Nalanda mahavihara
Nalanda was a renowned Buddhist mahavihara in medieval Magadha, eastern India. Widely considered to be among the greatest centres of learning in the ancient world and often referred to as "the world's first residential university", it was located near the city of Rajagriha, roughly southeast of Pataliputra. Operating for almost a thousand years from 427 CE until around 1400 CE, Nalanda mahavihara played a vital role in promoting the patronage of arts, culture and academics during the 5th and 6th century CE, a period that has since been described as the "Golden Age of India" by scholars. The characterisation of Nalanda as a "university" in the modern sense has been challenged by scholars. They argue that while it was undoubtedly a major centre of learning, comparing it directly to a modern university is historically imprecise.
Nalanda was established by emperor Kumaragupta I of the Gupta Empire around 427 CE, and was supported by numerous Indian and Javanese patrons – both Buddhists and non-Buddhists. Nalanda continued to thrive with the support of the rulers of the Pushyabhuti dynasty and the Pala Empire. After the fall of the Palas, the monks of Nalanda were patronised by the Pithipatis of Magadha. Nalanda was attacked by Huns under Mihirakula in the 5th century and again sustained severe damage from an invasion by the Gauda king of Bengal in the 8th Century. During the final invasion it was burnt down by Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khilji, but it managed to remain operational for decades following his raids.
Over some 750 years, Nalanda's faculty included some of the most revered scholars of Mahayana Buddhism. The historian William Dalrymple said of Nalanda that "at its apex, it was the undisputed scholarly centre of the Mahayana Buddhist world". The faculty and students associated with the monastery included Dharmapala, Nagarjuna, Dharmakirti, Asanga, Vasubandhu, Chandrakirti, Xuanzang, Śīlabhadra, Vajrabodhi, and Dharmasvamin. The curriculum of Nalanda included major Buddhist philosophies like Madhyamaka, Yogachara and Sarvastivada, as well as subjects like the Vedas, grammar, medicine, logic, mathematics, astronomy and alchemy. The mahavihara had a renowned library that was a key source for the Sanskrit texts that were transmitted to East Asia by pilgrims like Xuanzang and Yijing. Many texts composed at Nalanda played an important role in the development of Mahayana and Vajrayana. They include the works of Dharmakirti, the Sanskrit text Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra of Shantideva, and the Mahavairocana Tantra.
The ancient site of Nalanda is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2010, the Government of India passed a resolution to revive the ancient university, and a contemporary institute, Nālandā University, was established at Rajgir. It has been listed as an Institute of National Importance by the Government of India.
Location
Nalanda is about north of the city of Rajgir and about southeast of Patna, connected via NH 31, 20 and 120 to India's highway network. It is about northeast of Bodh Gaya – another important Buddhist site in Bihar. The Nalanda archaeological site is spread over a large area to the northwest of Bargaon village, and is between the historical manmade lakes Gidhi, Panashokar and Indrapuskarani. On the south bank of the Indrapushkarani lake is the Nava Nalanda Mahavihara – a university founded in its memory. Similarly on the south west bank of the Indrapushkarani lake is Nalanda Open University, the state university named after the ancient Nalanda University.Etymology
Mahavihara is the Sanskrit and Pali term for a great vihāra and is used to describe a monastic complex of viharas.According to the early 7th-century Tang dynasty Chinese pilgrim, Xuanzang, the local tradition explains that the name came from a nāga whose name was Nalanda. He offers an alternate meaning "charity without intermission", from "na-alam-da"; however, this split does not mean this. Hiranand Sastri, an archaeologist who headed the excavation of the ruins, attributes the name to the abundance of in the area and believes that Nalanda would then represent the giver of lotus-stalks.
In some Tibetan sources, including the 17th-century work of Taranatha, Nalanda is referred to as Nalendra, and is likely synonymous with Nala, Nalaka, Nalakagrama found in Tibetan literature.
History
Early history of the city of Nalanda (1200 BCE–300 CE)
Archaeological excavations at sites near Nalanda, such as the Juafardih site about three kilometres away, have yielded black ware and other items. These have been carbon dated to about 1200 BCE. This suggests that the region around Nalanda in Magadha had a human settlement centuries before the birth of the Mahavira and the Buddha.Early Buddhist texts state that Buddha visited a town near Rajagriha called Nalanda on his peregrinations. He delivered lectures in a nearby mango grove named Pavarika and one of his two chief disciples, Shariputra, was born in the area and later attained nirvana there. These Buddhist texts were written down centuries after the death of the Buddha, are not consistent in either the name or the relative locations. For example, texts such as the Mahasudassana Jataka states that Nalaka or Nalakagrama is about a yojana from Rajagriha, while texts such as Mahavastu call the place Nalanda-gramaka and place it half a yojana away. A Buddhist text Nikayasamgraha does state that emperor Ashoka established a vihara at Nalanda. However, archaeological excavations so far have not yielded any monuments from Ashoka period or from another 600 years after his death.
