as God will be distinguished in these pages from Brahman as priest by being italicized.) the one pervading, neuter, i(The Hindu thinkers are the least anthropomorphic of all religious philosophers. Even in the later hymns of the Rig-veda the Supreme Being is indifferently referred to as be or it, to show that it is above sex.)impersonal, all-embracing, under- lying, intangible essence of the world, the “Real of the Real,” “the unborn Soul, undecaying, undying,”" the Soul of all Things as Atman is the Soul of all Souls; the one force that stands behind, beneath and above all forces and all gods.

The third step is the most important of all: Atman and “Brahman are one. The (non-individual) soul or force within us is identical with the impersonal Soul of the World. The Upanishads burn this doctrine into the pupil’s mind with untiring, tiring repetition. Behind all forms and veils the subjective and the objective are one; we, in our de-individualized reality, and God as the essence of all things, are one. A teacher expresses it in a famous parable:

“Bring hither a fig from there.”

“Here it is, Sir.”

“Divide it.”

“It is divided, Sir.”

“What do you see there?”

“These rather fine seeds, Sir.”

“Of these please divide one.”

“It is divided, Sir.”

“What do you see there?”

“Nothing at all, Sir.”

“Verily, my dear one, that finest essence which you do not perceive verily from that finest essence this great tree thus arises. Believe me, my dear one, that which is the finest essence this whole

world has that as its soul. That is Reality. That is Atman. Tattvam asi that art thou, Shwetaketu.”

“Do you, Sir, cause me to understand even more.”

“So be it, my dear one.”

This almost Hegelian dialectic of Atman, Brahman and their synthesis is the essence of the Upanishads. Many other lessons are taught here, but they are subordinate. We find already, in these discourses, the belief in transmigration, (It occurs first in the Satapatha Upanishad, where repeated births and deaths are viewed as a punishment inflicted by the gods for evil living. Most primitive tribes believe that the soul can pass from a man to an animal and vice versa; probably this idea became, in the pre-Aryan inhabitants of India, the basis of the transmigration creed.)and the longing for release (Moksha) from this heavy chain of reincarnations. Janaka, King of the Videhas, begs Yajnavalkya to tell him how rebirth can be avoided. Yajnavalkya answers by expounding Yoga: through the ascetic elimination of all personal desires one may cease to be an individual fragment, unite himself in supreme bliss with the Soul of the World, and so escape rebirth. Whereupon the king, metaphysically overcome, says: “I will give you, noble Sir, the Videhas, and myself also to be your slave.”" It is an abstruse heaven, however, that Yajnavalkya promises the devotee, for in it there will be no individual consciousness,” there will only be absorption into Being, the reunion of the temporarily separated part with the Whole. “As flowing rivers disappear in the sea, losing their name and form, thus a wise man, freed from name and form, goes to the divine person who is beyond all.”

Such a theory of life and death will not please Western man, whose religion is as permeated with individualism as are his political and economic institutions. But it has satisfied the philosophical Hindu mind with astonishing continuity. We shall find this philosophy of the Upanishadsthis monistic theology, this mystic and impersonal immortality dominating Hindu thought from Buddha to Gandhi, from Yajnavalkya to Tagore. To our own day the Upanishads have remained to India what the New Testament has been to Christendom a noble creed occasionally practised and generally revered. Even in Europe and America this wistful theosophy has won millions upon millions of followers, from lonely women and tired men to Schopenhauer and Emerson. Who would have thought that the great American philosopher of individualism would give perfect expression to the Hindu conviction that individuality ‘is a delusion?

Brahma

If the red slayer thinks he slays,

Or if the slain thinks he is slain,

They know not well the subtle ways

I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;

Shadow and sunlight are the same;

The vanished gods to me appear;

And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;

When me they fly I am the wings;

I am the doubter and the doubt,

And I the hymn the Brahman sings.

The Upanishads gave a permanent orientation to Indian culture by their emphasis on inner penetration and their wholehearted advocacy of what the Greeks later formulated in the dictum “man, know thyself.” All subsequent developments of Indian culture were powerfully conditioned by this Upanishadic legacy.

REFERANCES:

CHATTER ji, JAGADISH G: India’s Outlook on Life. New York, 1930

CHATTERJI, JAGADISH C.: The Hindu Realism. Allahabad, 1912.

DEUSSEN, PAUL: System of the Vedanta. Chicago, 1912.

DEUSSEN, PAUL: The Philosophy of the Upanishads. Edinburgh, 1919.

HUME, R. E., ed.: The Thirteen Principal Upanishads. Oxford U. P., 1921.

MULLER MAX: Six Systems of Indian Philosophy. London, 1919.

MULLER, MAX: India: What Can It Teach Us? London, 1919.

RADAKRISHNAN, S.: Indian Philosophy. 2vo. Macmillan, New York, n.d.

RADAKRISHNAN, S.: The Hindu View of Life. London, 1928.

WILL DURANT: Our Oriental Heritage. Simon and Schuster. New York 1954

WINTERNITZ, M.: History of Indian Literature. Vol. I. Calcutta, 1927.