Buddhist Learning in South Asia: Education, Religion, and Culture at the Ancient Sri Nalanda Mahavihara 1498554946, 9781498554947

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Buddhist Learning in South Asia

Buddhist Learning in South Asia Education, Religion, and Culture at the Ancient S´rı– Na–landa– Maha–viha–ra Pintu Kumar

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2018 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2018933104 ISBN: 978-1-4985-5492-3 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN: 978-1-4985-5493-0 (electronic) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

To My Revered Mummy and Papa Who have made me what I am

Contents

Acknowledgments ix 1  Origin, Growth, and Decay of Śrī Nālandā Māhavihāra 2  Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra in Travelogues and Archaeology

1 59

3  Pre-Nālandā/Brāhmaṇical Education: Gurukulas 101 4  Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra: An Institution of Religious Learning

125

5  Śrī Nālandā and Buddhist Learning

159

6  Śrī Nālandā’s Monastic Organization and Religion

193

7  Life, Ritual, and Influences

237

Conclusion

 271

Bibliography 293 Index 313 About the Author

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Acknowledgments

The aim of the present book, the first of its kind, is to promote a systematic and informed discussion on the Buddhist monastery of Nālandā in the field of South Asian studies. It wills to help in rectifying the elitist bias characteristic of much research and academic work in the area of religion and education. The book is a result of fragmented expression of my long cherished dream. My childhood interests to know more about the world heritage site of Nālandā situated at my native city became more visible when I wrote a seminar paper on Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra during my postgraduate degree at Centre for Historical Studies (CHS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. I was besieged with the uncertainties to further my ambitions on early South Asian education when I joined Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies (ZHCES) at JNU for M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees. The discussions with the faculty members of CHS and ZHCES obliterated my initial reluctance and helped me to push ahead with the theme. I owe my most profound gratitude to my teachers: Prof. Kumkum Roy, Prof. H. P. Ray, Prof. Ranvir Chakravarti, Prof. Hiraman Tiwari, Prof. Dhruv Raina, Prof. Saumen Chattopadhyay, Prof. Geetha B. Nambissan, Prof. Minati Panda, Prof. Parimala V. Rao, Prof. S. Srinivasa Rao, Prof. Arvind Kumar Mishra, and so on. I did not foresee that my broad interests in educational and cultural aspects of Buddhist monasteries like Nālandā would take me to America for further research. It became a part of my Fulbright-Nehru postdoctoral research project. My experience and training as an educational historian inspired me to write a detailed and focused history of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra to bring out its real nature and importance in the field of South Asian education, religion, and culture. I would like to express my immense gratitude to the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State, the Institute of International Education (IIE), and particularly to the United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF). I would have never imagined myself to be associated with the ix

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Department of Religious Studies, the University of Virginia, as a visiting scholar without the grant of the Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Fellowship. I would take this opportunity to send my millions of sincere thanks to all members of the USIEF, especially Dr. I. Jaya Bharati (my program officer), Dr. Suranjana Das, Vijee Ninan, Pratibha Nair, Dr. Sudarshan Das, and so on. I became connected with almost all members of the USIEF with my endless queries, and I am indebted to them for ultimately a pleasant stay in America. I freely acknowledge this support in an era of declining sympathy for research. I was worried about my mobility and transportation in America, being an orthopedically handicapped person. The USIEF agreed to half-finance my electric wheelchair after a series of emails and the intervention of my USA Fulbright program officer Ms. Meaghan Wallace. I will always be indebted to Ms. Wallace for taking care of every aspect of my safe living and sound research in America. The Demand and Response Transportation (DART) Program solved my transportation within the university and sometimes outside, which is a program of free rides for all persons having troubles in walking, either permanent or temporary, funded by the federal government. The DART coordinator and administrator at UVA, Melissa Oliver, not only enrolled me in this program but also extended the service to time with special instructions to Yellow Cab. I will always be obliged to her for this kind gesture. The service provider of DART (i.e., Yellow Cab) and its staff also have earned my millions of sincere thanks. Being an everyday user of DART, I became impressed with supportive and helpful Yellow Cab drivers such as Kenny, Ngandu, Wayne, Mark, Ali, Rob, Mike, and others, and dispatchers such as Candy, Mandy, Rebecca, David, Will, Brown, and others. The UVA also provided me onground housing within the campus. The facilities provided by the UVA created a support system and made my stay and research at Charlottesville sound, comfortable, and memorable. I acknowledge the incredible cooperation of my faculty host, Prof. John Nemec, during the grant, who made the publication of this book possible. He was kind enough to share his office with me and provided full access to the departmental facilities. He was generous enough to extend his wisdom patiently and guided me at every stage of my research. He was my guardian, friend, teacher, guide, and more during my grant. The interactive and engaged learning and research experiences at the Department of Religious Studies with other esteemed colleagues such as Prof. Paul Groner, Prof. Kurtis Schaffer, Prof. Charles Marsh, Prof. David Germano, Prof. Larry Bouchard, Prof. Greg Schmidt Goering, Prof. Paul Dafydd Jones, Prof. Jalane Schmidt, Prof. Shankar Nair, Prof. Sonam Kachru, Prof. John Campbell, and others broadened my research vision. I would like to especially thank Professor Nair and Professor Campbell,



Acknowledgments xi

who were always ready to solve my queries and guide me to the right path. My research would not have reached the final stage with their academic cooperation. The several departmental and international seminars I attended generously provided me the opportunity to discuss the idea of the book with famous and leading American and European scholars of Buddhism, such as Prof. Monica L. Smith, Prof. Vesna Wallace, Prof. Diana L. Eck, Prof. Gil Ben-Herut, Prof. Anne E. Monius, Prof. Sarah Oakley, Prof. Wendy Doniger, Prof. Mathew Kapstein, Prof. Ann Heirman, Prof. Luther Obrock, Prof. Johannes Bronkhorst, and others. Indirectly, these talks served as a source of inspiration for my current book. I wish to express my earnest gratitude towards my Ph.D. Supervisors, Prof. Deepak Kumar and Prof. Vijaya Ramaswami, for their continued support and encouragement. They have generously extended their help to me in all possible ways during my research. Teaching has given me much pleasure for many years, and I owe a great deal to all my students and colleagues, past and present, in the writing of this book. I extend my thanks to my colleagues from the Department of History of Motilal Nehru College (Eve), Delhi University, like Dr. V. K. Jha, Dr. P. C. Chaudhary, Hansraj, Dr. Rajesh Kumar, Dr. Dinesh Varsney, Dr. Vikash Kumar, Dr. Sujit Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Mohammad Arshad, and the Principal Dr. S. K. Sharma and Dr. Vichitra Garg for their moral support and constant backing. I am also especially thankful to my friend and colleague Prem Kumar for all possible aid always. I am grateful to Dr. S. Gunasekaran, Assistant Professor, CHS, JNU, who had been a source of sensible friendship and sincere cooperation from time to time, which may not be possible to list here. In spite of having his busy schedule he gave valuable suggestions and extended precious time for editing write-ups to bring out this research work in its final shape. My learned friend Toinali Sema, the author of Sumi and the Dance of Dark Spirits, has helped in shaping these essays from conception to their publication. Over the years, she has taken over the task of editing whatever I write. I acknowledge her support and express my sincere thanks to her. I am grateful to my friend Laura Smith for her time and labor in re-editing the book. Amber S. Gundersen was kind enough to go through the introduction and the conclusion in the last days of submission. I extend my acknowledgment to my good friends Sanjeev, Vishal, Prabhat, Aman, Ranjit, Dinesh, Sandeep, Vivek, and others, who readily provided a helping hand whenever I was in trouble. They were always there to share my joys and sorrows. I am very grateful to Brian Hill and Eric Kuntzman of Lexington Books for undertaking to publish the book and for enduring the delay. Now, I seek a little peace of mind as my dream is going to be true soon after many sorrows and anxieties with their ultimate patience and encouragement.

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Brian has a beautiful way of overcoming an author’s problems. I am privileged to see my book in a vast Asian catalog of some of the most prestigious publications that Lexington Books, an imprint of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, has published around the world. I also owe much to the anonymous reviewers for Lexington Books. It was heart touching to get needed texts and reference materials at my carrel and office instantly with the generous and kind help of the members of the library of UVA. More important, they helped me get resource materials from all American libraries. I thank Mr. Kanniyappan and other assistant librarians of JNU and Mr. Ghani, Mr. Rajendra, Miss Netu, and other office staff of ZHCES for their kind cooperation. I am highly indebted to the staff members of different libraries particularly NCERT, NUEPA, DSA, IGNCA, Teen Murti, and Nava Nalanda Mahavihara to furnish all the required materials for the preparation of this work. Last but not least, I will always be grateful to my neighbors and friends in Charlottesville, who always encouraged and supported me during my residency; these include Harsh, Puja, Kunj, Monika, Arijit, Sathyan, Kishor, Parul, Udit, Ashwati, Shailesh, Sadiya, Raj, Abeer, Biju, Naomi, Patrick, and Sheila, among others. I am delighted to express my gratitude to my parents for their endless blessings and real care along with a source of strength at every stage of my life. I thank my elder brother Pappu Kumar with his wife and kids and younger brothers Prashant Kumar and Pushkar Kumar for always available moral support. The completion of this book was not possible without the love, care, and support of my wife, Arti, and son, Paawan. I cannot forget silent sacrifices of Arti during the book writing. Pintu Kumar

O ne Origin, Growth, and Decay of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra The establishment of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra in pre-modern northern India firmly installed Buddhist monastic life and activity; simultaneously, the monastery also served as the popular seat of Buddhist learning and Buddhism in South Asia. Archaeologically, it is believed that the Gupta rulers constructed and expanded the monastery in succession during the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. We can trace the history of Śrī Nālandā up to the time of Aśoka through literary references. The first generation of nationalist historians of India, such as N. N. Majumdar,1 A. S. Altekar,2 R. K. Mookerji,3 S. K. Das,4 and H. D. Sankalia,5 among others, proclaimed Nālandā Mahāvihāra as the oldest international university in the world, where students not only from India but also from all over the world came for their studies. The university offered extensive studies in all branches of knowledge (i.e., secular, vocational, and religious). It was the time to glamorize India as a developed, independent, and rich country before the British colonial power in all traditional aspects such as religion, education, democracy, politics, wealth, and administration. The educational activities carried out in ancient Indian monasteries like Nālandā helped nationalist historians to project it as one of the first universities of the world. Later orientalist scholars like A. L. Basham6 and A. K. Warder7 also referred to Nālandā Mahāvihāra as the most famous of the true universities of the Middle Ages in India due to its size, diversity of studies in higher education, and the nature of its student body. This popular legacy of Śrī Nālandā is still being carried forward and occasionally utilized even today in South Asian politics and religion. Whether Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra could be treated as a ‟university” is a complicated issue in South Asian educational history, which needs a thorough investigation. The strong popular notion of Nālandā Mahāvihāra as an international university sometimes stopped educational historians from the neutral interpretation of the establishment. This book will probably be the first attempt in this direction. It will be part of a series of books on the monastery of Nālandā, although it won’t highlight its grand architecture or sculptures. It attempts to cover 1

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Chapter One

the whole history of Nālandā Mahāvihāra for a plausible understanding of the true nature of a Buddhist establishment. We can wonder how Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, a Buddhist monastery, became Nālandā University. It is hard to believe how historians missed the true name and nature of this Buddhist establishment and tried to impose a new and different modern identity. “University” is a Western concept developed from studium generale with many features of the contemporary education system. It seems that the earliest known reference to a little different but overall similar notion about the monastery of Nālandā unconsciously appeared in 1914, when J. E. Carpenter in his article referred it as “half monastery, half university.”8 The focus of this book is not to specifically either prove or treat the monastery of Nālandā as a university. Alternatively, it will examine the origin, growth, and activities of the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā, which seemed quite similar to a Buddhist monastic learning institution. This will be helpful in deciding whether Śrī Nālandā was a university or only a Buddhist monastery with religious modes of instruction. The emergence of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra and its new organized instructive practices marked the beginning of a new era in South Asian education. It symbolized the height of the ancient Indian educational system. Nālandā’s religious educational setup was an example of a re-orientation of the traditional “wandering monk” culture into a “stationary monastic” culture. The traditional learning of the monasteries had been a secluded pursuit in the beginning—learning in canonical lore for the benefit and use of monkhood. But it was progressively liberalized—extended and enlarged in its scope and contents and made available not to monks alone, but to all seekers of knowledge by Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which served as a new type of Buddhist monastic institution.9 The early reference to the instructional institutions in South Asia comes from the city of Takṣaśīlā but no large lecture halls or dormitories have been discovered yet.10 Presumably, Takṣaśīlā—a center for higher studies in religious, social, and political values and vocational training in varied skills—was an enlarged form of gurukula within a specified campus. It was a place of all-paid studies, and the higher and royal classes mainly accessed training provided by different teachers. We can trace the roots of institutionalization of early education from Takṣaśīlā since it represented the expansion of private home schools of Brāhmaṇical teachers into a college or collegium—if we can call it that—of many teachers at the same place. However, its pinnacle (in terms of wider access and organization) was the establishment of Nālandā Mahāvihāra with a huge campus and many lecture halls with free lodging and boarding. Nālandā inspired the creation of many more mahāvihāras in South Asia, which contributed to the further diffusion of Buddhist knowledge. Later Nālandā emerged as the coordinator of the monastic scholastic scheme in ancient India, being



Origin, Growth, and Decay of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra

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one of the largest, oldest, and the longest surviving monastery. The recognized Nālandā scholars have greatly contributed directly and indirectly to the expansion and popularization of Buddhism and Buddhist knowledge in India and in other South and Southeast Asian countries. The Buddhist orientation was visible in every aspect of the Nālandā monastic apparatus since its beginning. And the changes are visible in Nālandā Mahāvihāra and its learning activities according to the development in the contemporary religion and culture in general and Buddhism in particular. The Buddha’s adoption of vihāra as one of the abodes for Buddhist monks in the beginning and its later enlargement into mahāvihāra served as the base for the new religion of Buddhism. Undoubtedly, monasteries were centers of Buddhism and religion. South Asian Buddhism got abodes in monasteries. It appears that by the end of the first millennium, the locus of Buddhism in India had become the large monasteries; the most famous of these was Nālandā Mahāvihāra. When such monasteries were destroyed, the power and influence of the monastic institutions quickly dissipated. Simultaneously, we can treat monasteries as educational institutions, if it is possible to separate religious and educational activities, which is hard to do. The monasteries provided teaching and training in Buddhism to monks and laity. The transformation of mahāvihāras into learning and training institutions was the beginning of institutionalized instruction in South Asia, which was itself different from gurukulas—the other contemporary unorganized Brāhmaṇical didactic center—and it survived for a longer time with popularity. The history of this Buddhist system of education was practically that of the Buddhist order, or Saṁgha. The Buddhist world did not offer any educational opportunities apart from or independent of its monasteries. Monasteries functioned like modern residential scholastic establishments with a defined campus and huge buildings, regular students and teachers, and free lodging, boarding, and other basic amenities. The religion of Buddha codified in the Tripiṭakas provided Buddhist foundations to each aspect of monastic structures with free flow of students and teachers for improvement in knowledge. An idea of institutional development and functions of Nālandā Mahāvihāra could be regenerated up to an extent through the recovered structural remains during archaeological excavations, Buddhist literature, and traveling accounts. ‟Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra,” ‟Nālandā,” and ‟Nālandā University”11 have become enchanting words in South Asian history and religion in general and Buddhism in particular, which physically symbolizes the remains of pre-modern Nālandā Mahāvihāra including sanctuaries, monasteries, cells, images, bathrooms, wells, libraries, and lecture halls. The present site of Nālandā Mahāvihāra (Google coordinates 25°08’12”N 85°26’38”E) is a well-known Buddhist holy space in the district of Nalanda in the northeastern side of the Indian state of modern Bihar. Generally, the mon-