Chapter 2.7 of the Jaina text Sutrakritanga states that Nalanda is a "suburb" of capital Rajagriha, has numerous buildings, and this is where Mahavira spent fourteen varshas – a term that refers to a traditional retreat during monsoons for the monks in Indian religions. This is corroborated in the Kalpasutra, another cherished text in Jainism. However, other than the mention of Nalanda, Jaina texts do not provide further details, nor were they written down for nearly a millennium after Mahavira's death. Like the Buddhist texts, this has raised questions about reliability and whether the current Nalanda is same as the one in Jaina texts. According to Scharfe, though the Buddhist and Jaina texts generate problems with place identification, it is "virtually certain" that the modern Nalanda is near or the site these texts are referring to.
Sariputta, a prominent disciple of the Buddha, was born and died in Nalanda. King Ashoka is said to have built the Sariputta stupa in Nalanda to honour him, and Sariputta's relics were also enshrined in stupas at Sanchi and Mathura.
Faxian visit (399–412 CE)
When Faxian, a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim monk, visited the city of Nalanda, there probably was no university yet. Faxian had come to India to acquire Buddhist texts, and spent 10 years in India in the early fifth century, visiting major Buddhist pilgrimage sites including the Nalanda area. He also wrote a travelogue, which inspired other Chinese and Korean Buddhists to visit India over the centuries; in it he mentions many Buddhist monasteries and monuments across India. However, he makes no mention of any monastery or university at Nalanda even though he was looking for Sanskrit texts and took a large number of them from other parts of India back to China. Combined with a lack of any archaeological discoveries of pre-400 CE monuments in Nalanda, the silence in Faxian's memoir suggests that Nalanda monastery-university did not exist around 400 CE.Foundation (5th century)
Nalanda's dateable history begins in the 5th century. A seal discovered at the site identifies a monarch named Shakraditya as its founder and attributes the foundation of a sangharama at the site to him. This is corroborated by the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang travelogue. The tradition of formalised Vedic learning "helped to inspire the formation of large teachings centres," such as Nalanda, Taxila, and Vikramashila.File:Nalanda clay seal of Kumaragupta III.jpg|thumb|Nalanda clay seal of Kumaragupta III. The inscription is in Sanskrit, late-Gupta script, the man shown has Vaishnava mark on his forehead, and seal has Garuda-vahana on upper face.
Founder
In the Indian tradition and texts, kings were called by many epithets and names. Scholars such as Andrea Pinkney and Hartmut Scharfe conclude that Shakraditya is same as Kumaragupta I. He was the emperor belonging to the Hindu dynasty of the Guptas. Further, numismatic evidence discovered at Nalanda corroborate that Kumaragupta I was the founder patron of the Nalanda monastery-university.
His successors, Budhagupta, Tathagatagupta, Baladitya, and Vajra, later extended and expanded the institution by building additional monasteries and temples. Nalanda, thus flourished through the 5th and 6th centuries under the Guptas. These Gupta-era contributions to Nalanda are corroborated by the numerous Buddhist and Hindu seals, artwork, iconography and inscriptions discovered at Nalanda, which are in the Gupta-style and Gupta-era scripts. During this period, the Gupta kings were not the only patrons of Nalanda. They reflect a broad and religiously diverse community of supporters. It is remarkable, states Scharfe, that "many donors were not Buddhists; the emblems on their seals show Lakshmi, Ganesha, Shivalinga and Durga".
Rulers in northeast India bequeathed villages to help fund Nalanda; the king of Sumatra contributed villages for the monastery's endowment. A special fund was also established to support scholars from China.
Post-Gupta dynasty (550–750 CE)
After the decline of Gupta Empire, the most notable patron of the Nalanda Mahavihara was Harsha. He was a seventh-century emperor with a capital at Kannauj. According to Xuanzang, Harsha was a third generation Hindu king from the Vaishya caste, who built majestic Buddhist viharas, as well as three temples – Buddha, Surya and Shiva, all of the same size. He states, "a long succession of kings" had built up Nalanda till "the whole is truly marvellous to behold". Nalanda also continued to flourish during the rule of the Later Gupta dynasty however they do not seem to have provided active support and instead favoured the construction of Hindu monuments.In accordance with the ancient Indian traditions of supporting temples and monasteries, inscriptions found at Nalanda suggest that it received gifts, including grants of villages by kings to support its work. Harsha himself granted 100 villages and directed 200 households from each of these villages to supply the institution's monks with requisite daily supplies such as of rice, butter, and milk. This supported over 1,500 faculty and 10,000 student monks at Nalanda. These numbers, however, may be exaggerated. They are inconsistent with the much lower numbers given by Yijing, another Chinese pilgrim who visited Nalanda a few decades later. According to Asher, while the excavated Nalanda site is large and the number of viharas so far found are impressive, they simply cannot support 10,000 or more student monks. The total number of known rooms and their small size is such that either the number of monks must have been far less than Xuanzang's claims or the Nalanda site was many times larger than numerous excavations have so far discovered and what Xuanzang describes.