Nalanda’s first step takes it to China

The reborn Nalanda University may not have its campus built as yet, but it renewed its historical links with China here today. A two-day workshop inaugurated by professor Amartya Sen at Peking University this morning marked new Nalanda’s first-ever academic activity.

“Old Nalanda flourished without borders, so will new Nalanda,” Sen told a distinguished gathering of academics and scholars who attended the workshop on “Historical and cultural interactions between China and India”.

The symbolism of new Nalanda’s first academic partnership with a Chinese university was highlighted by the former’s first vice-chancellor, Gopa Sabharwal.

But Sen’s inauguration of the workshop added a modern-day dimension to the historical links between India and China in higher education that Xuanzang’s visit to old Nalanda in the 7th century symbolised. The Nobel laureate was here to chair a meeting of the Nalanda University’s governing board.

Wang Bangwei of Peking University recalled that Sen’s grandfather, Kshitimohan Sen, had accompanied Rabindranath Tagore on his visit to China in 1924.

Sen’s inaugural speech at the workshop on “Higher Education in History: Asia and Europe” dwelt at length on ancient links between India and China in the fields of scholarship and pedagogy. Old Nalanda offered courses in higher education of which there was no parallel in Europe.

He, however, began his speech by presenting a very different picture of the state of higher education in Asia, Europe and the US today.

Quoting a report on the top 200 universities and other centres of learning today, he noted that only a few Asian universities — from China and Japan — figured on that list. There was none from India.

Yet, in history, Asia once led the way. Old Nalanda, which had 10,000 students at its peak and where students came from many countries, including present-day Turkey, represented “borderless knowledge”.

Nalanda of the 7th and the 8th centuries offered studies in a wide range of fields including religion, history, law, linguistics, public health, astronomy and medicine. Circumstantial evidence suggests, Sen said, that mathematics too was taught there.

Nalanda’s links with China were special as it was the only centre of monastic and higher learning outside China where Chinese students studied. “Education has to fight parochialism and (old) Nalanda was committed to it.” And, an Indian official was made the head of astronomical studies in China in the 8th century.

The idea behind reinventing Nalanda was not to “beat the West but to learn from its successes”. Global co-operation was key to new Nalanda’s success and Sen suggested that Peking University could serve as a collaborator for new Nalanda.

George Yeo, former foreign minister of Singapore and a member of the Nalanda international advisers’ panel, who also spoke at the inauguration of the workshop, said that there was hardly any conflict between India and China during their long and historical relationship. The “minor” conflict of 1962 was “largely forgotten” in China, although it remained a scarred memory in India.

Today, the interactions between China and the US have attracted global attention. But in the future, the “critical relationship”, Yeo said, would be between India and China. And this would be not just because of the large populations of the two countries or their economies but also because of their “intellectual firepower”.
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Nalanda University to have IT faculty while reliving past glory

The proposed Nalanda International University, which aims to recreate the legendary 11th century institution, will adopt a forward looking approach by establishing a department of information technology, Nobel Luerrate Amartya Sen, who heads the university's governing board, said here Saturday.

"India has special skills in the field of IT. It would help in the skill development in Bihar. In fact, Nitish (Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar) has been very keen about it," he told TNN. He praised Kumar for being supportive of the university plans.

"We are also going to teach the glorious history of Bihar as part of the work in the faculty of historical studies," he said.

The Nalanda board, which met in Beijing over the past two days, decided to initially establish two faculties on historical and environmental studies and follow up the effort with more faculties on subjects like Buddhism and Comparative Religion, International Relations and IT. It also decided to go for an international competition to choose the architect for the university buildings.

Sen said the process of establishing the university has been greatly delayed by the ministry of external affairs, which failed to take timely decisions to release funds and resolves issues concerning the appointment of its vice chancellor.

"Nalanda has suffered because of complications at the MEA although there was an enabling act of parliament," he said. The university is also facing a media campaign at the local level in Bihar because some people are taking a parochial attitude towards it.

"A lot of lies have been spread about the Nalanda University," he said. Sen called on critics of the university in Bihar to eschew parochialism, and let it emerge as a world institution that would enhance the State's image as a traditional centre of learning. The university was seeking funds and educational excellence from all countries, he said.