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Chapter One

astery of Nālandā does not fall into the category of the traditional Buddhist pilgrimage sites in India. Probably like Duncan Forbes,12 the large number of Buddhist pilgrims and non-Buddhists regularly attempt to feel the charm of the place like the Buddha had often enjoyed his overnight stay at Nālandā during the northward journey from Rājagṛha. The site is under preservation by the Archaeological Survey of India after the excavations conducted during 1915–1937 and 1974–1982, which have exposed the extensive remains of six major brick temples and eleven monasteries arranged on a systematic layout and spread over an area of more than a square mile. It perceptually refers to the areas of ancient Magadha around the district of Nālandā. To call it Nālanda, Nalanda, or Nālenda may be a mistake. The right name with the designation ends in long ā and, like Nālandāyām,13 it occurs in Buddhist and Jain pieces of literature and inscriptions, which are written in Sanskrit. Sastri14 believes that it was used in the feminine gender. In agreement with Sastri’s presupposition, we will hereafter use the term ‟Nālandā” in this book. Nālandā figures in ancient literature of about the fourth and the fifth century B.C., but so far, no archaeological evidence before the age of Imperial Gupta has been found.15 When Nālandā is positioned on the map of ancient India, Magadha inevitably draws attention because it occupied a noticeable position for the landmark activities in the sphere of South Asian culture, society, education, religion, and politics. The rise, growth, and decline of religions like Buddhism and Jainism and the foundation of large Buddhist monasteries like Nālandā are linked to the land of ancient Magadha. The first Magadhan kingdom of South Asia also inhabits a peculiar culture where almost three-forths of India’s early history happened. Johannes Bronkhorst might be correct in this sense when he uses the suffix ‟Greater” for Magadha and its surrounding lands, which was roughly a geographical area in which the Buddha and the Mahāvīra lived and taught. With regard to the Buddha, this area stretched by and large from Śrāvastī, the capital of Kośala in the northwest Rājagṛha, to the capital of Magadha in the southeast.16 Malley17 specifically points out that it embraced the modern district of Patna and Gayā in the southern part of the Indian state of Bihar. In my opinion, however, practically Magadha stretched broadly from Śrāvastī to Gayā on the border of the Gaṅgā River although its territory continues changing in the age of fierce assimilation and dissimilation of tribal kingdoms. In the above-defined broader and larger territory of Magadha, the core area of Magadha seems to have stood in the area between the modern district of Patna and Gayā, associated with it in all political ups and downs. Hereafter, in this book the term ‟Magadha” will be used to indicate territory between modern Patna and Gayā. A small town of Magadha, Nālandā—it must be a very old name—came into light at the time of the Mahāvīra and the Buddha (i.e.,



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about the sixth century B.C.). It was situated between the two capitals of the South Asian empire of Magadha-Rājagṛha18 and Pāṭaliputra, which was a little away from a thickly populated area yet not so far away as it was within easy reaches. Early Jain and Buddhist texts generally refer to Nālandā as being bāharikā or pāḍā (a suburb), or a hamlet or a village situated on the outskirts of ancient Rājagṛha. It seems that, in the beginning, Nālandā formed part of the circle of Buddhism starting from Bodh Gayā to Rājagṛha and then Nālandā. CONTEMPORARIES OF ŚRĪ NĀLANDĀ MAHĀVIHĀRA It is worthwhile to look near Nālandā Mahāvihāra for other competing monasteries, which also, directly and indirectly, contributed to the maintenance of quality life at Nālandā and made the locality more sacred. Let us take an introductory look into the recognized large Buddhist monasteries in different parts of pre-modern India during the period when Nālandā Mahāvihāra flourished. It will prove an insightful activity for a comparative analysis of ancient Nālandā. As Nālandā, situated in Central India, was mainly dedicated to the furtherance of Mahāyāna Buddhism and later also to Tantric Buddhism, its main rival, Valabhī, which was situated far away on the western coast near modern Valā in Kathiawar in the Indian state of Gujarat, was a center of Hīnayāna Buddhism.19 That it was a Hīnayāna epicenter is further confirmed by the fact that not a single image of the Buddha was found in the excavations carried out by Father Heras in 1930. We have less detailed knowledge about Valabhī than about Nālandā because the Chinese pilgrims spent more time at Nālandā, whose Mahāyāna orientation matched their own. Valabhī was a port city and the capital of the state. The monastery complex known by the same name was founded in the middle of the sixth century A.D. (first mentioned in the inscription of Dhruvasena I of 536 A.D.) by the local Maitraka dynasty (actually by Duddā, the daughter of the sister of king Dhruvasena I)20 and supported by wealthy merchants. The rulers of Valabhī also patronized this monastery by making grants of villages for its maintenance and buildings for its teachers and students.21 The monastery of Valabhī suffered a setback when the Maitraka rule collapsed around 770 A.D. This monastery was expanded with the addition of at least six monasteries into Duddā-vihāra-maṇḍala (“Duddā Monastery Complex”). Its famous monastery known as Śrī Bappapāda was established by Ācārya Bhadanta Sthiramati, the teacher-scholar from Nālandā. During the visit of Xuanzang, Valabhī was in a flourishing condition and there were many saṁghārāmas with hundreds of monks. There is no doubt that there would have been many Hīnayānist scholars; however, there is

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no information available about the other scholars of Valabhī except Sthiramati and Gunamati.22 The appeal of Valabhī was not even limited to Buddhists. The Kathāsaritsāgara reports that a sixteen-year-old Brahmin boy, Viṣṇudatta, from Antravedi (i.e., the land between the rivers Gaṅgā and Yamunā) went to the city of Valabhī in order to acquire knowledge.23 The test for admission was as severe here as in Nālandā. Yijing rated Valabhī as similar to Nālandā (Vikramaśīlā was not yet founded) and compares Nālandā and Valabhī to the contemporary educational centers of China such as Chima, Shih-chu, Lungmen, and Chiue-li. Beal informs us that there was a constant rivalry between the two Buddhist institutions.24 Another contemporary of Śrī Nālandā was the Mahāvihāra of Vikramaśīlā, recognized in South Asia between the late eighth to the end of the thirteenth century A.D., probably on Kahalgāon hill, 24 miles east of the district of Bhagalpur in the Indian state of Bihar.25 The Pāla king Dharmapāla (770–815 A.D.) founded the Mahāvihāra of Vikramaśīlā, as the Chinese travelers do not mention its existence, and it was known by four names in four directions. In Tibet, it was known as Vikramaśīlā.26 Royal patronage kept it prosperous for four centuries.27 It was last seen active when the younger Dharamāswāmin visited India in 1234 A.D. One hundred and sixty Paṇḍitas and about a thousand monks permanently resided in Vikramaśīlā, and five thousand monks assembled there for occasional offerings. It resembled Nālandā Mahāvihāra in many ways. It had a central hall called the house of science, whose six gates opened to the six monasteries guarded by Ratnākaraśānti, Bāgīśvarīkīrti, Prajñākaramati, Narotpāl, Ratnāvajra, and Jñāna Śrīmitra.28 Its main orientation was Mahāyānist, with an even stronger emphasis on Tantric beliefs and practices; the curriculum, though, may have been less wide. It was here that monk-scholars of Vikramaśīlā such as Ratnavajra, Ācārya Jetāri, Ratnakīrti, and others wrote many books on Tantra. But of these, Atīśa Dīpaṁkara was the most renowned scholar who became famous not only in India but in Ceylon and Tibet as well,29 because after finishing his education at Odantapurī, he became the head of Vikramaśīlā in 1034–1038 A.D. and migrated to Tibet at the invitation of its king.30 Like Nālandā, Vikramaśīlā had strong ties with Tibet and Nepal. According to Tibetan reports, Vikramaśīlā eventually eclipsed Nālandā in royal patronages,31 and sometimes these institutions were administered together: Abhayākaragupta was appointed upajjhāya of Vajrāsana (Bodh Gayā), Vikramaśīlā, and Nālandā,32 and Atīśa was appointed upajjhāya of Vikramaśīlā and Odantapurī.33 It is important to note here that there was a board of eminent professors to supervise and issue instructions to the various scholars of all Buddhist monasteries in northern India. In other words, it reflects that most of the large monasteries were functioning as a unit,



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possibly because the presiding patrons of these monasteries were the ruling Pāla kings and the orientation towards Buddhist schools was the same. We have very little information on some other large monasteries that remained as educational centers. Two more monasteries were founded at Odantapurī and Jagaddala at the time of the Pāla kings. According to Tāranātha, Gopāla, the founder of the Pāla dynasty, built a magnificent vihāra at Odantapurī (modern Bihar Sharif, Nālandā, Bihar) in the ninth century A.D. This has been referred to as ‟Udantapuri” by Tāranātha in the history of Buddhism as well as in the chronicles of the Muslim historians as late as the fourteenth century.34 It was surviving with fifty teachers and a thousand monks with up to twelve thousand monks gathering there on special occasions.35 It is believed that a king of Tibet with the help of the missionary Śāntarakṩita constructed the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet on the model of Odantapurī Vihāra, and if this tradition is true then at least the nucleus of this college at Odantapurī must go back sometime.36 An officer of the Muslim soldiers took up residence in the remains of the monastery,37 and the soldiers finally built a fort on the ruins of the Odantavihāra.38 There are very few details about its existence and curriculum, but it can be commented that it never assumed the height of Nālandā. ORIGIN AND GROWTH The issue of the origin and growth of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra is complex and prolonged, intertwined with the contemporary religion, politics, and economy. There is still a lot covered underneath the earth and awaiting revelation after the proper excavation of the site. Broadly, the history of the evolution of the monastery and particularly Nālandā slowly took place within Buddhism in the days of Buddha after the adoption of resting places during the rainy season. There are two aspects of the history of Nālandā’s development, and both are linked to the questions “how” and “why.” How did the monastery of Nālandā come into existence and later develop as an important Buddhist learning institution of South Asia? Why and how did the Vihāra of Nālandā become the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā at Nālandā, a large religious scholastic body, and what were the favorable factors that helped Nālandā Vihāra in its rising and expansion? While the first question is addressed in the continuing paragraph, the second issue will be taken up in the next section of this chapter. Focusing on the rise and growth of Nālandā Vihāra, there are two sides: (1) ideological origin related to religious orientation and (2) physical expansion related to politics and patronage. It can be assumed that the construction of vihāras was a part of the rising new sect of Buddhism, and if it is so then perhaps we cannot ignore its inherited religious background,

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which is quite clear in historical narratives. Monachism was not the exclusive characteristic of Buddhism but it was well nurtured in Buddhism for helping in the propagation of its religion. Whatever the purpose, the monastery was among the places the Buddha adopted for resting in during rains for mediation and study, which led to the institutionalization of Buddhism. Probably in this process, Śrī Nālandā Vihāra also came up as a small monastery among many monasteries built in South Asia. The later part of the story is related to its expansion, which in turn is intimately related to the contemporary pro-religious politics and patronage by friendly kings, wealthy people, and followers. They were generally supposed to be autonomous institutions, but the prevailing monarchy in ancient India and its politics were vital for the survival of monasteries in terms of security and finance. Leaving aside anti-Buddhist monarchs, there is a long list of ancient Indian kings whose pro-Buddhist policy for deepening and broadening their political, social, and religious base and legitimization of their rule helped in the expansion of monasteries through showered bounties and security to them. Many monasteries emerged in South Asia but amongst them some are lost in history due to neglected royal supports or vice versa. These monasteries were not good enough to attract the patronage of wealthy classes. Luckily, Śrī Nālandā played well with pro-Buddhist politics from the beginning and received a good amount of patronage, which in turn helped in its expansion as a large monastery and transformation as a Buddhist scholastic institution. But in the late medieval age, when sponsorship became less to Nālandā in the changed political scenario, it gradually led to its decay. The first aspect of the rise of Nālandā Mahāvihāra has its roots in the monasticism of Buddhism; we can say that the vihāras, or monasteries, which also functioned as learning institutions, have a long story of growth in stages. The ultimate goal of practiced popular religions in South Asia was to help in the attainment of enlightenment and cultivate wisdom in the simplest possible ways. Motivated by goals of life, different types of asceticism were practiced in South Asia, which was largely governed by customary laws. Different forms of religious asceticism had already grown up in the first millennium B.C.39 There were many wandering religious groups such as Brāhmaṇas, Nigaṇṭhas, Achelakas, Paribbājakas, and others during the time of Buddha.40 Two prominent among them were distinguished by the names of Brāhmaṇas and Śramaṇas, which are mentioned in various early works (e.g., Megasthenes, Vinaya Piṭaka Mahābhāsya, etc.).41 Three different sub-sects of Brāhmaṇas are mentioned, viz. the Tīrthikas, Ājīvikas, and Nigaṇṭhas, which were constituted by the disciples who had gathered around famous teachers. As regards the Śramaṇas, they are distinguished as four kinds, viz. Maggajinas (victorious by the way), Maggadesins (teaching the way), Maggajīvins (living in the



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way), and Maggadūsins (defiling the way). Among them, Buddhist Bhikkhus or monks were known as Sakyapuṭṭiya Śramaṇa. The Buddhists were only one among other Śramaṇas, which fought its way to supremacy with other Brāhmaṇa and Śramaṇa sects. These communities of homeless wanderers lived outside the society and survived on begging alms. It seems the Sakyapuṭṭiya Śramaṇas were a little more respected among the wandering mendicants. They had their own customs, usage, manners, ideas, and practices. The Buddhist monks differed from other wandering sects and also became distinct among the contemporary wandering ascetics. Dutt quotes from Suttanipata that ancient sages lived in self-control of sense as the Brahmacārins in the quest of knowledge and good conduct. They held austerities, rectitude, tenderness, love, and forbearance in high esteem.42 Early Buddhists did not regard the Buddha as different from other visionaries and ascetics except that he was the discoverer and the teacher of the path.43 Before the development of permanent monastic settings, Buddhists lived in forests, hills, parks, caves, and other places of temporary shelter. The minimum requisites (nissāyas) prescribed for them were as follows:44 •  To take only those foods that were received as alms. •  To use robes made out of rags that were collected from dust heaps. •  To sit and lie at the foot of a tree. •  To use excrement and cow’s urine as medicines. In addition, the early Buddhists were also required to follow fourteen dhutangas (precepts of ascetic practices), which are mentioned in the Visuddhimagga. The dhutangas included wearing robes, begging alms for food, begging house to house without omission, eating at one sitting, keeping only one bowl, not taking any food after finishing a meal, dwelling only in forests and not in the outskirts of towns and villages, living in places without a shed and under a tree, living in an open place, using whatever beds or seats were allotted, and spending nights sitting but not lying.45 These nissāyas and dhutangas show that although the monks were not informally part of the society, they were connected to it. Their dayto-day contact with the society through begging might be recognized as a medium for the popularity of Buddhism. During the time of Buddha, the number of Buddhist wandering monks was increasing as the Buddha eventually granted the authority to the Bhikkhu to confer the ordinations upon those seeking to become a monk. This community needed some type of rudimentary regulation, which would control the divisionary process among them and maintain the practice of Dhamma as preached by the Buddha. These basic practical rules were not framed on an ascetic basis because bodily and sensual faculties had no intrinsic value for Buddha.

