Indian knowledge system and role of gurukuls in advancing the indian knowledge and protecting environment

Abstract

The relationship between education, local environment and traditional knowledge has considerable significance in understanding sustainable human-environment interactions. The Gurukul tradition of India represents an important historical model in which learning was closely connected with everyday life, community practices, ethical values and the surrounding environment. Rather than treating education as an activity restricted to formal classrooms, the Gurukul approach emphasized learning through observation, participation, discipline, service and interaction with the social and natural surroundings. This paper examines the relationship between Gurukul education, local environmental settings and traditional knowledge from a geographical perspective. It explores how nature, local resources, community life and culturally transmitted knowledge could function as components of an integrated learning environment. The paper also discusses the contemporary relevance of such principles for environmental education, sustainability and place-based learning. A conceptual and literature-based methodology is adopted, drawing on scholarship concerning Gurukula education, traditional ecological knowledge, environmental education and sustainable development. The study argues that selected principles of the Gurukul tradition can inform contemporary place-based and experiential environmental education, provided they are critically adapted rather than romantically reproduced.

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