The board has approved Gopa Sabharwal as vice chancellor designate but a formal appointment has been pending because of confusion about the role of former President Abdul Kalam, who was supposed to clear it as the First Visitor of the University.

"It was for the MEA to approach Kalam and clarify if he wanted to continue as First Visitor and it did not do that," Sen said.

None of Indian universities figured in the top 200 universities determined by a survey by the Times High Educational Supplement this month, he pointed out. The effort at Nalanda was to create a world class institution brining in the best of talent from all countries.

"We are inviting funds from all sources, wherever we can get. We can start more faculties if we can get more funds," he said. "We are particularly encouraged by the possibility that Peking University will serve as a collaborator," Sen said.
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Nalanda may be World Educational and Pilgrims Hub

Thousands of Buddhist pilgrims from Thailand and worldwide are flocking to the holy sites in northern India and Nepal in what is becoming one of the travel industry's biggest growth sectors: religious tourism.

The numbers are growing in line with significant improvements being made in infrastructure as well as the quality of supporting travel and transport arrangements. Roads, airports and railway services are being upgraded. Dozens of hotels have emerged. One of them in Bodhgaya is appropriately named "Thai International".

The circuit incorporates various holy sites in Bodhgaya, Sarnath, Rajgir, Varanasi, Nalanda, Lumbini, Kushinagar and Sravasti, all associated with places where the Buddha was born, preached, attained enlightenment and died.

Known as "Following the Footsteps of the Buddha", the sites attract several hundred people a day. Most appear to be Sri Lankans who also come in the low-season summer months to enjoy lower hotel rates and airfares.

In the winter, from October-March, the regular traffic includes Thais and visitors from industrialised countries, both regulars and new Buddhist devotees. Last week, my group alone included people from Mexico, Mauritius, Italy, Hong Kong, the UK, Canada and India.

Separately, two other large all-Thai groups were also travelling on the Mahaparinirvan Express, a special rail journey organised by the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation, a division within the massive Indian railway system that caters to foreign visitors.

The rolling stock is leased from the railway enterprise and the price of US$150 to $160 per person per night is affordable to a middle-class market, preventing it from becoming too elitist.

Leading one of the groups was Narierut Pantong, managing director of Nisco Travel, which specialises in Buddhist tours. She says that everything is getting better by the year: the roads, quality of hotels, food and the tour arrangements.

"When I started these tours several years ago, the toilets on the train were always in a mess, and the hotel food was terrible. Now the Indian Railways people have evaluated the feedback and taken positive steps," she says.

Nalanda, site of what is claimed to be the world's oldest university, has been cleaned up extensively, with security guards posted to stop graffiti scrawling, one of the biggest problems at the sites.

Thais are coming in droves, to the extent where the young urchins in one village near a holy spot can even now count in Thai. The entire area is dotted with numerous Thai temples and monasteries that are well-maintained, thanks to the huge funds coming in via donations as well as purchases of souvenirs, amulets and Buddha images.

At one stop just before crossing the border to Nepal, a temple that functions as a rest and refreshment stop is manned entirely by Thai monks.

In Sravasti, Uttar Pradesh, where the Buddha spent 25 monsoon seasons, a huge Buddha image and a 110-metre stupa now under construction are under the aegis of the World Peacefulness Foundation, whose chairman and patron is Maha Upasika Sitthipol Bankot.

The entire area of several thousand square metres began with the planting of 9,999 banyan trees, creating a natural forest and a fresh-water reservoir. A huge meditation centre houses six large halls of 3,000 capacity each.

The area boasts several more temples and monasteries of various Buddhist denominations from Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Tibet. Some are supported by governments but many are self-funded via donations.

But there is a considerable way to go. Some hardship is a necessary part of being on a pilgrimage. The Buddha sought to keep the focus on human suffering, and there is plenty of that in India, both in the villages as well as all along the roads and pathways.

Signage and waste disposal facilities are still poor. Civic sense remains a challenge. Garbage is strewn in many places, with plastic bottles even floating in the ponds at some sites. Beggars and vendors wait outside the holy spots, ready to swarm over pilgrims.

Carrying capacity will soon become an issue. The temple at Bodhgaya, the site of Buddha's enlightenment, can barely cope with the numbers and will soon face more pressure as the hundreds of daily visitors soon become thousands.