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In the course of time, they created traditions of observation and systems of meditation for which there was need of some kind of residence and the monastery served that. We are told in Mahāvagga that the mendicants went on their travels alike during the winter, the summer, and the rainy season.46 Wandering was ritually important for the ordained monks to get food and other alms for their survival. The four months-long rainy seasons made it miserable for them to wander for alms, so the monks were expected to reside in one place and devote themselves to their religious practice during the monsoon.47 The places set up for rain retreats (Vassāvāsa) were situated near villages. It was tough to keep wandering saints together. As a result, the need for organization was felt. The Buddha also thought to provide abodes to the wandering monks. The Buddhist belief in non-violence provided space for allowing structured temporary residence for monks by Buddha.48 Chakravarti also tried to give it a social dimension through the explanation of the Vinaya and noted that the institution of Vassāvāsa came into being when peasants started complaining to the Buddha of the damage done to their newly sown crops due to the incessant movement of the monks during the rainy season.49 The ritual of pabajjā (going forth) is also viewed as the basis of institutionalization of asceticism in Buddhism.50 It entailed rejection of the whole system of Vedic social practice. It is also, therefore, called Saṃnyāsa (the complete casting off).51 Buddhists called it pabajjā (from home to homeless).52 The wandering ascetics within Buddhism led to the origination of the Saṁgha order. The emerged order satisfied the mental status of monks while living as renouncer within the monasteries. The practice of non-violence maintained its utilities. The Buddhist monastic order represented the middle way between material indulgence and bodily mortification.53 It avoided the extremes practiced by other nonBuddhists of the day. Thus, the physical simplicities and bodily degradation were restricted in the Buddhist monastic order. Indeed, the demands of the laity induced institutionalization of Buddhism in South Asia.54 The Buddha institutionalized the retreat during rainy season55 through philosophical encouragement and social pressure. Another contributing factor to the use of more fixed dwellings was that wealthy lay donors began to make offerings of monasteries as temporary places of residence for monks.56 We learn from Cullavagga that Buddha afterward at the request of the seṭṭhi of Rājagṛha allowed the following abodes for resting in the rainy season: vihāra (monastery), aḍḍayoga (pinnacle house),57 pāsāda (storied dwellings), hammiya (attics),58 and guhā (caves).59 The purpose of the best gifts of vihāras and the other dwelling places in the words of Buddha was: to give vihāras to the Saṁgha where, in safety and in peace, they do meditation and think at ease.60 The Buddhist Saṁgha signified the common society of residents at the āvāsa (residence).61 The practice of rain re-



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treat took the shape of permanent sanctuary institution during the course of history. Talking about the earliest residential places, Buddhist canonical literature uses the terms ārāma and vihāra to denote dwelling places for monks. The primitive monk-settlement in Buddhism is represented by the āvāsa or the ārāma. In one ārāma, there were many vihāras, so the vihāra itself used to be a part of the ārāma. In this sense, a group of vihāras came to be called ārāma. A typical monastery called at first leṇa came into existence when the primitive Saṁgha split up into a number of monk-fraternities. Unlike the āvāsa or the ārāma, a leṇa was not a settlement of monks from all quarters but they accommodated a single fraternity. Originally there were five structural types of leṇa but only two types survived and became popular—the vihāra and the guhā. Taking the Vindhyan range as the divide of India between North and South, the vihāra may be said to be the typical monastery to its north and the guhā to its south, and these became popular lodging places for Buddhist monks. In the beginning, a living place that was to be used by the Buddha was called an ārāma. During Gautama Buddha’s lifetime, Veṇuvana in Rājagṛha was called an ārāma.62 The residential complex constructed for the Buddha and his disciples by Anāthapiṇḍaka was called vihāra. This fact shows that Gautama Buddha and his disciples started to live in ārāmas and vihāras in the beginning. The famous ārāmas are Jītavaṇārāma, Nigrodhārāma, Ghositārāma, and Purbārāma. All these are mentioned as famous dwelling places of the Buddha and his disciples. The ārāmas emphasizes that vihāras or monasteries, existent in ancient India during Buddha’s lifetime, were used occasionally and informally but now they became formal and legal under Buddhism and more individual centered. In Sanskrit, a monastery is called a saṁghārāma and sometimes vihāra. It literally means “the resting place” where the Saṁgha or monks stayed. We learn from the Vinaya Pīṭaka that a vihāra originally meant a dwelling place or a private apartment of a single monk;63 which at least seems true in the beginning days of Buddhism. A merchant of Rājagṛha is said to have built sixty vihāras for the monks in one day.64 These cells were too small in size measuring twelve (Buddha’s) spans in length and seven spans in breadth and had open space around them.65 In fact, vihāras were built to protect the monastics from unconscious violence during the rainy season and accommodate them to continue their religious and learning practice during the rainy season.66 Vihāras were built of brick in Varanasi and Kapilvastu in the third century B.C. Most of the vihāras in India were built of bricks from the fifth to the twelfth centuries including Nālandā, Vikramaśīlā, Valabhī, Jagaddala, and Odantapurī, which were famous Buddhist institutions in ancient India.67 Fundamentally, monasticism adopted by the Buddhists was quite unknown in South Asia. It was a different and new system, which differed

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from the prevailing ascetic practices adopted by the Brāhmaṇical or nonBrāhmaṇical groups. They also lived a communal life but they lacked a definite code of conduct. The traditional usages and the leaders governed the community. Only the Jain monastics developed such a code. The monastic rules of the Prātimokṣa or the Vinaya Piṭaka were first adopted, which laid emphasis on mental discipline rather than on physical discipline. The observance of celibacy and five precepts of good conduct resembled the same Brāhmaṇical tradition.68 Those rules were rearranged to provide a normative principle for the Buddhist monastic order.69 Dutt explains the expansion of vihāra into mahāvihāra or from small individual houses to the large monastery through institutional rules mentioned in the Vinaya Piṭaka, which deals with the allotment of seats in āvāsa.70 The general rule is that the seats are to be retained during the period of Vassāvāsa. Later in time, the seats are issued for the two regular occasions, the commencement of the earlier and that of the later Vassāvāsa. Also, the day after the Pavāraṇā is recognized, the seats are allotted for the next rain retreat in anticipation.71 The āvāsas, from being shelters during the rain retreat, became places of domicile and hence seats had to be allotted not only for three or four months of the year but also for the remaining period. The allotment, which was really made for the non-Vassāvāsa period, reflects advance reservation for the next rain retreat period. Now some monks stayed at monasteries for the whole year and probably for their whole life because they could make advance reservation for the next year repeatedly. It is believed that some monks who loved meditation and were interested in thinking and rethinking in comfort over Buddha’s discourses stayed in the monasteries. As the vihāras became the permanent place of residence, the needs of the monks increased (i.e., security, food, clothes, utensils, furniture, etc.) and the number of resident monks also increased. Thus, with modest beginnings, the vihāra subsequently developed into a large permanent dwelling house for a community of monks in place of the small individual cell. Later, we find a description of vihāras in Mahāvagga and Cullavagga, which says that they were like full-fledged houses.72 The next stage of development of the monastic building was that a long verandah with individual cells behind it constituted a vihāra, which was a rectangular shape. Afterward, Buddha allowed the monks to have a temporary fence made of bamboo sticks, thorns, or a ditch as we find in the case of Nālandā Mahāvihāra.73 Later these fences became permanent in the form of thick brick walls, which provided a rudimentary campus structure. We find later on that this showed a marked advancement—the full manifestation of which may be noticed in Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The Mahāvagga recounts this change from the individualistic life to the corporate life in the vihāra.74 With a beginning as resorts during the rains, the Buddhist monasteries at the next stage turned into large residential places for hundreds of monks.



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Later, the transformation of these residences into centers of learning was notable in the history of Buddhism in South Asia. It is apparent from the fifth century onwards that the conventional nature of several monasteries of India wore a new look as centers of academic learning and scholarship.75 Undoubtedly such a process of transformation was rather slow but it was steady.76 The roots of the transformation of mahāvihāras into learning institutions again go back to the age of wandering homeless religious saints. Before the monastic establishment came into existence, the wandering groups functioned like a roaming educational society, visiting by turn the chief centers of cultures. These numerous ascetics and their circles were always wandering in search of opportunities to fight out their differences in public disputations before their adherents, opponents, and the general public. It was the popular way to show off their knowledge and expertise, especially religious, to the others and also indirectly aimed towards gaining a little more attention and recognition in the society. The fact that in such a system some had to specialize is borne out by designation given to certain monks as the specialist of the discipline, viz. Dhammadhara and Vinayadhara.77 Obviously, then, some monks having faith in a particular discipline followed and gathered around the specialist, who functioned as a roaming teacher. It seems the Buddha also fits in this category as is reflected in his lifetime activities (i.e., preaching and wandering especially after the enlightenment). This milieu shaped and conditioned the institution of mahāvihāra—settled its ethos and basic character, the foundation upon which its own system of Vinaya was afterward built. The residing monks continued observing the older tradition of debate, preaching, and training within the mahāvihāra and soon afterward in a stable resourceful environment, these performances got institutionalized and assimilated with monastic practices. The Buddha also provided theoretical and practical approval for the beginning and continuation of the teaching and learning process. The Buddha himself told his followers not to believe what he said blindly but to accept his teaching only after judging it with their own logic. This was the fundamental of learning, which was inherited in Buddhism since the age of Buddha and later entered and expanded within the monasteries. The Buddha78 declared his last three wishes for his teachings and Saṁgha so that pure teaching could be established and also last long. His three wishes were as follows: 1.  They should learn Buddha’s teachings (Dhamma) thoroughly by heart, but learning by heart alone is not enough. 2.  He instructed them to cultivate Buddha’s teachings, which means that they must try to know this Dhamma in practice again and again. 3.  Finally, he instructed them to develop the truths until the attainment of arahatship.

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These are the duties of all Buddhists. If one does not follow them then one is a Buddhist in name only. If one follows these three instructions thoroughly then one is a real Buddhist. Here we can notice the knowledge-generation activities like memorizations, recitations, and practices were the prime duty of a real Buddhist within the monastery. The knowledge (i.e., to know the truth through and about Buddha’s sayings) was based on experience. The growth of mahāvihāras as educational centers may also be noticed in the following passage from the Manorathapūranī: Even if there be hundred or a thousand monks practicing meditation, there will be no realization of the Nobel Path if there is no learning.79

Buddhists thus felt the value of learning. The monastic monks never left learning activities and the idea that learning was of greater importance when mixed with practice and realization. It got more firmly established in the monasteries, which helped in the development of mahāvihāras into the temples of learning. In turn, Buddhism became popular as a scholastic religion. The intellectual or elites of Buddhism, its monks were devoted to knowing more and more about the Buddha’s path by learning and practice. In this way, Buddhism can be explained as much as the basis of the monk’s religion as that of the monastic religion. In the beginning, the monastic learning had, for the sake of Buddha’s religion, focused on the canon of Buddhism, with its interpretation and proper understanding. Its aim was to prepare a monk by taking lessons from a master that was reflected in the practice of nissāya. A few passages of the Theravāda canon throw light on the education of a monk under nissāya—its approved model, its prescribed contents, and its standard of attainment.80 Progressively, the monastic learning had to grow out of this limited and inherited focused character, which was hardly sufficient for its own set of purpose. Monasteries were connected and depended on the larger life of society. One of the other reasons for their existence was for the good of the many who are to carry the benefit of the religion to those who were without them. It must have felt at a certain stage that the mere study of faith fell short of the standard set by Buddha himself: for the perfect or accomplished monk, one who having mastered the doctrine is also able to spread it out and confute the doctrines of other faiths.81 It demanded knowledge of other faiths and also intellectual equipment to be gained from others and from non-canonical sources. In other words, the needed expansion of Buddhist monastic education took place in two stages: in terms of more participants and broader content and not by increasing the number of monasteries. First, from the fifth century onwards incorporation of almost “everyone”82 instead of focusing on only renouncers broadened the participation in the monastic training program. Buddhism in this phase had come face to face with the rising strength of



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Brāhmaṇism, and in order to be able to fight and hold its ground it had to liberalize learning so as to make it more effective in debates and disputations. Learning and training were not confined to monks but made available to all seekers after knowledge: Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike. The monasteries now also started admitting students, persons interested in Buddhist religion and followers, who after the certain stage of training and learning, if they chose, were free to leave the monastery and start a normal life. It was not compulsory like before to be monk and renouncer after their entry to the monasteries. It was a new development in monastic life and traditions that was confirmed by the account of Chinese pilgrims. Now there were two kinds of learned monks residing in these monasteries: first, the monks whose aim was to get salvation by searching for the real truth in Buddhist scriptures and then to enlighten the whole society; and second, the monks whose aim was also to get salvation but only for himself by studying the Buddhist texts and after that either adopt the wandering life or family life. It is in this transformation of the monasteries that we find the seeds of a scholastic institution along with its religious duties. Now monasteries were producing more monks and also training lay people and throwing them out in the society with Buddhist reading, writing, and ritualistic practices. It seems that the horizon of monasteries increased a lot with a workload of religious duties inside the monasteries and outside in the society. Some of these mahāvihāras later developed into large-scale establishments for education and academic culture, and Nālandā was the first and foremost of them. Second, in the course of time, the content of the monastic instruction expanded a little to fulfill social and religious needs of upāsakas (followers). Ecclesiastical teaching and religious preaching were fit for the future monks, but the increasing number of new followers who did not want to be monks needed somewhat formal but inclusive training. The burning issue was the survival and promotion of Buddhist laity in the society, being a Buddhist for one’s whole life, surrounded by other religious sects. The monastery was now not only a shelter for meditation on the teachings of Buddha but it had to make some room for other sorts of knowledge and basics of other religious scriptures. The study of a student in the Buddhist monastery was no longer confined to the Navaṅga (Nine Parts) but included other Śāstras and Vidyās,83 which comprised the four Vedas, six Aṇgas, ten Granthas, fourteen Vidyās, eighteen Śilpas, and sixty-four Kalās.84 It seems it was simply an introductory study of the texts of other religious sects and sometimes some vocational training was also provided. By virtue of such learning, the monastic students became able to oppose the heretics, as they would drive beasts and explain away disputations as boiling water melts frost.85 This broadened outlook brought monastic learning into a larger framework.

