There are a number of important reports on such institutions in the nineteenth century, the best known being Adam's reports on Bengal (discussed by DiBona and by Baber) and Leitner for the Panjab and Parulekar for Bombay.  There are important reports too by Campbell, Thornton, Parulekar, Hunter and others. Ward talks about Benares.  I found Whitehead a good overview

Adam, William. Adam’s Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengal and Behar, Submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838, with a Brief View of Its Past and Present Condition by …\ {J}{.} Long. Calcutta: Home Secretariat Press, 1868. https://tinyurl.com/ydraydyc.

Adam, Willam. Third Report on the State of Education in Bengal Including Some Account of the State of Education in Behar and a Consideration of the Means Adapted to the Improvement and Extension of Public Instruction in Both Provinces. Calcutta: G. H. Huttmann at Bengal Military Orphan Press, 1838. ark:/13960/t0vq2v92w

Baber, Zaheer. The Science of Empire: Scientific Knowledge, Civilization, and Colonial Rule in India. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

Campbell, A. D. (1833). “Report of A. D. Campbell, Esq.\ {t}{h}{e} Collector of Bellary, dated Bellary, August 17, 1823.” I. Public. Appendix to the Report from the Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East-India Company, 16th August 1832, and Minutes of Evidence, I. Public. Appendix to the Report from the Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East-India Company, 16th August 1832, and Minutes of Evidence, Vol. 2, pp. 351–356. The Honourable Court of Directors: London.

Dharampal. (2000). The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century. Collected Writings, Collected Writings, Reprint of 2nd ed. Mapusa, Goa: Other India Press. https://tinyurl.com/Dharampal1983

DiBona, Joseph E. One Teacher, One School: The Adam Reports on Indigenous Education in 19th Century India. New Delhi: Biblia Impex, 1983.

Gerow, E. (2002) “Primary Education in Sanskrit: Methods and Goals,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 122: 661–90. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3217609.

(Ed.)Hunter, W. W. (1882). Report of the Indian Education Commission. Calcutta: Government of India.

Leitner, G. W. (1882). History of Indigenous Education in the Panjab since Annexation and in 1882., 1 ed. Calcutta: Government printing.  https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.515365

Nurullah, S., & Naik, J. P. (1943). History of Education in India During the British Period. Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, London: Macmillan & Co.

Parulekar, R. V. (1951). Survey of Indigenous Education in the Province of Bombay (1820–1830)., 2 ed. Bombay: D. M. Desai at the Indian Institute of Education.

Protopapas, J. (1998). “Tradition in Transition: Sanskrit Education in Varanasi, India,” World and I, World and I, 13/9: 200.

Scharfe, H. (2002) Education in Ancient India, Handbook of Oriental Studies / Handbuch Der, Orientalistik. Leiden: Brill. Supersedes several earlier studies by Altekar etc

Thornton, R. (1850). Memoir on the Statistics of Indigenous Education within the North West Provinces of the Bengal Presidency. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press.

Ward, W. (1863). View of the History, Literature and Religion of the Hindoos: Including a Minute Description of Their Manners and Customs and Translations from Their Principal Works., 5 ed. Madras: Higginbotham.

Whitehead, Clive. “The Historiography of British Imperial Education Policy, Part I: India.” History of Education, History of Education, 34, no. 3 (2005): 315–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/00467600500065340.



On Sun, 6 Jun 2021 at 11:07, Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
Dear friends,

Might any of you be able to point me to good sociological or anthropological studies - or sound personal testimonies - of programs of study in traditional mathas and pathasalas? Or other institutionalized settings in which Sanskrit learning was cultivated?

I am not interested in work on renunciate communities that does not engage rather precisely with the question of formal education.

with thanks in advance,
Matthew

Matthew Kapstein
Directeur d'études, émérite
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris

Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
The University of Chicago

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