Indeed, Bodhgaya should see much improvement following a change of government in Bihar, long impoverished by the corrupt former administration.

Navigating this itinerary requires a good tour-management system so that devotees can remain focused on their primary purpose for being there.

Other states are also looking at starting similar rail journeys. Our tour included the head of Punjab Tourism, which sees high potential for a rail trip through Sikh holy spots, starting with Amritsar, home of the famous Golden Temple.
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Nalanda - World Ancient Seat of Learning !!

Towards the Southeast of Patna, the Capital City of Bihar State in India, is a village called the 'Bada Gaon', in the vicinity of which, are the world famous ruins of Nalanda University.

Founded in the 5th Century A.D., Nalanda is known as the ancient seat of learning. 2,000 Teachers and 10,000 Students from all over the Buddhist world lived and studied at Nalanda, the first Residential International University of the World.

A walk in the ruins of the university, takes you to an era, that saw India leading in imparting knowledge, to the world - the era when India was a coveted place for studies. The University flourished during the 5th and 12th century.

Although Nalanda is one of the places distinguished as having been blessed by the presence of the Buddha, it later became particularly renowned as the site of the great monastic university of the same name , which was to become the crown jewel of the development of Buddhism in India. The name may derive from one of Shakyamuni's former births , when hewas a king whose capital was here.Nalanda was one of his epithets meaning "insatiable in giving."

This place saw the rise and fall of many empires and emperors who contributed in the development of Nalanda University. Many monasteries and temples were built by them. Kingarshwardhana gifted a 25m high copper statue of Buddha and Kumargupta endowed a college of fine arts ere. Nagarjuna- a Mahayana philosopher, Dinnaga- founder of the school of Logic and Dharmpala- the Brahmin scholar, taught here.

The famous Chinese traveller and scholar,Hieun-Tsang stayed here and has given a detailed description of the situations prevailing at that time. Careful excavation of the place has revealed many stupas, monasteries,hostels,stair cases,meditation halls, lecture halls and many other structures which speak of the splendour and grandeur this place enjoyed,when the place was a centre of serious study.

A large number of ancient Buddhist establishments, stupas, chaityas, temples and monastery sites have been excavated and they show that this was one of the most important Buddhist centres of worship and culture.Regarding the historicity of Nalanda, we read in Jaina texts that Mahavira Vardhamana spent as many as fourteen rainy seasons in Nalanda.

Pali Buddhist Literature , too, has ample references to Nalanda, which used to be visited by Lord Buddha. During the days of Mahavira and Buddha,Nalanda was apparently a very prosperous temple city, a great place of pilgrimage and the site of a celebrated university. It is said that King Asoka gave offerings to the Chaitya of Sariputra at Nalanda and erected a temple there.Taranath mentions this and also that Nagarjuna, the famous Mahayana philosopher of the second century A.D.,studied at Nalanda.Nagarjuna later became the high-priest there.

The Gupta kings patronised these monasteries, built in old Kushan architectural style, in a row of cells around a courtyard.Ashoka and Harshavardhana were some of its most celebrated patrons who built temples and monasteries here. Recent excavations have unearthed elaborate structures here. Hiuen Tsang had left ecstatic accounts of both the ambiance and architectureof this unique university of ancient times.

Modern historians have tentatively dated the founding of a monastery at Nalanda as being in the fifth century.However, this may not be accurate. For example,the standard biographiesof the teacher Nagarjuna, believed by most historians to have been born around 150 AD, are quite specific about his having received ordination at Nalanda monastery when he was seven years old. Further, histeacherRahulabhadra is said to have lived there for some time before that. We may infer that there were a monastery or monasteries at Nalanda long before the foundation of the later Great Mahavihara.

At the time Hsuan Chwang stayed at Nalanda and studied with the abbot Shilabhadra, it was already a flourishing centre of learning. In many ways it seems to have been like a modern university.There was a rigorous oral entry examination conducted by erudite gatekeepers,and many students were turned away.To study or to have studied at Nalanda was a matter of great prestige. However, no degree was granted nor was a specific period of study required. The monks' time, measured by a water clock, was divided between study and religious rites and practice.There were schools of study in which students received explanations by discourse, and there were also schools of debate, where the mediocre were often humbled, and the conspicuously talented distinguished. Accordingly, the elected abbot was generally the most learned man of the time.

