The curse of Rishi Agatsya forces Shreeshaktiswar to forget his beloved for thousands of years and take birth on earth as the student of Parshuram, Vedant-avatar Bhargav.
To bring her beloved back, Harihareshwari also takes her first Manav-avatar of...
Maharani Brahmavani entered her room after a long day of teaching at Shardapeeth Vishwavidyalay. And all her tiredness went away the moment she saw her daughter reading the Vedas in her room.
A smile appeared on her face, it delighted her immensely seeing her daughter take so interest in education. She was yet to be 11 but had attained the knowledge of the first three Vedas, and has started studying the last of them Atharvaveda.
A good proportion of the credit for her immense knowledge at such a young age lies partially to her mother, who since childhood instead of reciting made up bedtime stories, recited the shlokas of Vedas to her.
It is true that mother is the first Guru of the child, and Brahmavani took that role very seriously.
"Putri ?" She approached her daughter.
"Pranaam Mata." Vidyashree greeted looking up with her smiling face.
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Whenever her mother used to come back from Shardapeeth Vishwavidyalay, Vidyashree would get extremely excited because it meant that it's time for her to study Vedas which quenched her curiosity about the world.
Being the princess she wasn't regularly allowed to go outside, due to the fear that people desiring a glimpse of her would create a stampede. Another reason was that they live in Kashmirpur, where the cold weather is no joke.
Thus her only source of knowledge about this world and beyond were the Vedas.
"Aaj mere aane se pehle hi Atharvaveda ka adhyayan karne lagi ?" Brahmavani smiled.
"Aapko aane mei der ho rahi thi toh socha kal jitna padha tha uska punah adhyayan karlu." Vidyashree said.
Brahmavani smiled as she lovingly cupped the face of her dear daughter, her ambition to learn delighted her the most.
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"Aaj Shaashtraath hetu kuch Rishi aur Pandit aaye the putri, mai nirnayak ki bhoomika nibha rahi thi." Brahmavani said.
"Shaashtraath mei toh atyant gyaan praapt hota hoga." Vidyashree said.
"Hota hai. Jab tum Vedo ka sampoorn gyaan prapt karlogi putri, toh mai tumhe Shaashtraath mei apne saath awashya le jayungi." Brahmavani said.
"Uchit hai." Vidyashree smiled.
"Toh chalo, aaj ka paath shuru karte hai." Brahmavani said and Vidyashree nodded.
On the other side, underneath the full moon in the Kailashnathar temple of Kanchi, the astronomy class was going on. Students together were practicing to calculate various positions of Nakshatras and planets.
Pandit Padmamukh solved doubts of few students, but his attention was at his son Bhargav who was sitting alone and away from everyone, doing the astronomical calculations by himself.
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He was well versed in Vedas and was easily the foremost of the students in Kailashnathar, maybe even in the whole city of Kanchi. And in terms of astronomy, there was no one who could rival him in the entire Bharatvarsh, that was for sure.
His education wasn't the matter of worry for Padmamukh, he himself along with other foremost teachers had taught everything they knew to Bhargav.
Padmamukh's only worry was how distant he remained to other students, Bhargav was never the first to make a conversation and avoided getting into one. But the times when he did talk to other students he tried to finish it the soon he can.
Soon all the students gave in their astronomical calculations to Padmamukh, he checked their work, pointed out few mistakes of few while praised the accuracy of others.
Except Bhargav all the students had given their work, Padmamukh was sure his son was either trying to calculate something more complex, that might've caught his eyes in the night sky. Or maybe he was practicing to calculate the same thing again and again, to make sure he becomes well versed in that.
"Aaj ki kaksha yahi samapt." Padmamukh said.
The students thanked Padmamukh and started leaving, but Bhargav was unbothered and too immersed in his astronomical calculations. Suddenly a few students approached him.
"Bhargav, kaksha khatam ho gayi hai. Humare saath bhojan hetu chaloge ?" One student asked.
"Nahi Mitro tum jao. Mai thoda aur abhyas karunga." Bhargav said.
"Jaisa tum chaho." The students went away, they were well aware of his introverted nature hence didn't force him.
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Let's talk about Vedic education or Gurukul system, so you guys easily get what is happening in the story.
In Vedic era education was largely centred around temples. Temples at village level would provide basic education like reading, writing, basic mathematics, sanskrit and mother tongue.
While bigger temples in cities, which were at least 2-3 in the entire Kingdom, like Kailashnathar temple shown here, would provide higher education of Vedas, 64 kalas and numerous other subjects along with weaponry.
Higher education like this could also be provided in Ashrams, Viharas and Mahaviras, like Pushpagiri in Odisha.
And if you want to pursue even highter then at the top level were Universities which were atleast 1-2 in entire Kingdom. Like Shardapeeth as shown here, then we had universities in Takshashila, Nalanda, Vikramshila, Udantapuri, Mithila etc. All over India we had such universities.
And there was no caste discrimination or gender discrimination ! Brahmin and Shudra students would sit together and study ! Girls and boys would study the same curriculum in the same room by the same teacher !
The only hurdle to enter was your intellect, if you can pass the test to enter that specific Gurukul or University, then no one can stop you.
And what was the cost of education ? It was free ! The entire Gurukul system from temples to ashrams to univerties were funded by the kings. The living cost, food, maintenance, salary of teachers etc everything was funded by the state.
It is said that where there is no free education or healthcare, it shows degradation in society.
