Education During the Medieval Period in India: An Overview

When the Muslim rulers established their rule across the Indian subcontinent – from the early Delhi Sultanate through the height of the Mughal Empire – they did not merely reshape politics and architecture. They fundamentally reorganized how, where, and to whom knowledge was transmitted. The medieval period in India (roughly the 10th century to the mid-18th century) saw two distinct educational traditions – Islamic and Hindu – operating side by side, sometimes in conflict, sometimes in conversation. Understanding the structure of education during this era helps us trace how formal learning evolved, who it served, and who it left behind.

The institutional framework: how education was organized 🔗

During the medieval period, the education system was broadly divided into two tiers: primary education and higher education. This division was formalized through distinct types of institutions, each with its own purpose, funding model, and curriculum. Four major types of educational spaces coexisted: maktabs, madrasas, pathshalas, and vidyapeeths. Together, they formed the structural backbone of learning in medieval India.

It is important to note that education during this period was not a state subject in any modern sense. Elementary education was provided in temples and mosques, and the functioning of these institutions depended on donations from rulers, wealthy individuals, and community donors. There was no centralized administration of education – each institution was largely autonomous and self-managing.

Maktabs: the elementary schools of Islamic education 🔗

Muslim rulers promoted urban education by founding primary schools called maktabs, where children learned reading, writing, and basic Islamic prayers. These were the entry point into formal learning for Muslim children and were widespread – almost every village had at least one maktab, and towns and cities often had several.

Maktabs were typically attached to mosques or operated independently, sometimes within the homes of learned scholars or near the hospices of Sufi saints. The maktabs were generally run by public donations, and their curriculum focused on basic literacy – reading and writing in Persian and Arabic – alongside arithmetic and Quranic instruction. Wooden boards called taktis were used in the absence of printed books, and beautiful handwriting (calligraphy) was considered an independent and valued element of instruction. Students also memorized multiplication tables, reciting them aloud collectively.

One notable feature highlighted by Britannica is that in maktabs and madrasas alike, all students were considered equal – the principle was established that the poor should also be educated. This was a meaningful departure from the rigid caste-based restrictions that governed access to Hindu education at the time.

Madrasas: higher learning under royal patronage 🔗

While maktabs provided elementary instruction, madrasas functioned as secondary schools and centres of higher learning, teaching advanced language skills and a broader range of subjects. Unlike maktabs, which depended on community donations, madrasas were maintained by rulers and nobles, giving them greater resources and institutional stability.

Several categories of madrasas existed: those run by the state, those founded by individual scholars with royal support, those attached to mosques or tombs, and those linked to Sufi hospices. Among the most renowned were the Muizzi, the Nasiri, and the Firuzi madrasas in Delhi, and Abul Fazl’s madrasa in Fatehpur Sikri.

The curriculum of the madrasas was structured around two broad categories of knowledge: Manqulat (transmitted sciences, covering history and law) and Maqulat (rational sciences, covering mathematics and medicine). The Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi records a list of 14 subjects taught in the madrasas, reflecting a curriculum that extended well beyond pure theology. A key development during this period was the Dars-i-Nizamiya curriculum, developed by Mullah Nizamuddin, which combined traditional religious studies with Greek philosophy and rational sciences. This program emphasized logic and remained an influential model of Islamic education across the subcontinent for centuries.

Pathshalas and vidyapeeths: the continuation of Hindu learning 🔗

While Islamic educational institutions expanded under Mughal patronage, Hindu systems of education did not disappear – they continued to function, though with significantly reduced state support. With the advent of Muslim rule, state support for the Hindu system of education almost ended, and it came to depend upon wealthy individuals, scholars, and village communities.

Pathshalas served as the primary schools for Hindu children, operating in the verandahs of homes, under trees, or within temple premises. They taught reading, writing, arithmetic, Hindu mythology, and Sanskrit grammar. No regular fees were charged. Vidyapeeths and tols functioned as higher centres of brahmanical learning, focusing on the Vedas, Upanishads, traditional sciences such as mathematics (ganita), astronomy (jyotisha), and medicine (ayurveda), as well as various schools of Indian philosophy.

One important cultural outcome of the parallel existence of both systems – the Hindu pathshalas where Sanskrit was the medium of instruction, and the maktabs where Persian was the medium – was the gradual emergence of Urdu as a new language, written in Persian script but drawing heavily on Arabic, Persian, and local vocabularies.

Curriculum development under the Mughals 🔗

The Mughal period marked a significant phase in the elaboration of the curriculum. Early rulers focused primarily on religious content, but over time, rational and secular subjects gained ground. The Mughal emperor Humayun introduced the study of mathematics, astronomy, and geography in the madrasas in Delhi, signaling a gradual shift toward a more diverse academic programme.

It was, however, Emperor Akbar (1556-1605) who brought the most deliberate and far-reaching reforms. Akbar opened a large number of schools and colleges for Muslims as well as Hindus throughout his empire, and introduced curricular changes based on students’ individual needs and the practical necessities of life. His minister Abul Fazl documented these reforms in the Ain-i-Akbari, noting the structured progression of learning: students began with alphabets, moved to words, and then to sentences, with discipline and teacher-student relationships carefully maintained.