The libraries were vast and widely renowned, although there is a legend of a malicious fire in which many of the texts were destroyed and irrevocably lost.
During the Gupta age,the practice and study of the mahayana, especially the madhyamaka, flourished. However, from 750 AD, in the Pala age, there was an increase in the study and propagation of the tantric teachings.This is evidenced by the famous pandit Abhayakaragupta, a renowned tantric practitioner who was simultaneously abbot of the Mahabodhi, Nalanda and Vikramashila monasteries. Also Naropa, later so important to the tantric lineages of the Tibetan traditions, was abbot of Nalanda in the years 1049-57.

Much of the tradition of Nalanda had been carried into Tibet by the time of the Muslim invasions of the twelfth century. While the monasteries of Odantapuri and Vikramashila were then destroyed, the buildings at Nalanda do not seem to have suffered extensive damage at that time, although most of the monks fled before the desecrating armies. In 1235 the Tibetan pilgrim Chag Lotsawa found a 90 year old teacher, Rahula Shribhadra, with a class of seventy students. Rahula Shribhadra managed to survive through the support of a local brahmin and did not leave untilhe had completed educating his last Tibetan student.
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Nalanda University to have IT faculty while reliving past glory !!

The proposed Nalanda International University, which aims to recreate the legendary 11th century institution, will adopt a forward looking approach by establishing a department of information technology, Nobel Luerrate Amartya Sen, who heads the university's governing board, said here Saturday.

"India has special skills in the field of IT. It would help in the skill development in Bihar. In fact, Nitish (Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar) has been very keen about it," he told TNN. He praised Kumar for being supportive of the university plans.

"We are also going to teach the glorious history of Bihar as part of the work in the faculty of historical studies," he said.

The Nalanda board, which met in Beijing over the past two days, decided to initially establish two faculties on historical and environmental studies and follow up the effort with more faculties on subjects like Buddhism and Comparative Religion, International Relations and IT. It also decided to go for an international competition to choose the architect for the university buildings.

Sen said the process of establishing the university has been greatly delayed by the ministry of external affairs, which failed to take timely decisions to release funds and resolves issues concerning the appointment of its vice chancellor.

"Nalanda has suffered because of complications at the MEA although there was an enabling act of parliament," he said. The university is also facing a media campaign at the local level in Bihar because some people are taking a parochial attitude towards it.

"A lot of lies have been spread about the Nalanda University," he said. Sen called on critics of the university in Bihar to eschew parochialism, and let it emerge as a world institution that would enhance the State's image as a traditional centre of learning. The university was seeking funds and educational excellence from all countries, he said.

The board has approved Gopa Sabharwal as vice chancellor designate but a formal appointment has been pending because of confusion about the role of former President Abdul Kalam, who was supposed to clear it as the First Visitor of the University.

"It was for the MEA to approach Kalam and clarify if he wanted to continue as First Visitor and it did not do that," Sen said.

None of Indian universities figured in the top 200 universities determined by a survey by the Times High Educational Supplement this month, he pointed out. The effort at Nalanda was to create a world class institution brining in the best of talent from all countries.

"We are inviting funds from all sources, wherever we can get. We can start more faculties if we can get more funds," he said. "We are particularly encouraged by the possibility that Peking University will serve as a collaborator," Sen said.
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Nalanda’s glorious past a uniting factor in future

BY end-2013, an Asian university with a universal outlook and approach will take shape 887km east of New Delhi, to match what is being billed as the “Asian century”.

No geopolitics in it, although India’s soft diplomacy is very much in evidence. It is an international effort, but participating nations are not competing to gain political or economic mileage. No brownie points are being scored by individuals.

On offer at Nalanda are only knowledge and enlightenment.


Nalanda is being rebuilt near a cluster of ruins today located in backward Bihar state that was once the land of Lord Buddha and housed the internationally renowned centre of higher learning.

It will be a modern university, but will hark back to a glorious past.
Established in the early 5th century, it was the world’s first ever university. Nalanda was over six centuries old when Bologna, the oldest European university, was born.

Another distinguished university, which did not stay in existence continuously either, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, with which Nalanda is often compared, was established in 970 AD, when Nalanda was already over five centuries old.

Nalanda pre-dated Oxford and Cambridge by centuries. Had it not been destroyed and had it managed to survive to our time, it would be, by a long margin, the oldest functioning university in the world.

