A Gurukul is a type of ancient Vedic school in India in which students go to the house of their teacher, or the guru, to live and study under his care. The students are all treated the same no matter what their social castes are or how elevated in society his family is. The students not only study, but also render menial services such as cleaning, washing clothes, collecting wood and water, etc. Even when Lord Krishna appeared on earth He underwent the same austerities while living at the house of His guru, Sandipani Muni, along with His elder brother Balaram in a place now known as Ujjain. The ashram is still there and millions of pilgrims go to visit this sacred place.
This system of education is the oldest on earth for it has existed since the dawn of Vedic civilization. According to modern chronology its roots can be traced back 10,000 years to the time of the ancient civilization. The curriculum ensures the development of the physical, mental and spiritual conditions of the student.
At the Gurukula, the student learns about self-development in all possible areas that he will go through different stages of life, such as householder life, professional life, etc. What is astonishing is that students also learn about ecology and world preservation for they become fully aware of self-sufficiency, farming and cow protection.
ISKCON Gurukul: Srila Prabhupada had a vision which is being accomplished by his disciples nowadays. This vision was to provide education not only to members of our society but to whoever interested in getting their children trained in the best possible environment for devotional service to the Lord. In our Krishna consciousness movement, the Gurukula plays an extremely important part in our activities, because right from childhood, the boys and girls are instructed about Krishna consciousness.
Thus they become steady in their pursuits in life and they are not prone to become materialists. Students learn to become Krishna conscious and live up to Brahminical standards. They become well conversant in the revealed scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam. While growing up, the students develop different qualities and as such they get to know to which social class they belong: brahmans, ksatriyas, vaisyas or sudras. The girls don’t go to gurukul. They stay at home and learn cooking, sewing, etc. They also learn dances such as kathak and Bharat Natyam. Girls are meant to be protected at every stage of their life and they are not the ones who run a family or who take the leading roles in society. That is one of the reasons why it is not necessary to send them to gurukul.
But nowadays in the ISKCON society there is gurukul for girls where training is given to them. This is because we have devotees all round the world and most of us don’t come from a family of vedic background. So the gurukul is there to give training to such children coming from these families.