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This article is about the ancient town and university. For other uses, see Nalanda (disambiguation).
The stupa of Sariputta at Nalanda.
Nālandā is the name of an ancient university in Bihar, India.
The site of Nalanda is located in the Indian state of Bihar, about 55 miles south east of Patna, and was a Buddhist center of learning from 427 CE to 1197 CE partly under the Pala Empire.Altekar, Anant Sadashiv (1965). Education in Ancient India, Sixth, Varanasi: Nand Kishore & Bros."Really Old School," Garten, Jeffrey E. New York Times, December 9, 2006. It has been called "one of the first great universities in recorded history.""Really Old School," Garten, Jeffrey E. New York Times, December 9, 2006. Nalanda is located at . Nālanda was identified by Alexander Cunningham with the village of BaragaonCAGI. 537.
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The name is a Sanskrit word that means giver of knowledge, (possibly from nalam, lotus, a symbol of knowledge and da, to give).Tharoor, Shashi. Reconstructing Nalanda. The Hindu. Retrieved on February 5, 2007. The Chinese pilgrim-monk XuanzangBeal: op. cit., ii.167f gives several explanations of the name Nālandā. One is that it was named after the Nāga who lived in a tank in the middle of the mango grove. Another - and accepted by him - is that Shakyamuni Buddha once had his capital here and gave "alms without intermission," hence the name.
The Buddha is mentioned as having several times stayed at Nalanda. When he visited Nalanda he would usually reside in Pāvārika\'s mango grove, and while there he had discussions with Upāli-Gahapati and DīghatapassīS.ii.110; M.i.376ff., with KevattaD.i.211ff., and also several conversations with AsibandhakaputtaS. ii. 311 23.
The Buddha visited Nālandā during his last tour through Magadha, and it was there that Sariputta uttered his "lion\'s roar," affirming his faith in the Buddha, shortly before his deathD.ii.81f.; iii.99ff.; S.v.159ff.. The road from Rājagaha to Nālandā passed through AmbalatthikāD.ii.81; Vin.ii.287, and from Nālandā it went on to PātaligāmaD.ii.84. Between Rājagaha and Nālandā was situated the Bahuputta cetiyaS.ii.220.
According to the Kevatta SuttaDigha Nikaya.i.211, in the Buddha\'s time Nālandā was already an influential and prosperous town, thickly populated, though it was not until later that it became the centre of learning for which it afterwards became famous. There is a record in the Samyutta NikayaS.iv.322, of the town having been the victim of a severe famine during the Buddha\'s time. Sāriputta, the right hand disciple of the Buddha, was born and died in Nālandā.
Nālandā was the residence of SonnadinnāVvA.144. Mahavira is several times mentioned as staying at Nālandā, which was evidently a centre of activity of the Jains. Mahavira is believed to have attained Moksha at Pavapuri, which is located in Nalanda (also according to one sect of Jainism he was born in the nearby village called Kundalpur).[citation needed]
King Asoka (250 BC) is said to have built a temple there. According to Tibetan sources, Nagarjuna taught thereHopkins, Jeffrey (1996). Meditation on Emptiness, Wisdom Publications..
Historical studies indicate that the University of Nalanda was established 450 CE under the patronage of the Gupta emperors, notably Kumaragupta.
| Pilgrimage to Buddha\'s Holy Sites |
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| The Four Main Sites |
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| Lumbini · Bodh Gaya Sarnath · Kushinagar |
| Four Additional Sites |
| Sravasti · Rajgir Sankissa · Vaishali |
| Other Sites |
| Patna · Gaya Kosambi · Mathura Kapilavastu · Devadaha Kesariya · Pava Nalanda · Varanasi |
| Later Sites |
| Sanchi · Ratnagiri Ellora · Ajanta Bharhut |
Nalanda was one of the world\'s first residential universities, i.e., it had dormitories for students. In its heyday it accommodated over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers. The university was considered an architectural masterpiece, and was marked by a lofty wall and one gate. Nalanda had eight separate compounds and ten temples, along with many other meditation halls and classrooms. On the grounds were lakes and parks. The library was located in a nine storied building where meticulous copies of texts were produced. The subjects taught at Nalanda University covered every field of learning, and it attracted pupils and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey."Really Old School," Garten, Jeffrey E. New York Times, December 9, 2006. The Tang Dynasty Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang left detailed accounts of the university in the 7th century.