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The above-described gradual process of evolution was more or less implemented at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which came to the forefront of early Indian education after emerging out of merely a small vihāra. The small vihāra of Nālandā developed into mahāvihāra and finally transformed into the temple of learning of South Asia. In this century-long process, the Buddha’s ideology and Buddhism played an important role. The development of Nālandā as a monastery started from the time of Buddha and it reached its apogee in the Gupta and the Pāla period. The second aspect of the growth of the mega-monastery of Nālandā was concerned with its physical expansion, which reflected assimilation in the contemporary friendly politics and adoption of favorable patronage. Unfortunately, we do not have a systematic history of Nālandā depicting the different stages of its material growth. The Chinese and the Tibetan pilgrims’ accounts inform us about Nālandā Mahāvihāra and its scholars, curriculum of studies, subcontinental status, and the kings who patronized it. But these sources talk about when Nālandā was the full-fledged large monastery and later how it was declining. The extensively excavated ruins of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, of course, speak a different language of their own and from them it is possible to reconstruct up to some extent the growth of Śrī Nālandā.

Figure 1.1.  Remains of Sa–riputta’s Stu– pa at Na–landa–. Source: Pintu Kumar.



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Figure 1.2.  Remains of Sa–riputta’s Stu– pa at Na–landa–. Source: Pintu Kumar.

It is difficult to ascertain when the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā was first started. Tāranātha traces it back to the days of Aśoka. He observes: “Here in Nālandā was in former times, the birthplace of the venerable Sāriputta and it is also the place where he with 80000 arhats attained nirvāṇa. In the course of time, only the caityas of Sāriputta remained at which king Aśoka gave great offerings to the gods and to which he erected a great Buddhist temple. In this way, the first founder of Nālandā Vihāra was Aśoka”.86 But judging from the fact that there is no mention of it by Faxian, it would be hard to accept this version of the Tibetan historian regarding the foundation of Nālandā, though presumably, the importance of the place reaches back in the time. Faxian visits and talks about Buddhist monasteries and monuments situated at Pāṭaliputra, Rājagṛha, and Bihar Sharif: the important cities geographically situated respectively north and south of Nālandā, and Bihar Sharif lies in between these cities. It is a wonder how Faxian had missed Nālandā Vihāra in between Bihar Sharif and Rājagṛha if it was a well-recognized and settled-down Buddhist place or monastery that time. It seems that during the time of Buddha, Nālandā was a prosperous town with an adequate population.87 One of Nālandā’s villagers named Lepa has been described as rich in high and large houses, beds,

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seats, vehicles, and chariots; abounding in riches, gold, and silver; possessed of useful and necessary things; and owning many male and female slaves, cows, buffaloes, and sheep.88 The Buddha spent some time in one of the bathing halls of this rich Lepa, where Uddaka came, heard a long discourse from him, and was converted. Many a time, with his favorite disciple Ānanda, the Buddha visited Nālandā and stayed at the Pāvārika mango-grove, where a small vihāra was constructed. Over the centuries, this small vihāra got expanded into mahāvihāra and got transformed into a temple of learning. The years 450–455 A.D. is the earliest limit to which we can roughly assign the royal recognition of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. From the excavations conducted on the site from time to time, it is now almost established beyond doubt that the foundation of the monastery of Nālandā was laid during the reign of Kumāragupta89 of the Imperial Gupta dynasty, which was also mentioned by Xuanzang, who says that a former king of the country named Śakrāditya selected a spot and built a monastery there.90 Śakrāditya91 was popularly known as Kumāragupta I Mahendrāditya, who reigned in 413–455 A.D. From the account of Prajñādeva, a Korean monk who visited Nālandā about four decades after Xuanzang, it appears that though the foundation of the vihāra was laid, the work was stopped for some time.92 Successive Gupta emperors like Buddhagupta, Tathāgatagupta, Bālāditya, and Vajra went on constructing monasteries of their own on the different sites of the original structure, following the example set by Śakrāditya. Buddhagupta, son or grandson of Śakrāditya, built a monastery to the south of the original one; Tathāgatagupta93 built another to the east of Buddhagupta; Bālāditya built a three-levels pavilion (temple and monastery combined in one). Vajra, his son, erected a vihāra to the west of Bālāditya vihāra. Thus “these six kings in connected succession added to this structure.”94 These donations of monastic buildings symbolized state patronage, a salient recognition as a state institution. We learn from Xuanzang that a king of Central India built a vihāra to the north of Vajra’s and that he built around these edifices a high wall with one gate.95 The identification of this central king is an issue of debate. King Harṣavardhana of Kanauja appears to be the king of Central India to Raychaudhuri.96 Thakur does not agree with Raychaudhuri as Xuanzang takes the sixth king to be an earlier king. It seems reasonable to agree with Thakur when he identifies this king with Yaśovarmadeva of the Maukhari dynasty, which is also confirmed by the Nālandā stone inscription of the reign of Yaśovarmadeva, who according to Mandsor Pillar Inscription had established his rule over a vast area of Central India (530–535 A.D.).97 Moreover, many of his seals are also found at Nālandā and show their connection with it. The above is a proof of the growing dimension and importance of Nālandā in the north and Central



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India during the sixth century C.E. under the direct control and support of the imperial Guptas.98 The whole was converted into a mahāvihāra, a unitary establishment, and started to function as such with many monasteries together. The whole structure transformed into a campus with a surrounded high wall and an access gate. Several samples of the later official of the establishment set forth its unitary community character. It seems that the period intervening between the decline of Imperial Guptas and the rise of Harṣa was not good for the rise of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. It brought some destruction by fire to the structure but there is no confirmed literary evidence. There is sufficient archaeological evidence to witness this physically in the form of burnt debris in the deeper layers of Monastery No. 1, which took place at the end of the fifth or the early sixth century.99 Some historians credit this destruction to Mihirakula100 and some to Toramāṇa,101 but both are the Hūṇa kings. It is confirmed now that the partial destruction was brought under the rule of Hūṇa but Śrī Nālandā did flourish again, and perhaps this time with greater vigor and prosperity probably because it was well organized, carefully settled, and established by then. We also come across several inscriptions that throw light on the later history of Nālandā. The Shahpur Stone Image Inscription of the Harṣa year 66 (672 A.D.) records the installation of an image of Nālandā-mahāgrahāra, which counted as a seat of Brāhmaṇical habitation and learning. Another inscription of the time of Yaśovarmadeva (the Maukhari king, 729–743 A.D.) records endowment made to Nālandā by the son of his minister and also the construction of a temple of the Buddha “High as a hill” by king Bālāditya.102 The Mahāvihāra of Nālandā attracted lots of support from the Pālas after the Maukharis. Now it transformed as a stronghold of the Tantric cult.103 The first Pāla kings, Gopāla and then Dharmapāladeva,104 each had added a monastery here.105 But of these Pāla rulers, the most important patrons of Nālandā were Devapāla, Gopāla II, and Mahipāla I. Devapāla identifies himself with the cause of Nālandā Mahāvihāra and it was during his time that Śrī Nālandā started getting recognized in South Asia. The mega-monastery of Nālandā became a larger center of Buddhism and actively transmitted the same to different parts of the continent, particularly Tibet and Southeast Asia. It was during this period that a king of Suvarṇadvīpa and Yavadvīpa (Jāvā-Sumātrā, modern Indonesia) named Bālaputradeva built the monastery of Bālaputradeva Vihāra at Nālandā and got five villages106 donated by king Devapāla for its maintenance and comfort of the monks. This is recorded in the Nālandā Copper Plate Inscription of king Devapāladeva, which was issued in his thirty-ninth reigning year (i.e., 815–854 A.D.) and engraved on both sides of the large copper plate surmounted by a seal soldered to its top, bearing an emblem, dharma chakra, which is flanked by two gazelles, an insignia of Nālandā.107

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The middle of the eighth lines onward “glorifies the ambassador BalaVarman and his Lord Bālaputradeva, the king of Śailendra dynasty of Suvarṇadvīpa, who was the son of queen Tārā, daughter of king Dharmasetu.”108 The vihāra was also known as a center of Tantric Buddhism, as the epigraph describes its Ārya-bhikṣu-saṁgha or the governing body as a Tāntrika-Bodhisattvagaṇa. It may be interesting to note here that the monastery of Bālaputradeva as recorded in the inscription is not merely a name, as its remains were found from one of the levels of Monastery No. 1 at Nālandā.109 After Devapāla, we have no record of any Pāla king until Gopāla II, who might have been associated with Nālandā Mahāvihāra in some form or other. An image of Goddess Vāgīśvarī was found at Nālandā. It was covered with gold leaf and was installed by some unnamed person in the time of Gopāladeva, now identified with Gopāla II.110 During the reign of Mahipāla I, however, the fortunes of the Nālandā Mahāvihāra boomed once again. This king is credited with having constructed two temples at Bodhgayā, and he repaired and restored several monuments at Nālandā, which were either damaged or destroyed by fire.111 It was in the eighth or ninth year of his reign that the temple of Bālāditya was burnt down, although it was restored again in the eleventh year of his rule. Govindapāladeva seems to be the last Pāla king who had probably patronized Nālandā.112 After his death in 1197 A.D., various dynasties such as Cahamānas, the Gāhadavālas, the Senas, and the Gurjara-Pratihāras fought for supremacy over Magadha. But they were ultimately swept off in the avalanche resulting from the violent Muslim invasion on this part of the country in the beginning of the thirteenth century. One of the votive stūpas, unearthed at Nālandā, contains a reference to Mahendrapāladeva,113 identified as a Gurjara-Pratihāra king, who had conquered Magadha in about the tenth century A.D. Yet another inscription found at Nālandā informs us that sometime in the twelfth century A.D., Vipulaśrīmitra, a Buddhist monk, erected a monastery there, which is graphically described as “an ornament of the world.”114 It has been suggested that this monastery is identical with monastery number seven.115 We do not know whether Nālandā received the patronage of the Sena kings of Bengal also after the Pālas and the Gurjara-Pratihāras. A continued, unbroken history of Nālandā and its patrons is possible only when extensive excavations are conducted there and on other neighboring sites, which may provide further epigraphic and numismatic evidence. DECAY The decay of Nālandā is a wonder and one must doubtfully question the decline of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. Did it really meet with its physical



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end even though Monastery No. 3 is still standing tall today? Can we say with surety that the knowledge of Śrī Nālandā disappeared in time or only the monastic buildings of Nālandā collapsed due to whatever reasons? If we suppose that the decline happened as shown in the contemporary scholarship, which is more or less focused on the destruction of the monastic structure of Nālandā, then the question that arises is: Was the destruction quick or gradual when it took place? The popular false notion of the end of Nālandā is related to sudden destruction by Muslim invaders. It is true between 1197 and 1206 A.D. the monasteries of Nālandā, Vikramaśīlā, and Odantapurī suffered gravely during the conquest of Bihar by the Muslim warlord Muhammad Bhakhtiyār Khalji,116 but these places were not destroyed completely. Khalji is said to have destroyed a great city in Western Bihar (then called Bihar [or Vihāra]) with only two hundred horses, which the invaders were told was a place of study. The onslaught was so severe that the monks (the Brāhmaṇas with shaven heads) were killed “one and all, so much so that there was no one left to explain the content of books that the victor found at that place.”117 This story has been simply explained in the past in a biased way, but in recent years, historians have been constantly challenging it. The story itself shows that the Muslim commander perhaps did not know anything about Nālandā, so it was not a deliberate act of destruction due to religious animosity; they just wanted to win the area. It seems illogical that more than five-hundred-year-old traditions of Nālandā had all of a sudden met with their end by an attack. The destruction of Nālandā offers us a clear-cut narrative, with good and bad Hindus as well as Muslims, and it simply puts all blame on the bad group. This is part of the popular legacy of orientalism and Hindu nationalism, which Indians are carrying since the age of British colonialism. It has been propagated in the past that when Muslims arrived in India, they started destroying the religious places of other sects, but we know of the lingering of Buddhism in Sindh until the fifteenth century.118 The destruction of Śrī Nālandā by Muslims is problematic for many reasons. For example, after the attack local Buddhist rulers made deals with the new Muslim overlords to stay in power,119 and the mega-monastery of Nālandā also continued as a functioning institution of Buddhist education well into the thirteenth century. The destruction might not have been total right away because in 1235 A.D. when the Tibetan monk Dharmasvāmin visited Nālandā, he found some buildings without a scratch, with four Paṇḍitas and seventy monks residing under the leadership of Mahāpaṇḍita Rāhulaśrībhadra, and received instruction.120 We can also read the same in a Korean inscription of the monk Dhyānabhadra, who was born in Magadha and ordained at Nālandā early in the fourteenth century.121 After the training at Nālandā, the Indian monk Dhyānabhadra traveled to the court of Kublai Khan.122 We at least

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have a reference of Chinese monks Tsung-lé and his group traveling to India and obtaining Buddhist texts in the later fourteenth century, showing not only that Indian Buddhism was surviving with its sacred places but also that its fame was still reaching outside the territory of the Indian subcontinent.123 Indeed, contrary to the standard idea promoted by the above story that Śrī Nālandā’s destruction signaled the death of Buddhism, the fact is that the Dharma survived in India at least until the seventeenth century.124 In this line, we can also quote that no Muslim saints seem to have ever graced the top of Nālandā’s mounds with their tombs or mosques—a usual feature that was to be seen all over Bihar at sites of important living sanctuaries “which had invariably attracted the attention of the Muslim invaders for the erection of such monuments.” For instance, Bihar Sharif, which is not far from the site of Nālandā Mahāvihāra even now, has many Muslim monuments.125 The absence of Muslim monuments at Nālandā and its neighborhood indicates that Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra had ceased to be a living Buddhist learning institution by that time.126 It also indicates that Buddhists and Muslims were living together and Muslims did not interrupt and change the pious nature and structure of the monastery of Nālandā for almost a thousand years after the attack of Khalji. Here, two levels of postulate on the mortification of Nālandā (i.e., physical and religious), if it happened, can be formed. The historians are not unified about the reasons behind the physical and religious degradation of Nālandā Mahāvihāra and they have seriously not explored the complex economic, environmental, political, and religious history of India and the Buddhist tradition’s own weaknesses. It is probable that the changes in the contemporary social, religious, and political conditions brought about its end gradually.127 The external factors like Muslim invasions and Brāhmaṇical hostility128 might be an immediate cause of the partial physical destruction of the structure of Nālandā Mahāvihāra but it seems not justifiable to only blame Muslims or Brahmins for the complete decline. The internal problems and crisis played important roles in the decline of Śrī Nālandā in particular and Buddhism in general. In the eleventh century Islam replaced Buddhism as the greatest trading religion of Asia while the agrarian world within India was gradually lost to the Brahmins by the Buddhists, creating a systematic crisis within Buddhism.129 A dissipating social base of patronage by the beginning of the Gupta period in terms of decline in support from individual traders, merchants, farmers, monks, and collective patronage from some villages would have contributed to the decay of Nālandā.130 The rise of esoteric Buddhism at Śrī Nālandā in the end days might have crept into some fundamental problems of its socialization and regional adaptation increased its rate of desertification, which would be a promising area for future research. The conscious constant attempts to make Buddhism popular through seeking