It was destroyed three times by invaders, but only rebuilt twice. The first time was by the Huns under Mihirakula during the reign of Skandagupta (455-467 AD). But Skanda’s successors promptly undertook the restoration, improving it with even grander buildings, and endowed it with enough resources to let the university sustain itself in the longer term.

The second destruction came with an assault by the Gaudas in the early 7th century. This time, the great Hindu king Harshavardhana (606-648 AD) restored the Buddhist university.

The final blow came when it was violently destroyed in an Afghan attack led by the ruthless conqueror Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1193.

Re-establishing a university after an 800-year hiatus is not easy, says Nobel Laureate and chairman of Nalanda Mentor Group (NMG) Amartya Sen. The idea of reviving it as a centre of excellence in the creation and dissemination of knowledge in Asia was first mooted by then president of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in February 2006 during his official visit to Singapore.

Kalam, as is his wont, took the idea home and spoke to the Bihar legislators. Both Bihar and Singapore got motivated enough to translate the idea into a concrete project.

The Bihar assembly passed a bill in 2007 to establish Nalanda University, acquired land for it but wisely handed over the project to the government of India in view of its emerging international character.

Singapore pursued the idea more vigorously than even India in some respects and, to carry the message to East Asia, organised a “Nalanda Symposium” in November 2006.

It succeeded in enlisting the support of East Asian countries, especially China, Japan and Korea. Singapore has also joined hands with Japan in mobilising funds for giving shape to the project and executing it.

The governing board of the new Nalanda University last Monday unveiled a road map. The institution would be functional tentatively by 2013. The recruitment of faculty would be done one or two semesters before the first batch is enrolled so that they have a part in finalising the course structure.

The university will start with seven schools, primarily in humanities, but will include departments of Information Sciences and Technology, Business Management in Relation to Public Policy, and Development and Ecology and Environment, in addition to Languages and Literature, Religion and Philosophy, Historical Studies, International Relations and Peace Studies, and Buddhist Studies.

Religion and Philospohy? Yes. It will be secular, and yet it will have religious studies, says Sen. Even the old Nalanda was a Buddhist university, he points out, but it was remarkably open to many interpretations of that religion.

Today, when one keeps hearing blood-curdling war cries and talk of the “clash of civilisations”, Nalanda could perform a vital role consistent with its original ethos — to be an institution devoted to religious reconciliation on a global scale.

Nalanda University is destined to emerge as a strong instrument of soft power at two levels, for the rising Asia in relation to the West and for India in relation to Asia.

Without invoking any competitive drive with its immediate neighbours, Nalanda could help India consolidate its position in the region. Scholars and students going out of Nalanda would become India’s goodwill ambassadors in their countries.

As the project recaptures its past glory and élan, it will also boost Asia's confidence in its intellectual and academic capacities, and dent the heavy reliance today on Western universities like Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard for Asian scholars’ professional credibility and recognition, says Prof S.D. Muni, visiting research professor, Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore.

Defining the link between the Nalanda project and Asia’s rise, Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo, also an NMG member, calls it the “icon of Asian Renaissance”.

He sought an international airport near Nalanda and said the Buddhist tourist circuit would get a boost once the institution became functional.

During his India visit last year, Chinese leader Wen Jiabao pledged US$1 million (RM3 million) to the Nalanda project. What has come so far is meagre. “We got US$7 million from Singapore, US$1 million from China, Australia is funding a chair, while Laos has given US$50,000,” says Prof Gopa Sabharwal, the first vice-chancellor.

Funding the project is indeed a formidable challenge. The present target is to create an endowment of US$1 billion. Harvard University’s endowment is US$35 billion. The funding constraint has restrained the NMG from opening faculties in the hard sciences.

Participating in the 2006 symposium, India-based Prof Tan Chung recalled that when the Han dynasty was on the verge of collapse in the 6th century, the spread of Buddhism from Nalanda helped China revive.

Prof Wang Bangwei of Peking University, now an NMG member, emphasised that “Nalanda belonged to not only India but all Asian Buddhists”.

Prof Wang Dehua of the Shanghai Centre for International Studies said: “Let us forget about the 1962 incident. This project will symbolise the rebuilding of our old friendship and understanding.”

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