Temple Colleges and Education

The temple Colleges played a very important role in education. But there were not so much evidence about Hindu temples. The early history is difficult to trace. Inscriptional records indicate these types of colleges started from the tenth century A.D. The name of some temple colleges are—Saltogi temple college, Ennāyiram temple college, Tirumukkudal temple college, Tiruvorraiyūr temple college^[1].These temple colleges were famous Centre of learning in tenth century A.D. The temple colleges were the residential colleges providing free boarding and lodging.These temple colleges functioned in a spacious hall specially built for the purpose for accommodating a large number of students. The local villagers also used to give endowment to the development of these temple colleges. The teachers were generally not receiving any fee from the student. Education was imparted by teacher in free of cost. But for their primary requirements like food, shelter and cloth, they receive some amount of fee from their students. The normal allowance for the teachers was about sixteen seers of rice per-day. Sometime king also give some allowances to these teachers. He was receiving this salary for his normal family responsibilities. For the development of society he dedicated his whole life. Owing to the spread of fame the college attracts students from distant part of the country. Like the other institution, these temples were also very famous and popular in those days. These temple colleges started imparting education in much earlier times but much evidence could not be traced out to this point^[2].