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closeness with Brāhmaṇical religious systems reflected in the history of Śrī Nālandā tells another story of its expansion, popularity, and decline. The practice of tantras and mantras seems one effort in this direction. Some historians suggest that at least parts of Nālandā were destroyed by fire since heaps of ashes and charcoal were found at excavation sites.131 One inscription of about 1003 A.D. found at temple site number twelve actually refers to the destruction by fire.132 Sometimes folklores say that the monastery of Nālandā was partially burnt almost seven times and got rebuilt again. It is not clear what had caused the fire in the campus several times. In the course of excavations conducted at the site, even the topmost levels after the removal of the layers of earth, which had covered up the various sites, indirectly suggest the regeneration of the site. It is true that Śrī Nālandā survived the fire reflected in the discovery of different levels of monastic buildings, but it is not certain how many times fire occurred, and this is mainly due to the continued enormous economic supports and donations it received. Later, the royal supports decreased and became limited. The true stimulators of Buddhism and particularly Nālandā Mahāvihāra were the Pāla rulers like Dharmapāla and his successor Devapāla II, who established other competing monasteries like Vikramaśīlā, Somapura, and Odantapurī on the model of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which dominated the Buddhist world nearly for six centuries.133 The Pālas had to divide their economic resources to feed all monasteries and this obviously proved a setback to the benefaction of Śrī Nālandā. Nālandā Mahāvihāra must have especially been cast into the shade by the growing splendors of the rival Mahāvihāra of Vikramaśīlā, to which the attention of the kings was directed and which necessarily led to the withdrawal of some of the royal patronage.134 In the last days, the monastery of Nālandā lost its popular support and royal patronage due to volatile and violent political disorder, rendering its existence uneventful and inconsequential. After the attack of Khalji, we come to know from a Tibetan source (Pag-sam-jonzang) that a sage named Mudita Bhadra once again repaired the temples and the vihāras. After this, “one Kukkutasiddha, a minister of some king of Magadha erected a temple.”135 But these little and countable few donations could not possibly make Śrī Nālandā stand again on its foundation. Though most of the Pāla rulers were patrons of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, its gradual ideological and religious decline also started in this period in terms of internal deterioration within Buddhism. The changes in political and religious condition increased the rate of degradation especially the transformations within Buddhism. A reevaluation of the testimony of foreign scholars, inscriptions, and contemporary texts makes it clear that the advent of thirteenth-century Buddhism was but the last flicker of the lamp and its strong philosophical and ethical base was shaking. The Buddhists

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brought in some reformation to catch the social base again. Earlier popular Theravāda, Hīnayāna, and Mahāyāna Buddhism at Śrī Nālandā got sidelined and Tantric Buddhism occupied a dominant place in the religious and academic activities of the monastery, unfortunately with an adverse effect, which led to the further fall of Buddhism in India.136 The increased Tantric practices, image worships, and rituals polluted and divided the earlier simple and pure Buddhism and finally Hinduism swallowed it up. Not only the monastery of Nālandā but also the other contemporary monasteries witnessed this process. For example, the process of disintegration could not be further checked in spite of strenuous efforts by Ācārya Atīśa of the monastery of Vikramaśīlā, who expelled the Tantric teachers like Natekana and Vajrapāṇi from the monastery in order to maintain the purity of Mahāyāna Buddhism.137 Intellectually, it seems mysterious to only link the rise of Buddhist Tantra with the rapid decline and eclipse of Buddhism in India proper, yet when we pass to Tibet, we find the Tantra honored with a glorious reception and many-centuries-long vitality. The process of decline of Buddhism in the land of its birth involves another story closely associated with the end of Śrī Nālandā. It was not that desertification of the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā led to the decline of Buddhism in India but rather vice versa: the growing disrespect towards Buddhism also brought a gradual decline in monastic life. Even during the time of Harṣa, the Buddhist order reflected certain symptoms of decay. Xuanzang’s accounts leave us with no doubt that something had gone bad with the vast religious empire, which was reared up by the lifeblood of the Buddha. Except for a few places, such as Nālandā, wherever he went he found Buddhism on the wane, which is evident from his reference to India as “the country of Brāhmaṇas” as well as Bāna’s mention of the “followers of Kapila, Kanāda, and Vedānta.” In the beginning, Buddhism, with fewer rituals, doctrines, and communal structures, appealed to more people and the spiritual philosophy of the age. Gradually in the Middle Phase, Indian Buddhism adopted image worship and other rituals in its pantheon, reflected from the daily life of Śrī Nālandā. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this was not actually the philosophy that Buddhists practiced in Asia. People had apparently lost touch with the true teachings of the Buddha and instead descended into a nightmarish morass of ritualism and superstition.138 The Buddhist religion and philosophy were intimately connected with Nālandā Mahāvihāra from its origin. When Nālandā Mahāvihāra had fully grown as the learning seat, it did not recover its distinct monastic character and in the last days it became a center of profane activities, which led to its religious ruin. Another problem related to this issue could be the institutionalization of Buddhism. The growth of Nālandā Mahāvihāra was a live example of such institutionalization of religion. Of course, it helped in the expansion



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of Buddhism but it also simultaneously almost converted Buddhism from a popular religion to a monastic religion. The adoption of vihāra and later exclusive dependency on monasteries like Nālandā almost disconnected Buddhism from the society, resulting in its social failure. The excessive controlled institutional life at Śrī Nālandā seems not to have properly worked for passing on the true knowledge of Buddhism for its monks. We have literary references of scholars of the monastery of Nālandā who occasionally went out in the solitude and came back in after some time, possibly after attainment of special knowledge and power. Indian Buddhist traditions are not more concerned with laity, and it was not turned into a social movement139 because it hardly devised any code of conduct for its laity.140 The monks almost stopped the ritual begging, a popular means of daily contact with society. Also, the monasteries like Nālandā were not only large Buddhist centers but also part of an administrative unit called mahāpaṭala in the Rājagṛha viṣaya (district) as described in the inscriptions of Devapāladeva found at Nālandā. The discovery of many seals of academic, monastic, and administrative offices shows that the administration was complex and dual. Besides the central monastery’s administrative control over all academic and collective life, the vihāras have their own governing body known as Saṁgha. Especially in the prosperous days, Śrī Nālandā attracted not only more residents but also more donations, as Yijing records 200 villages were under the control of the monastery. The management of villages and the procurement of daily supplies was also part of its administration. The increasing load of administration probably also hampered the religious and academic activities at Nālandā. It must have become vulnerable when religion got mixed up with politics and economy. The question remains the same whether Nālandā traditions declined or survived in terms of its building and people. It seems that the partial destruction of structure by attack or fire, or political chaos, and later the lack of support, transformations in Buddhism, and deterioration in moral and academic life left the campus deserted. That’s why even after the death of the last known teacher, Rahul Sankritayan, it seems the monks had continued their study of grammar but soon they left the place due to the absence of internal and external support. They went to the remote corners of India and to foreign lands like Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, China, and Indonesia to find new pastures for the propagation and translation of the remains of the Buddhist knowledge. The second period in Tibetan Buddhism starting in the later tenth century coincided with Indian Tantric Buddhism called the Higher Tantra, and the bulk of this kind of Tantric literature was translated into Tibetan with the help of various scholars who came to Tibet, often as refuges, and, accordingly, who also introduced the important lineages of permission and initiation rituals.141

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The tradition and knowledge of Nālandā Mahāvihāra survived in the practices of these monks far away from its home. The present Tibet and China have special importance in this area, where not only the Buddhist knowledge of Śrī Nālandā is still surviving in translations but the traditions of Nālandā are also being practiced in many monasteries. Many pilgrims like Xuanzang, Yijing, Dharmasvāmin, and others carried, preserved, and transmitted the philosophy of the Buddha and his traditional knowledge from Nālandā to their homeland, and now the present world is witnessing it on many intellectual levels. It indicates that the monastery of Nālandā became deserted with time due to some ambiguous reasons and due to the changes formed in its residents but somehow the traditions of Nālandian Buddhist knowledge survived through its teachers and pupils. FAVORABLE FACTORS OF GROWTH AND DECAY We need to look into the details of favorable factors with above presented process-focused description to complete the discussion of the growth and decline of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. In this section, we will broadly survey the religious, social, and political history of ancient India in general with a focus on Magadha to explore the causes of the rise and decline of the monastery of Nālandā. The large monastic institution Nālandā Mahāvihāra was situated in the vicinity of Magadha, which ungrudgingly and impartially patronized the Buddhist faith and learning for over nine hundred years. Ancient Magadha possesses a distinct place in the educational history of early India, which housed both gurukula and mahāvihāra learning systems. If we do a comparative study of the two, then the Buddhist scholarship flourished more than Brāhmaṇical schooling in early Magadha. As a matter of fact, being situated beyond the eastern limit of purely Āryan culture, Magadha resisted the cultural aggression of the Āryans for a long time during which the neighboring kingdoms of Kośala (Oudh), Kauśāmbi (Allahabad), and Videha (North Bihar) came under the Āryan domination. The Brāhmaṇical religion and rituals did not root deeply in the society of Magadha, and its peculiar local tribal culture survived. In this way, from the beginning itself, Magadhi people were more receptive towards the heterodox sects like Buddhism and Jainism. Buddhism especially prospered with its apparatus in Magadha, and the mahāvihāra system also got its way to flourishing with Buddhism. Here, the focus will be to trace the causes of the growth of Nālandā Mahāvihāra and the monastic educational system but occasionally the decline of Buddhism and Nālandā monastic establishment will also come into reference.



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It is obvious from the above description of the process of origin of Nālandā Mahāvihāra that it was the result of the combination of several factors (i.e., economic, social, religious, institutional, political, and environmental). Many factors worked together in the growth and decay of the monastery of Nālandā. It was a practice to count causes one by one in the old school of history, compared to the present dominant practice of narrative history. Moderately, I prefer to describe each group of causes together in general. Let us start with economic prosperity and resources of the locality that were important for the rise of Nālandā. Economic Bases The economic richness of Magadha helped Nālandā to emerge as the prominent learning center in South Asia especially because of the availability of natural resources and the web of internal and external trade. The wide expanse of Magadha was blessed with the Gaṅgā for her life-giving and wealth-producing water, primeval forest, fertile alluvial soil, and reservoir of iron ore. The flourishing trade and commerce through land and water provided enough funds to the kings and to the merchants to support large Buddhist monastic institutions. The expansion of intensive agriculture also stimulated this process by providing materials to monasteries and to trade. Inscription data from Buddhist monastic sites indicate that the economic prosperity in the early historic period between 100 B.C. and 400 A.D. was not restricted to the elite but also percolated to occupational groups and castes. The progress of Magadha was not confined to Rājagṛha and Pāṭaliputra but also spread to the villages of Nālandā. Its villages and countryside with their high-producing system of agriculture and commerce had a great influence on its growth and prosperity. There were large villages like Mahāvaḍḍhakigāma and Kammāragāma, each of which consisted of about one thousand families of wood carvers and smiths, with the institutions of Jeṭṭhakas (i.e., aldermen among the artisans).142 Archaeological excavations document a technological improvement in structural remains as well as a more extensive use of bricks and tiles than those of the previous periods.143 Also, the increased use of bricks and tiles instead of mud and wood reflects the good economic condition of villagers and artisans. Overall, the economic progress of the region through natural resources, trade, and agriculture made ruling elites, merchants, other occupational groups, and monks capable of providing edifices to the emerging and newly established Buddhist monasteries like Nālandā. The introduction of iron technology helped in breaking the hard alluvial soil of the Gangetic plain and making the fields fit for agricultural

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purposes by cutting the deeply forested areas from 1100 to 800 B.C. It also led to marshaling in an era of large settlements, which also attracted Buddhist settlements. The newly available lands were used for the construction of monasteries. These less settled areas were suitable for this purpose because it was not too far from the towns and not too near, convenient for going and for coming, easily accessible to all who wished to visit, not too crowded by day and not exposed to too much noise and alarm by night.144 Before the introduction of iron in the Gangetic Valley, agriculture was extensive and productive without proper digging but irrigational facilities made it more and more intensive after the introduction of the iron tools, which led to multifarious agricultural activities.145 Iron tools (spade, hoe, socketed and plain axes, and ploughshare) were useful for procuring water for irrigation by tapping artificial sources of water such as digging of wells, tanks, and canals as practiced in the times of the Ṛgveda and the Atharvaveda.146 The impact of iron tools is also reflected in the multiplicity of cereals and grains and the beginning of cultivation of an important cereal (wheat), which is evidenced at Atranjikherā and hitherto unknown in the Gangetic Valley during the Copper Bronze age.147 The areas around Nālandā Mahāvihāra had many water tanks, and these are still very fertile lands of alluvial soil, suitable for ongoing practice of intensive agriculture. This shift from extensive to intensive agricultural was responsible for the surplus production. We know that the citizens of Rājagṛha, Śrāvastī, and Benares used to supply food on certain occasions to the monks of the Buddhist Saṁgha in the city.148 In this way, the surplus production of neighboring areas would have supported the growing Buddhist monastery of Nālandā especially by providing enough food for its continuously increasing number of residents. The beginning of intensive agriculture led to an evolution of circuit of exchange and later trade for surplus productions. The circuit of exchange near Nālandā such as weekly markets developed from the existing networks involving trade in essential items such as grains, salt, and iron smithy, which were often serviced through a regular seasonal circuit. From the Jātakas, we know that special people known as the sārathavahas worked on these and they could carry the sāratha or caravan.149 Such activities would have formed the prelude to the emergence of trade in the Gaṅgā plain.150 Later the advanced stage of trade is reflected in inscriptions through marked distinction between the financier, the caravaneer, the general trader, and dealers in specific commodities such as salt and sugar.151 The earliest Buddhist records mention river trade only as far down as Magadha, or Campā as its farthest point.152 Circuits of exchange not only traded goods but also transferred and attracted different ideas and people in the locality of Magadha. In this way, Nālandā emerged