In an unattributed article of the Dharma Fellowship (2005), the curriculum of Nalanda University at the time of Mañjuśrīmitra contained:
...virtually the entire range of world knowledge then available. Courses were drawn from every field of learning, Buddhist and Hindu, sacred and secular, foreign and native. Students studied science, astronomy, medicine, and logic as diligently as they applied themselves to metaphysics, philosophy, Samkhya, Yoga-shastra, the Veda, and the scriptures of Buddhism. They studied foreign philosophy likewise.Dharma Fellowship (2005). Biographies: Majusrimitra Incarnation of Divine Wisdom. Source: [1] (accessed: November 15, 2007)
Berzin (2002) outlines the \'four systems of Buddhist tenets\' or \'four doxographies\' (Tibetan: grub-mtha’) taught at Nalanda, the Vaibhashika (Tibetan: bye-brag smra-ba) and Sautrantika (Tibetan: mdo-sde-pa) of the Sarvastivada (Tibetan: thams-cad yod-par smra-ba); and the Chittamatra (Sanskrit: sems-tsam-pa) and Madhyamaka (Tibetan: dbu-ma-pa) of the Mahayana:
In the Indian Mahayana Buddhist monasteries, such as Nalanda, monks studied four systems of Buddhist tenets. Two – Vaibhashika and Sautrantika – were subdivisions of the Sarvastivada school within Hinayana. The other two – Chittamatra and Madhyamaka – were subdivisions within Mahayana.Berzin, Alexander (2002). The Four Indian Buddhist Tenet Systems Regarding Illusion: A Practical Approach. Berlin, Germany. Source: [2] (accessed: January 2, 2008)
A vast amount of what is considered to be Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) actually stems from the late (9th-12th century) Nalanda teachers and traditions. The scholar Dharmakirti (circa 7th century), one of the Buddhist founders of Indian philosophical logic, as well as and one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism, taught at Nalanda.
Other forms of Buddhism, like the Mahayana followed in Vietnam, China, Korea and Japan, found their genesis within the walls of the ancient university.
Also Theravada Buddhism was taught at Nalanda University. But the teachings of Theravada were not developed further in Nalanda, as Nalanda was not a strong center of Theravada.
In 1193, the Nalanda University was sacked by Muslim armiesScott, David (May, 1995). "Buddhism and Islam: Past to Present Encounters and Interfaith Lessons". Numen 42 (2). under Bakhtiyar Khilji; this event is seen as a milestone in the decline of Buddhism in India. The Muslim invaders cared nothing for the university and the fact that it was a leading learning center. They also cared nothing for the numerous historic texts and scrolls in the university. When the Tibetan translator Chag Lotsawa visited them in 1235, he found it damaged and looted, but still functioning with a small number of monks.
Ahir considers the destruction of the temples, monasteries, centers of learning at Nalanda and northern India for the demise of ancient Indian scientific thought in mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, and anatomy.D. C. Ahir, Buddhism Declined in India: How and Why?, Delhi: B. R. Publishing, 2005. Ling and Scott, however, point out that centres of learning were already declining, before the presence of Muslims. Fortified Sena monasteries along the main route of the invasion were destroyed, and being off the main route both Nalanda and Bodh Gaya survived. Many institutions off the main route such as the Jagaddala Monastery in northern Bengal were untouched and flourishing.[citation needed]
A number of ruined structures survive. Nearby is the Surya Mandir, a Hindu temple. The known and excavated ruins extend over an area of about 150,000 square metres, although if Xuanzang\'s account of Nalanda\'s extent is correlated with present excavations, almost 90% of it remains unexcavated.
Nālandā is no longer inhabited. Today the nearest habitation is a village called Bargaon.
In 1951, a modern centre for Pali (Theravadin) Buddhist studies was founded nearby by Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap, the Nava Nalanda Mahavihara. Presently, this institute is pursuing an ambitious program of satellite imaging of the entire region.
The Nalanda Museum contains a number of manuscripts, and shows many examples of the items that have been excavated.
Wide view of the other (back)side of Sariputta\'s Stupa.
The mounds at Nalanda, as they stood, before the University was excavated. |
Nalanda1.jpg
Front view of Sariputta Stupa |
Nalanda University India ruins.jpg
Back view of Sariputta Stupa |
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