Akbar revised the educational curriculum to include secular subjects such as agriculture, geometry, astronomy, government administration, logic, and history, alongside moral and religious instruction. He introduced the teaching of Hindu religion and philosophy in many madrasas, a move that was resisted by orthodox sections of society but reflected his broader policy of cultural integration. Under Akbar’s rule, the education system adopted an inclusive approach, encouraging courses in medicine, agriculture, geography, and texts from various languages and religions, including Patanjali’s work in Sanskrit.

Akbar also established a workshop (karkhana) near his palace where students could receive vocational and technical training – an early acknowledgment that education needed to be connected to productive skills. Vocational education more broadly was imparted through apprenticeship, either in the homes of ustads (master teachers) or in karkhanas (manufacturing centres).

Teaching methods and pedagogical practices 🔗

Across both Islamic and Hindu institutions, oral methods dominated. In maktabs, teaching primarily took place through oral methods and memorization of the assigned lesson. Students were expected to recite and commit large portions of text to memory – from Quranic verses to mathematical tables to Sanskrit shlokas. Written instruction was limited, partly due to the absence of printed books.

In higher institutions, advanced learning involved studying primary texts alongside layers of scholarly commentaries, followed by dialectical reasoning and debate – particularly in philosophy, jurisprudence, and theology. Scholars who demonstrated mastery could receive royal patronage, prestigious titles, and positions in the state administration, including roles as judges, ministers, and teachers. The relation between teachers and students was generally cordial, and instruction was often provided free of charge.

Access to education: who was included and who was not 🔗

Despite the visible expansion of educational institutions during the medieval period, access remained sharply unequal. Education was largely limited to the Hindu and Muslim elite classes. Several overlapping barriers structured this inequality.

Religion and caste were the most significant dividing lines. Maktabs and madrasas primarily served Muslim communities. Among Hindus, formal education in pathshalas was largely restricted to the upper castes, particularly Brahmins. Lower-caste communities had little access to formal instruction in either tradition. Geography also played a role: major educational institutions were concentrated in urban centres, leaving rural populations with at best a local maktab or pathshala with limited resources.

Women’s education was particularly constrained. During the Mughal period, girls received their education at home or in the house of a teacher living nearby. Special arrangements existed for the ladies of the royal household, and some princesses were distinguished scholars. The prevalence of the purdah system further restricted women’s access to formal institutions. Women from ordinary households – Hindu or Muslim – had virtually no access to structured education. Notable exceptions existed within royal circles: Princess Gul Badan authored the Humayun-Nama, and Salima Sultana was a recognized Persian poet – but these were privileges of birth, not educational equity.

It is also worth noting that after Akbar’s death, his successors Jahangir and Shah Jahan broadly continued his educational policies. However, Aurangzeb (1618-1707) reversed course – in 1669, he ordered provincial governors to destroy Hindu schools and temples within their jurisdiction, while simultaneously supporting Muslim education with intensified religious focus. This reversal significantly narrowed the brief period of relative openness that Akbar’s reign had represented.

The broader significance of medieval education 🔗

The medieval period in Indian education was one of structural elaboration – new institutions were built, curricula were expanded, and the relationship between religious and rational knowledge was actively debated. The Mughal emperors constructed madrasas throughout India because they believed education should be the state’s responsibility – a principle that, however imperfectly realized, represented a meaningful shift in how rulers understood their role in knowledge transmission.

At the same time, the period reveals persistent tensions between inclusion and exclusion, between reform and orthodoxy, and between the two parallel educational traditions that coexisted on the subcontinent. Akbar’s reforms stand out as a genuine – if incomplete – attempt to bridge these divides. The structural foundations laid during this era, both the institutions and the debates they generated, would shape the landscape that British colonial administrators encountered when they began reorganizing Indian education in the 19th century.

What do you think? Akbar’s attempts to introduce secular and rational subjects into the curriculum were resisted by orthodox sections of society – does this tension between tradition and reform in education feel familiar in today’s context? And given that women’s education in the medieval period was almost entirely determined by birth and class, how much has the relationship between social privilege and educational access truly changed?

References

1. https://www.ijrar.org/papers/IJRAR19D1183.pdf
2. https://www.britannica.com/topic/education/The-Mughal-period
3. http://www.vkmaheshwari.com/WP/?p=512
4. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328872671_Education_in_the_Medieval_Period
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_Indian_subcontinent
6. https://prepp.in/news/e-492-integration-of-social-reforms-during-mughals-medieval-india-history-notes
7. https://www.studocu.com/in/document/the-oxford-educational-institutions/legal-jurisprudence/educationinthe-medieval-period-paper-5/31332179
8. https://www.21kschool.com/us/blog/development-of-education-in-india/
9. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370340194_Madrasah_education_under_muslim_rulers_in_India_A_study_of_mughal_emperor