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not only as the important trading center but also as a suitable place for a monastery amid many ideas and peoples and later as the epicenter of Buddhist learning. Nālandā in ancient Magadha was well connected internally and externally by different trade routes, which also encouraged the construction of the monastery and later guaranteed its prosperity side by side.153 The expansion of Buddhism along trade networks and the location of monastic establishments at the nodal points of trade routes has been established as a fact in pre-modern South Asian history.154 There is a reference to the local route that started from Vaiśālī and went up to Rājagṛha including places Pātaligama, Nālandā, and Ambalaṭṭhika, among others.155 This road made it possible for Nālandā’s link with North Bihar, which was later connected with the native land of the Buddha at Kapilavastu. A route connecting Rājagṛha with Varanasi probably via Gayā has also been mentioned in the Buddhist literature, which proceeded farther west to the cities of Prayāga, Kanyakubja, Mathura, and Takṣaśīlā.156 As we know, Nālandā and Rājagṛha were neighboring cities, so now they were connected with central and western India. In early times, it served as a distribution center along the trade routes from the northwest, which was only a few miles from the Magadha capital of Rājagṛha. The most notable trade route was the Pāṭaliputra-Tāmraliptī passing through Gayā as well as the Gayā-Pāṭaliputra and Gayā-Rājagṛha route, which in turn were well tied to Nālandā. Here, it branched the main road going on to Delhi and across Punjab to Takṣaśīlā and Kabul Valley,157 where it split again with one part disappearing over the Hindu Kush and the other on to western Asia.158 This road was known as Uttarāpatha.159 It is clear now that roads were available and they were connected in terms of transportation of men and goods. Even in early Buddhist days, the roads to Takṣaśīlā seem to have been relatively safe, as numerous stories mention nobles’ and Brāhmaṇas’ sons traveling unarmed to Takṣaśīlā to receive their education.160 Nālandā also had similar advantages and also attracted many scholars and residents from the far western part of India and Asia through the same route. The growing intensive cultivation, rise of trade, and increase in population also led to the second urbanization in South Asia around 500 B.C. onward and its links to the rise of Buddhism noticed by many scholars.161 Buddhism acquired characteristics that were wholly congruent with the culture of city-based regional kingdoms.162 According to Erdosy, from among the five sites that show the earliest signs of urbanization, three sites (Rājghat [i.e., ancient Varanasi], Campā, and Rājagṛha) are situated in the east of the confluence of Gaṅgā and Yamuna; one site (Kauśāmbi) is near to it; and one site (Ujjain) lies somewhere else together.163 Buddhist tradition recognizes six cities of outstanding importance, which would

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have been to receive the mortal remains of the Buddha—Campā, Kāsī, Śrāvastī, Kauśāmbi, Rājagṛha, and Sāketa—and points out that the first five of these correspond to the earliest urban centers reconstructed from archaeological evidence, omitting only Ujjain.164 It is also in these areas, which were most probably metropolises of ancient India, that a number of educational, religious, and spiritual movements arose, the most famous among them being Buddhism and Jainism. All these events that took place were manifestations of the culture of that part of northern India. From all accounts, it appears that the early fortunes of Nālandā were closely connected with those of Rājagṛha and Pāṭaliputra, which was then a big capital city and a center of the Buddha’s activities.165 The closeness to Rājagṛha might lead to the establishment of the monastery of Nālandā at Nālandā. However, the decline of Rājagṛha started after shifting the Mauryan empire capital to Pāṭaliputra, and soon thereafter, Nālandā also fell on bad days and was gradually pushed into oblivion.166 The rise of urban centers was related to the further increase in different affluent and occupational classes, which were main donors to the monasteries like Nālandā. The growth of trade increased the number of occupations, and later the functional groups living together in the cities came to be organized into guilds. On the evidence of the Jātakas and the law books, we get the names of the following guilds—woodworkers, smiths, leather workers, painters, garland makers, caravan traders, herdsmen, money lenders, cultivators, traders, and pilots.167 There had been a gradual breaking up of the clan holding of land and the emergence of the nuclear family. The significance of this change is evident particularly from Buddhist texts, where the gṛhapati/gaḥapati assumes an important position as the head of household and sometimes the owner of the cultivable land.168 A distinction is made between the gaḥapati, who appears to be the well-off landowner and the kaṣsāka, who is the cultivator. The possibility of accumulation to use wealth for taxes as well as for personal gain becomes a reality in the emergence of wealthy gaḥapatis, who employ labor to till the land. It is probably among the families of wealthy landowning gaḥapatis that there emerged the initially part-time and ultimately full-time profession of traders and merchants as well as bankers and financiers, who are referred to as seṭṭhi. There are several epigraphs recording donations to monasteries by a cross-section of specialized workers and traders such as blacksmith, fishermen, gardeners, and so on.169 These new prosperous groups of the society were the laity of Buddhism; they believed in Buddhism but were not admitted in monasteries because of the religious support to wealth accumulation. The monks isolated from ordinary community life provided an indirect service by offering the laity an opportunity to generate merit through donations. The symbiotic relationship functioned through the logic of donation, purity, and merit.170



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The new economic order of the Gupta and the post-Gupta periods is dominated by the growing number of land grants, which record transfer of properties to various categories of donees. Distinctions are made in historical writings in this period between what were called religious grants and secular grants. The religious grants include grants to Buddhist monasteries, other religious institutions, and individual Brāhmaṇa and Brāhmaṇas in groups. These devedāna (that is, “given to gods”) and brahmadeya (“given to Brāhmaṇas”) grants extended in later centuries to the creation of agrahāras, śāsanas, landed estates of temples, maṭhas, and another type of monastic establishment.171 These land grants financially buttressed the growth of autonomous and large mahāvihāras like Nālandā. Śrī Nālandā especially fulfilled its daily need through the grant of two hundred villages during the time of Yijing by different generations of kings. The feudal pattern of the South Asian economy, which was predominantly rural agrarian in character, centered on the self-sufficient villages as the unit of production and distribution and at the same time was characterized by agrarian expansion on a substantially large scale. It is linked to the decline of commerce and consequently of commercial groups and of urban centers of early historical India.172 Both in terms of structural activities and other forms of archaeological assemblage, the urban centers reached an apogee of growth in the pre-Gupta period. Their steady decay in the Gupta and the post-Gupta period had adverse effects on the economy, with the shifting of productive activity to rural areas. At one level, the decline of urban centers as settlement of a composite population, of crafts and artisanal production, and of exchange resulted in the migration of both non-producing groups such as Brāhmaṇas as well as producing artisanal groups to rural areas. The artisanal groups were now rurally localized and made subservient to landholding classes. The ritual status of many artisanal groups declined and as a result, the ranks of the untouchables swelled such as carmakāra (leather workers), rajaka (washer man), bamboo workers, blacksmiths, and basket makers—branded as asat and adharmasaṃkara.173 These untouchables belonged to the lowest strata of the society and were denied accessibility to Vedic education and religion. The Buddhist training organism satisfied their wishes of salvation, peace, and knowledge by allowing them in their monastic institutions. In the early medieval period, with the progressive growth of population, fluctuating trade conditions, and the emergence of feudal strongholds, several new taxes were levied on the peasantry by imperial rulers as well as by their powerful subordinates. One such tax is called the hālika-kara, which is noted in the inscriptions of the Uccakalpa rulers who, from accounts, were the feudatories of the Imperial Gupta.174 Hāli is a large plow, whereas hālika refers to the plowman.175 The plowman behind

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the plow is connected with this particular type of tax, probably one of the types of viṣṭi tax.176 The landlords used to call upon all their tenants to plow their land. The tenants with no bullocks had to clear fields of all weeds, grass, roots, and so forth and also had to work with a spade in areas where bullocks and plow teams could not possibly reach. In this growing feudal economy, the economic pressure on the peasant and especially labor class was increasing and their lives became miserable. They might have joined Buddhist monastic institutions like Śrī Nālandā to escape their wretched lives and to get free residence and food with peace. In this way, the mahāvihāra educational system easily got an endless supply of students. Social Bases Somewhere the rise of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra was supported and balanced by the peculiar contemporary social condition of ancient India in general and Magadha in particular. Nālandā Mahāvihāra and its practices were related to the local society and culture at least in the beginning, which resulted in its popularity. It seems in the end days, Nālandā almost got cut from the society and got drowned in rituals, which connects it to its bad days. It was like a subsystem performing certain functions for the ongoing social system. The goals and needs of the contemporary society got reflected in the functions it laid down for its residents and the form in which it structured the scholastic system. The society of ancient Magadha was unique in its ideology, structure, and composition, which stimulated the growth of the Buddhist monastery of Nālandā and its learning. The society welcomed new ideology, which was comparatively more liberal in thinking and less conservative in behavior than other parts of contemporary India. The society of ancient Magadha was also more diverse in nature, comprising different social and religious classes from Āryans and non-Āryans and all religions—Buddhism, Jainism, and Brāhmaṇism.177 Because of a flexible social structure, broadly Magadha and particularly Nālandā, it probably benefited from an influx of classes from upper India with a mixture of groups that so often brings new vitality to a culture. Bronkhorst, after the extensive survey of the Brāhmaṇical literature, showed that the region east of the confluence of the Gaṅgā and the Yamuna was still more or less a foreign territory for many Brāhmaṇas ever after Patañjali.178 Patañjali’s Mahābhāsya suggests that an important change took place between the second century B.C. and the second or third century A.D. in the Gangetic valley with the eastward spread of Brāhmaṇas.179 While the Brāhmaṇas of the second century B.C. looked upon the eastern Gaṅgā valley as more or less foreign territory, the Brāhmaṇas of the second or third centuries A.D. looked upon it as their land. The change that is



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recorded here concerns the eastward spread of Brāhmaṇism. Even after the arrival of Brāhmaṇas in Magadha after the birth of Christ, it was not overshadowed by the Vedic culture. It took a long time for the Brahmins to acquire dominant social position and spread their ideology in this region since almost no political rulers were especially interested in it. The late Brāhmaṇization of the Gangetic valley has given space for the growth of the orthodox ideologies and religions such as Buddhism, which were connected to the Magadhan culture and adopted many traits of it. With this Buddhist monastery and its education system, the assimilation of the mainly non-Āryan population there also emerged and flourished.. Another question of equal importance is the geographical location in which Āryanization took place. It was ancient Magadha where the two opposing streams of different ethnic origin Āryans and non-Āryans met and mingled for the first time in north India and constituted a nucleus of instability.180 During the post-Vedic age, the Āryanization of the Magadha region was fast with the increasing number of Brāhmaṇas and the expansion of Brāhmaṇical ideology in the society. Brāhmaṇas acquired dominant social position and surpassed other varṇas, which allows us to use the expressions “Brāhmaṇical society” or “Vedic society” for the period during which Vedic texts were still being composed. These expressions do not, of course, imply that all members of this society were Brahmins. The other varṇas, Kṣatriya, Vaiśya, and Śūdra, became subordinated to Brāhmaṇas (i.e., the ritual specialist, the agent of God, the anchor of merit and demerit, and the purest). One of the tools of this process was also gurukulas, where the Brahmins taught, trained, and propagated Brāhmaṇical ideology and religion. The rising social tension between Brāhmaṇas and the other three varṇas, especially the ruling class Kṣatriya for the highest status in the society, resulted in the beginning and promotion of Buddhism by Kṣatriya. Being the ruling elites, the Kṣatriya varṇa also supported monastic didactic structures politically and economically to regain dominate social and political status. The social and religious life of ancient Magadha rested on cooperation among varṇas. Dharmasūtras (fifth century B.C.) and Dharmaśāstras (second century B.C.) indicate that the society was based upon the four-fold classification of the people into varṇas with their assigned duties. The Kṣatriya as military people protected others from violence and maintained civic discipline. Intellectual Brāhmaṇas sought the path of knowledge for the attainment of salvation. The Vaiśyas were responsible for conducting trade and commerce, rearing cattle, and controlling agriculture. The Śūdras generally professed as artisans and craftsmen and served the other three varṇas. The paths of works and service were assigned to architect, artisan, artist, merchant, and the laboring class in general for salvation. The first two aspects of such social life were manifested in the Saṁgha

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(i.e., community of the Buddhist monks).181 This is the other reason behind the reflected interest of the two lower varṇas and later the lower castes—when they came into existence—in joining the monasteries. Manu suggests in some of the passages that the Gupta and the postGupta period are marked by the eruption of social tensions between the upper and lower varṇas. Manu forbids a Śūdra to collect any wealth, even though he may be in a position to do so because a Śūdra, who has acquired wealth, gives pain to Brāhmaṇas. The property of the Śūdras should be regarded as the property of the demons.182 All these provisions rather suggest that a considerable number of Śūdra artisans had grown rich by pursuing various crafts in the post-Maurya times.183 Also in the matter of award of punishments and imposition of fines, there was naturally a big gulf of difference between the two higher and lower varṇas. The two varṇas—Vaiśya and Śūdra—wanted to escape this social tension and as a result became the main supporters and entrants of Buddhist monasteries, which promoted equality and harmony between the varṇas. We have shreds of evidence of another type of social tension. With the elevation of the princely and priestly class, the Vaiśyas lost the social status they once enjoyed.184 In early Vedic times, the rathakāras as the builders of war-chariots were on friendly terms with the king.185 In the Taiṭṭiriya Brāhmaṇa, however, they appear as a special lower-status class along with Vaiśyas. Similarly, though the physician’s skill was lauded in the Ṛgveda, the later dislike for the physician and his profession are to be found in the Black Yajurveda. The position of the Vaiśyas (i.e., the mass of the industrial population) also underwent a change in the Āitareya Brāhmaṇa: they came to be regarded as being tributary to another and their function was to be devoured by the priest and the noblemen.186 The degrading status of the working classes encouraged them to seek refuge in Buddhist monasteries. A large section of gaṇikās (public women) of ancient India by virtue of their intellectual accomplishments and skill in the fine arts of sculpture making, painting, music, dance, theatrical performance, and so forth occupied an influential rank in society. When king Ajātaśatru went to pay his homage to the Buddha, who was staying at the Jīvaka Āmravana Vihāra in Rājagṛha, a large procession accompanied him, which also included gaṇikās on elephants.187 Sanskrit and Pāli pieces of literature mention that many of the gaṇikās, such as Ambapālikā, Vasantasenā, Vāsavadattā, and Kāmaṇdakī, were temperate in habits, highly cultured, virtuous, and religious, and they were regarded as royal property. They patronized artists and craftsmen by commissioning their services for the construction of temples and monasteries. It should be noted that the Buddha did not exclude the gaṇikās from his religious fold. We cannot ignore their contributions in the rise of Nālandā Mahāvihāra although it is hard to trace.



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Religious Bases Religious factors have special significance in the rise of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. From the point of view of religion, the locality of Nālandā was not deeply rooted in Brāhmaṇical religious traditions and rituals in the beginning, so there was always a desirable space for the other ideology and structures. When Brāhmaṇism reached its apex with the magnification of rituals and sacrifices, Magadha witnessed two new simple religions—Buddhism and Jainism—to assimilate anxious common folk of the contemporary society. Especially the interaction between Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist religion shaped the growth of Nālandā. The complication associated with Brāhmaṇical religion led to the emergence and popularity of Buddhism in general and the establishment of Nālandā Mahāvihāra in particular. In the same way, the problems with the Brāhmaṇical mode of education (i.e., gurukula) also led to the growth of the Buddhist mode of education and is related to the transformation of the monastery of Nālandā into a temple of learning. The constant politics of domination between Brāhmaṇism and Buddhism on the land of Magadha directly got reflected in the rise and decline of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The emerging weaknesses of the Vedic religion in terms of the supply of a number of supporters and donations benefited the Buddhist institution of Nālandā. The Brahmin’s religion got overpowered by the increasing number of vast, complex, and elaborate Vedic rituals in due time. A large number of cattle had been sacrificed in these Vedic rituals, which was the base of growing an agricultural economy in the Gangetic valley. The annoyed peasant class accepted Buddhism to save their main wealth (i.e., cattle), due to its moderate and practical non-violence policy, which also allowed agricultural activities. There must have been the pre-Buddhistic protest, for which Jainism was too passive because of its extreme form of ahiṃsa to be generally used. This process helped Buddhist mahāvihāras to grow in two ways: first, Buddhist monasteries always got new entrants in the form of farmers, and second, the daily needs of mahāvihāras such as grains, milk, clarified butter, and so forth were also supplied by the peasant class. The priests gained a great deal of wealth and spiritual and political power from the constant warfare of petty princelings in the days of the Buddha. In the Gupta age, the Brāhmaṇas became purely the sacrificial priest, whose main source of livelihood seems to have been the fee at the sacrifice. The purpose of the sacrifice was propitiation of the gods and naturally, the grandest sacrificial ceremonies would be for success in war. The ruling class having lost political power turned to Buddhism for consolation as it was against the costly royal sacrifices.188 In addition, they supported Buddhism and Buddhist institutions for the Buddhist legitima-

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tion of accumulation and investing wealth when the mass destruction of wealth was happening in yajñas. Therefore in order to conserve wealth, meditation and yoga were accepted as alternative paths to mokṣha.189 That this was also central to the emergence and continuation of the traders and commercial groups is, of course, evident and it has been suggested that a substantial patronage to Buddhism in its early history was based on support from commercial groups.190 The spirit of learning and teaching was inherent in Buddhism right from its emergence. Buddhism did not touch the older ritual nor set up a new one of its own. It worked out a new social scheme from Brāhmaṇical religion, which would make it possible for everyone to coexist with less friction. It is remarkable that Buddhism is a proselyting religion and the principal function of its monks was originally to spread the doctrine. We hear of monks, even in the time of the Buddha, going half way down the peninsula, and not towards the Indus, though the religion as such had not spread beyond the Gangetic basin at the time of his death. The monk stays in his monastery and study, whereas the Brahmin had a family, and in general had closer ties with the people.191 This zeal to pursue knowledge for salvation transformed the Buddhist mahāvihāras into learning temples, which later admitted all classes as students. Buddhism taught different methods to attain liberation and therefore rejected the asceticism of the Jains, with its emphasis on immobilization and the notion of a self, which by its very nature is inactive. The Buddha in his second sermon at Benares after his enlightenment mentions a notion of the self that presents itself as something permanent, unchanging, and pleasurable. The Buddha took the driving force behind acts (i.e., “thirst” [tṛṣṇā]) and the liberation that would be obtained when this driving force is eliminated. Karmic retribution was limited here to deeds that are the result of desire or intention. This requires a psychological process, not just immobilization of body and mind or knowledge of the true nature of the self. This new middle path of the Buddha has been described in the Buddhist texts, which is essentially different from the other ones available in their time.192 The new religion of Buddhism also attracted the ruling class and traders, with their concern for the salvation of all. This simple path of salvation attracted a large number of supporters and they got admitted to the Buddhist monastery for training. The continued practice of public religious tournaments also promoted the establishment and function of Nālandā. The Indo-Āryan mind always took delight in logically discussing the various questions of religion and philosophy.193 Buddhism especially was fond of such discussions.194 In the age of Aśoka, such discussions between different sects took place, and the rock edict XII enjoins upon them for toleration, respect for the truth in each system, and restraint of speech in controversy. Xuanzang refers to



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Buddhist monasteries as the constant scenes of discussions for the monks residing therein and, having no responsibility for their maintenance, had ample time for study and disputations besides performing their religious exercises.195 These religious tournaments and discussions, like modernday seminars, must have helped in the generation and diffusion of Buddhist and Brāhmaṇical knowledge. Institutional Bases The Nālandā Mahāvihāra was the example of its first type of institutional instructions in South Asia. The changing and growing needs of the contemporary society demanded either a new form of training system with universal accessibility or substantial changes in the prevalent gurukula learning apparatus. Actually, the Brāhmaṇical tutoring system did not bring revolutionary changes and it became rigid at its zenith of development. This led to the rise of a new form of mahāvihāra instruction, which embraced the demands of popular culture in the form of institutional learning apparatus that was open for all. The organized changes included changes in more definite structures, such as the form of organization, roles, and role content. This ultimately affected the content and the method of teaching in monasteries as well as the teacher-taught relationships. These institutional changes were also one of the main reasons behind the success, expansion, and popularity of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra and its training system. The mahāvihāra like Nālandā—as both a religious and a learning institution—has its own importance for the diffusion of Buddhist religion and learning. We can say in other words that the relationship between Buddhism and mahāvihāra was interdependent. The survival of Buddhism and diffusion of Buddhist knowledge could not have been possible without monasteries, and, vice versa, as the rise and decline of the monasteries like Nālandā were also connected to the fate of Buddhism. The history of the Buddhist system of education is practically the history of Buddhist vihāra or Order or Saṁgha. The new religion of Buddhism in its evolutionary period needed some kind of institutional support for propagation and expansion. Buddhism and the Vedic religion and learning, respectively, were centered on the vihāras and the gurukula, and later the vihāras got enlarged into mahāvihāras but gurukula remained gurukula. The institution of mahāvihāra worked as a religious lab where the new philosophies and rituals were created after many additions and deletions. The monasteries studied other religions like Brāhmaṇism and Jainism to find out their weaknesses and used those for the benefits of Buddhism. It also trained new believers in Buddhist religion and philosophy. Finally, the mahāvihāras were developed to serve as centers of Buddhist religious

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study that could both defend the faith and support themselves as communities. They also offered a Buddhist location and environment for the study of subjects that were part of the cultural renaissance evident in the Gupta period.196 The institutional rules and laws for monasteries and monks mentioned in the Vinaya Piṭaka compelled the monks to explore Buddhist knowledge and later spread it outside. The monks were advised to meet new devotees of Buddhism on the eighth, fourteenth, and fifteenth day of every lunar fortnight at gatherings in the monasteries, where the monks delivered religious discourses and dispelled doubts on the points about which questions were put to them. After the morning begging sessions, the afternoons were to be utilized by the householders, who were allowed by the rules of monasteries to come there and gain spiritual knowledge from the monks through conversation and religious discourses. The householders were also permitted to invite the monks singly or by batches to meals, and these occasions were similarly utilized for the purposes of religious conversation. These rules provided ample opportunities for the converts to come into frequent contact with the learned Buddhist monks, who were supposed to involve themselves in knowing the truth by going through the Buddha’s sayings and Buddhist scriptures in the monasteries. In turn, this would have also attracted common folk—who were interested in salvation through knowledge of the truth—to the monastic training programs. Buddhism was vitally interested in the growth of a believing and pious laity and framed certain rules, which were observed more in breach than in compliance for the regulation of life.197 For example, the laity was required to formally declare their refuge with the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Saṁgha, though it was never insisted upon as it might go against the interests of a vihāra with the laity as its neighbor. This means that the people who were supporting a Buddhist mahāvihāra could be followers of Brāhmaṇism or Jainism, Śivaism or Vaiśñavism, or any other sects. This expanded the base of the Buddhist monastery with support from all classes and led towards their liberalization. Sanskrit language and classical learning had a revival during the Gupta and the post-Gupta period, with the formulation of the Dharmaśāstras and other Śmṛti collections as a result.198 Kālidāsa, Bharthari, Bharavi, and other important Sanskrit poets and writers lived in this period, during which many of the Purāṇas, Śmṛti, and major law codes were completed. Buddhism was undoubtedly challenged by this movement to consolidate its own teachings and offer a comparable standard of learning. Then mahāvihāras tuned into the learning center and acted as a center for the collection of the Buddha’s teachings, its translations, retranslations, and commentaries and retranslations of Brāhmaṇical scriptures.199



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Buddhism was based on a centralized and separate living and teaching establishment (i.e., the mahāvihāra). The decentralized character of an overall institutional organization of the monastery had equipped it with an ability to function in local environments without reference to a central authority. Each of the monasteries from the smallest to the largest one was autonomous in nature and maintained separate identities suited to the religious and educational needs of the locality. The geographical separation and general self-containment of Buddhist communities led to the natural development and dissemination of its philosophical ideas and community practices. It became an asset for Buddhist mahāvihāras, which helped in their expansion in both number and size in South Asia. A wider dispersal of economic and political power during the Maurya, the Gupta, and the post-Gupta period brought in newer groups in decision-making positions, which led to the demand for change in the educational system. The rise of groups advocating a change in the medium of instruction at all levels to regional languages such as Pāli vis-à-vis the groups supporting the retention of Sanskrit as far as possible is an instance in point. Sanskrit being a language of the learned, most of the common folk went far away from receiving Vedic education. The mahāvihāra education system also adopted local dialects such as Pāli for the medium of instruction, which increased its popularity as was reflected in the growing number of students and literatures that were composed. With the grandiose extension of Brāhmaṇical religion, the gap between the priests and people increased a lot. The institutionalization of the Buddhist Saṁgha led to the greater interaction between monastic establishments and the laity. It was accessible to all. As a result of these changes Buddhist monastic institutions were ideally suited to act as pioneers in newly settled areas or to act as nuclei of an information system.200 This transformed monasteries into learning centers, which preserved and transmitted knowledge or information. That’s why we witness an increasing number of monastic institutions in newly settled areas. Political Bases The emergence, growth, and expansion of Buddhist monasteries like Nālandā became possible by the active support of the contemporary political power on the land of Magadha. We have witnessed that Magadha was the center of political activities in ancient India with the rise of the state for the first time and then its expansion into almost the whole of India. What is perhaps more interesting is that the early rulers of Magadha were not frequently associated with Brāhmaṇical ideology and the Vedic sacrificial rituals. Also, it is a curious political phenomenon that the early kings of the Magadha empire were not Buddhist by religion but the Buddhist

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instruction system expanded all over ancient Magadha by their tolerant and inclusive religio-political policy. We have a long history of dynasties and kings of ancient Magadha, whose reigns were periods of prosperity and security. The Buddhist learning institutions grew naturally in this peaceful and secure environment. The society in the Gaṅgā plain had undergone major changes from the Later Vedic period onwards. There was a distribution of diverse cultural groups and a range of social hierarchies. In such a situation, there was a need for an overall control through the maintenance of law and order and to protect it from aggression. This took the form of the emergence of states. The rājā as chief finally evolved into a king in those Janapadas where monarchy became the norm. Among these, Kośala and Magadha were initially important.201 Ancient Magadha was first to establish law and order in their first state following the norms of rājadharma.202 It remained in political unity and stability for a longer time under the reign of the Maurya and Gupta dynasty, which stimulated the growth of religious bodies like mahāvihāras. The rules of Aśoka and Samudragupta were especially expanded up to the whole of India with an epicenter in Magadha. As time progressed, the power of Magadha grew under the above-mentioned two monarchs and they controlled the whole of the Gaṅgā valley since the middle of the fourth century B.C. with occasional intervals. It also brought economic stability and progress; for example, the punch marked silver karshapanas of Magadha-Mauryan form came to replace the other forms of local coinage and they remain to this day the most commonly encountered type of punch marked coin. 203 In this secure environment, the Buddhist enlightenment system got an opportunity to emerge and the king encouraged them according to their rājadharma. The political history of the Gaṅgā valley shows that the confluence of the Gaṅgā and the Yamuna was not Brāhmaṇical territory. The early kings of Magadha such as Bimbisāra and Ajātaśatru and the rulers of the Mauryan empire were especially not interested in Brāhmaṇas and their ideas such as Candragupta Maurya, Bindusāra, and Aśoka. The Nandas, who consolidated imperial power at Pāṭaliputra around 350 B.C., appear to have become zealous patrons of Jainism. It is only with the Śuṅgas, who were Brahmins themselves, that Brāhmaṇas may have begun to occupy their place in society, which they thought was rightfully theirs. This happened around 185 B.C. but forty or fifty years later Patañjali, the grammarian, was still not ready to look upon the Gaṅgā valley in confluence with the Yamuna as being part of the land of the Āryas.204 It was also one of the reasons behind the emergence of non-Brāhmaṇical religions such as Buddhism in ancient Magadha with its learning apparatus. We cannot ignore the relationship between politics and religion in overall religious ancient India, as it was a source of legitimacy for kingship.



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The emerging king of Janapadas also used popular Buddhism for their legitimacy, which was the main reason behind the growth of mahāvihāras in South Asia. The king became the patron of the Saṁgha by making donations to it. The Saṁgha in return, as the institution embodying the authority of the religious groups, expressed its approval to the king and to their ancestors.205 Royal links with the new religious ideologies, particularly Buddhism, developed more fully in the Mauryan period. Rulers such as Bimbisāra and Ajātaśatru of Magadha are said to have been interested in these religions but were not major patrons. The participation of Aśoka in the activities of the Saṁgha for propagating the power of the imperial system plays an important role in the monastic chronicles of Buddhist sects, particularly in the chronicles from Sri Lanka, the Dīpavaṃsa and the Mahāvaṃsa, and others from the various parts of Southeast Asia.206 With Aśoka, the stars of Buddhism and Buddhist mahāvihāras were ascendant in ancient Magadha. Aśoka imbibed the true spirit of Buddhism with the virtues of compassion and liberality, and there is no doubt that by both precepts and deeds, he made Buddhism a live force regulating the lives of his subjects in his empire. It seems that the base for the establishment of Nālandā got prepared during the Buddhism-friendly time of Aśoka. Later the early Gupta monarchs were ardent followers of Brāhmaṇism but they were also liberal in patronizing other faiths such as Buddhism and Jainism. It seems that the Gupta kings politically used both the Brāhmaṇical and the Buddha’s religions and benefited by the prepared successful politico-religious base of the time of the Mauryas, which resulted in the patronization of Buddhism and an increased number of Buddhist monasteries such as Nālandā Mahāvihāra, all over the empire. The essence of the state structure in both the pre-Gupta and the Gupta periods consisted of two interrelated points (i.e., decentralized administration and political hierarchy).207 The process, which worked towards administrative decentralization, was derived from the practice of making land grants along with administrative privileges and the breakdown of the state’s monopoly over the army.208 The beneficiaries who received land grants from kings and their feudatories were given a wide range of fiscal, administrative, and military immunities. The rulers gave up their control of almost all resources of revenue, including pasturage, hides, charcoal, mines for the production of salt, forced labor, and all hidden treasures and deposits. This emerging and increasing trend of land grants provided financial support to the monastic institution. The mahāvihāras also got grants of villages from different kings as it is recorded that during the time of the visit of Yijing, Nālandā possessed about two hundred donated villages to fulfill its daily needs. The Gupta and the post-Gupta periods witnessed a decentralized administrative apparatus or, more appropriately, the virtual absence of any

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strong administrative apparatus. The functions of the collection of taxes, levy of forced labor, regulation of mines, agriculture, and so forth, together with those of the maintenance of law and order and defense, which were hitherto performed by the state officials, were now step by step abandoned—first to the priestly class and later to the warrior class.209 The decay of state power was comprehensive with the breakup of the army into small garrisons as also through the process of the emergence of virtually autonomous military officials.210 In the post-Gupta period, local units of production were coming into prominence and this factor can be linked with the weakening of central authority, which adopted the method of paying officials by grant of revenue or kind.211 Maximum freedom was given at the level of commerce, religion, and education, which enabled officials to manage their own affairs without any interference from the state. The autonomy of institutions such as nigmas, śreṇīs, and mahāvihāras got crystallized by the late Gupta period. Freedom in administrative and daily affairs, especially, stimulated the growth and expansion of the mahāvihāra scholarship machinery. Environmental Bases Last but not least, the rise and decline of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra was also the product of peculiar suitable environmental conditions of Nālandā and its surroundings. Let us now go into more detail. The natural, social, religious, and economic conditions of Nālandā and its locality had a favorable environment for the growth of Nālandā Mahāvihāra and later its transformation into a religious learning center in South Asia. This is somewhat related to the general question of why Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra rose only at Nālandā and not at Rājagṛha or Pāṭaliputra, which were the more famous and big neighboring capital cities. Unfortunately, we do not know more about Nālandā from the period (i.e., after the death of the Buddha down to the arrival of Xuanzang), but it seems to me that the base stone of Nālandā could have been laid down in this period, utilizing the former affiliations of the place with Buddhism. One would expect Buddhism to prosper at Nālandā, which was situated close to Rājagṛha, the imperial city of the Mauryas where the Buddha spent seventeen vassāvāsas.212 But perhaps owing to the capital shifting to Pāṭaliputra, the local Buddhists organized them at Nālandā. Before the death of the Buddha, Nālandā had emerged as an important Buddhist place with many visits by the Buddha.213 The Buddha himself liked the place after his enlightenment probably because of its friendly prosperous society and suitable natural resources. The Buddha’s two chief disciples, Sāriputta and Moggallāna, were born here, and Sāriputta attained his parinirvāṇa here. The Buddha preached



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many Sūtras (discourses) here at Nālandā, which established the sacred religious importance of Nālandā (Sūtras namely Kevaṭṭa Sutta, Sampasādanīya Sutta, Upāli Sutta, Pacchabhūmaka Sutta, Dasana Sutta, Saṅkha Sutta, and Nālandā Sutta).214 Here the Buddha had many religious discourses with Mahāvīra and his disciples and some of the Mahāvīra disciples were admitted as the disciples of the Buddha such as Upāli Gaḥapati, Gośāla, Dighatapassi, and the like.215 Nālandā naturally possessed facilities like favorable moderate climate, local markets, natural defense, nearness to the capitals of the empire (i.e., Rājagṛha and Pāṭaliputra), and abundance of such items as foodstuffs. These benefits can probably explain why, of all places in Magadha, only Nālandā became a prestigious seat of Buddha’s religion and learning and received much acclaim in South Asia. The earliest visible and scanty references to Nālandā, located on the outskirts of the city of Rājagṛha in the early Jain and Buddhist canonical texts as a prosperous216 and peaceful township, explain its vigor to accommodate Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra from the beginning. The emergence of monasteries in or near urban centers is also a fact proven on the basis of most of the archaeological materials.217 Nālandā was probably a thriving city at the time of the death of Buddha. A good number of rich householders, traders, and merchants were available at Nālandā with the agricultural communities, who willingly supported Buddhism since the time of Buddha. Later this may have led to the establishment of the institution of the Buddha in the locality, like the permanent monastery of Nālandā. The exclusive geographical position of Nālandā in the outskirts of Rājagṛha and Pāṭaliputra naturally provided a suitable place for the Bhikkhus because it was situated a little farther away from densely populated places, and yet it was not so far away from the easy reach of people.218 Nālandā’s nearness to the capital cities could have provided easy access to people all the time. The little distance from the capital cities could have also decreased the crowd of people at Nālandā. The villages surrounded Nālandā, where the villagers generally did not make noise in the night after their daylong work in the fields. Nālandā’s peculiar geographical situation received natural defense from two sides (i.e., Rājagṛha from the north and Pāṭaliputra from the south). The five hills219 encircling Rājagṛha on all sides made it impossible to penetrate the area. Also, the old city of Rājagṛha surrounded by defensive walls, which were 5 m thick and 4 m high with a circuit of 40 km, was a center of commercial, administrative, and intellectual life.220 The Gaṅgā and its tributary rivers also surrounded and secured Pāṭaliputra. Moreover, the cities of Rājagṛha and Pāṭaliputra were secured places,being capital cities, and there was always the presence of lots of people, kings, royal officers, and army. The Buddha liked these old cities, which were

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urbanistic in nature, and spent maximum time in preaching and teaching here, most probably because of his upbringing in Kapilavastu, a city that was the center of the republic. The natural beauty of Nālandā made it an ideal place for meditation and living. The presence of bountiful greenery in the form of orchards, gardens, ponds, and fields provided natural peace to the monks. The moderate climate of Nālandā, we learn from Yijing, was hot, and one advantage of this was that the monks did not require many garments.221 The presence of many lotus ponds around Nālandā, found during the archeological excavations, must have kept the monks cool during the summer season. Also, a large number of resident monks could have taken a morning ritual bath together at the same time in the ponds.222 The pleasant and cool winter season at Nālandā could have provided a natural environment for meditation. Nālandā gets enough rain in the rainy season, which could have compelled the monks to stay busy in the monastery with learning and teaching activities. We have seen above that the time of the rise of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra coincided with the rise of feudalism in South Asia, which was featured by contraction of trade, agricultural economy, and scarcity of money. It led to the decline of traditional urban centers like Pāṭaliputra and Rājagṛha and the emergence of new small political and religious-educational towns like Nālandā and Vikramaśīlā by the beginning of the seventh century in the early medieval Bihar. Their distinctive nature compared to the earlier urban centers demanded that different economic systems meet their needs. Trade became localized and the new haṭṭas (local marketplaces), the development of which was periodical in nature, gained more popularity and tended to become the centers of exchange of a given locality. During this period, Nālandā was also a center of local markets through which economic activities were conducted.223 An inscription on a bronze image from Nālandā refers to Devapāladevahaṭṭa, meaning a market found by Devapāla.224 Another inscription on the bas-relief of Aṣṭa-Śakti, which must have originated from Nālandā, refers to Śrī-Nālandā-Śrī-Dharmahaṭṭē.225 An inscription on the image of Avalokiteśvara found in the Surya temple in Baragāon near Nālandā refers to another haṭṭa or mart Talahaṭṭa.226 These small local markets could have supplied sufficient resources to meet the demands of Nālandā Mahāvihāra and helped in its growth in the age of feudalized economy. Politically, Nālandā and its neighborhood had the advantage of the important administrative division of the land into bhukti (district), viṣaya (tāluka), and villages—each was in charge of an officer and a council of advisors. Every district, viṣaya. and village had their own seals, as is evident from the discovery of many seals and sealings in the course



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of excavations of the site.227 Besides these royal seals, excavations have also yielded seals of king Mānasiṁha; of high officials, such as Pasupatisiṁha and Devasiṁha; and of various officers like a head of the viṣaya- kumārāmātya.228 But all these high officials were not Buddhists. As the emblems (Lakṣmī, Gaṇeśa, Śiva in Liṅga form, and Durgā, etc.) on the Janapada seals show, they were mostly non-Buddhists, which in turn shows that the contribution of the non-Buddhists in maintaining Nālandā Mahāvihāra was not less than the Buddhists in any respect. We have a large number of villages around Nālandā, some within a radius of 50 km, represented in the seals, which corroborate archaeologically the statement of Yijing, according to whom over three thousand monks who lived at Nālandā were provisioned by more than two hundred villages that were offered to them as alms by the kings and monarchs of successive dynasties and in turn were bestowed by previous kings who maintained thousands of monks.229 The areas around Nālandā seemed as fertile at the time of Buddha as they are today. It must have produced more than the needs of the peasants, and the surplus went to a large number of residents at Nālandā through donations. The ritual begging of monks could have also allotted enough grains and materials. The locality of Nālandā supplied food not only to the monastic institutions but also to the new followers. For example, the family and relatives of Sāriputta and many dwellers of Nālakagrāma especially Brahmins joined the Saṁgha of Buddha.230 Also, Nālandā and its locality must have been a thickly populated town as reflected through Buddhist literature. The peasant community constituted the large chunk of the population. They were especially not happy with Brāhmaṇical religion, which had become a costly religion assimilating lots of rituals and sacrifices. They were looking for a simple and friendly religion like Buddhism to attain mental peace and salvation. This might be the reason behind choosing Nālandā as a center of activities by Buddha. Buddhism quickly became popular at Nālandā, especially among the agricultural communities. After the emergence of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, this class might have not only joined it in large number for training in Buddhism (generally did not get a mention in Buddhist literature) but it also continuously maintained its flow in this monastic institution. NOTES 1.  The University of Nālandā, like modern Tibetan universities, was a monastic university, and it imparted both secular and religious education when Europe was in the dark age. N. N. Majumdar, A History of Education in Ancient India (Calcutta: Macmillan, 1916), 92–97.

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  2.  Altekar describes Nālandā in a brief and traditional manner with other educational centers of ancient India as a Buddhist university. It was like the modern university towns of Oxford, Cambridge, or Benares, an independent educational settlement. For details see A. S. Altekar, Education in Ancient India, second edition (Varanasi: Nand Kishore and Bros., 1944), 33.   3.  In his chapter on universities, Mookerji discusses monasteries of ancient India like Nālandā, and in a comparative way mentions that Nālandā has its rival in the monasteries Vikramaśīlā and Valabhī, as the latter provided for studies other than the purely religious. R. K. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education: Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist, second edition (London: Macmillan, 1951), 586.   4.  Das, while discussing the educational institutions of pre-modern India, also talks about Nālandā monastery in comparison with Vikramaśīlā and Odantapurī monasteries by exploring only Chinese and Tibetan accounts. S. K. Das, The Education System of the Ancient Hindus (New Delhi: Gyan Publication, 1996), 357–83.   5.  Interestingly, Sankalia compares Nālandā University to contemporary universities such as Valabhī and Vikramaśīlā and concludes that the only university worth understating in comparison with Nālandā was Vikramaśīlā. But even this university did not reach the pinnacle of glory, which Nālandā had acquired. H. D. Sankalia, The University of Nālandā, Indian Historical Institute Series (Delhi: Oriental, 1972), 207–48.   6.  A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India: A Survey of the Culture of the Indian Sub-continent before the Coming of the Muslims (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1954), 154.   7.  A. K. Warder, Indian Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1970), 463.   8.  J. E. Carpenter, “An Ancient Buddhist University: An Experiment in Liberty of Teaching,” The Hibert Journal 13 (1914): 175–89.  9. S. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India: Their History and Their Contributions to Indian Culture (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962), 61. 10.  J. Marshall, Taxila: An Illustration Account of Archeological Excavations Carried Out Under the Order of the Government of India between the Years 1913–1934, vol. 1. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1951), 43ff. 11.  Different derivations have been proposed related to the etymology of the name. The Tibetan monk Dharamāswāmin says that the name ‟Nālandā” means in Tibetan ‟Lord of Men” and as it was built by a former Rājā, it was given this name. G. Roerich, ed. and trans., Biography of Dharamāswāmin (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1959), 90; according to Yijing the place was named after “Nāga Nanda,” a mythical Nāga who lived in a tank south of the monastery. S. Beal, “Two Chinese-Buddhist Inscriptions Found at Buddha Gayā,” The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 13(1881): 571; Xuanzang explains the term through a story and derived the word from Na alarm dā, which means ‟no end in gifts.” S. Beal, trans., Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, vol. 2. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co. Ltd., 1906), 167; according to the present-day availability of many lotus ponds at Nālandā, while etymologically taking Xuanzang’s explanation, Sastri is of the opinion that the locality was so called on account of the nālas or lotus stalks in which it abounded, so the word means ‟the giver of lotus-stalks” (nālam dadāti). H. N. Sastri, Nālandā and Its Epigraphic Materials, Memoirs of Archeological Survey of India. No. 66.



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(Delhi: Manager of Publication, 1942), 4. This interpretation seems more convincing to me. 12.  Duncan Forbes, The Buddhist Pilgrimages (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999), 3. 13.  T. W. Rhys Davids and J. Estlin Carpenter, ed., The Dīgha Nikāya, vol. 1, The Pali Text Society (London: Luzac & Company, 1967), 1; Nālandā Copper Plate, Epigraphia Indica, vol. 17. 14. Sastri, Nālandā and Its Epigraphic Materials , 3. 15.  Brāhmaṇism and Mahāyāna became dominant in the age of the Guptas. It appears that the revival and renovation of Brāhmaṇism went on side by side with corresponding changes in Buddhism, which impressed on it the form and character known by the name of Mahāyāna; R. G. Bhandarkar, A Peep into the Early History of India: From the Foundation of the Maurya Dynasty to the Downfall of the Imperial Gupta Dynasty (322 B.C.-circa 500 A.C.) (Bombay: D. B. Taraporevala Sons and Co., 1920), 56. 16.  Johannes Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 4. 17.  L. S. S. O’Malley, History of Magadha (New Delhi: Veena Publication, 2005), 57. 18.  A hill-girt straggling hamlet, Rājagṛha was the center of activity of the Buddha along with Śrāvastī, where he spent the twenty rainy seasons. Its king, Bimbisāra, was his friend, supporter, and admirer throughout his life. It was also the place where the dissident cousin monk Devadatta made several attempts to cause his death. Again, it was here in the Saptaparṇī Cave the first Buddhist council was held just after the Parinirvāṇa of the master. Moreover, it was here that more converts were made, including Sāriputta and Moggallāna, who later became, with Ānanda, the most prominent members of the order. Also, see for details Upendra Thakur, Buddhist Cities in Early India: Buddha-Gayā, Rājagṛha, Nālandā (Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1995), 51–71. 19.  T. Watters, trans., On Yuan-Chwang’s Travels in India (A.D. 629–695), vol. 2, second edition (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1961), 246. 20. Nita Verma, Society and Economy in Ancient India: An Epigraphic Study of Maitrakas (New Delhi: Vikas Publication House, 1992), 104–36. 21.  J. G. Bühler, “A Grant of King Dhruvasena I of Valabhī and A Grant of King Guhasena of Valabhī,” The Indian Antiquary: A Journal of Oriental Research 4 (1875): 104 and 174. 22. Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 104. 23.  C. H. Tawney, trans., The Kathāsaritsāgara or Ocean of the Streams of Story by Somadeva Bhaṭṭa, vol. 1. (Calcutta: The Baptist Mission Press, 1880–1884), 283. 24.  S. Beal, trans., The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by Hwui Li, vol. 1, first edition (London: Trench Trübner Com., 1888). Reprint second edition (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1973), 159–60. 25.  D. C. Sircar, Some Epigraphical Records of the Medieval Period from Eastern India (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1979), 23–29; Misra, Nālandā, vol. 1, 28. 26.  R. K. Chaudhary, The University of Vikramaśīlā (Patna: Bihar Research Society, 1975), chapter 1. 27.  Besides Dharmapāla, Nayapāla was another patron of this monastery who took great interest in its administration and endowed it with rich grants. It was during his time that Atīśa Dīpaṁkara was appointed as the High Priest at

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Vikramaśīlā; S. C. Das, “Life of Atīśa Dīpaṁkara Śrījñāna,” Journal of the Buddhist Text Society of India 1 (1893): 46–53. 28.  Basudev Narayan, “The Vikramaśīlā Mahāvihāra Site: Some New Light on the Basis of Archaeological Evidence,” The Journal of the Bihar Research Society 63–64 (1977–78): 203. 29.  Alaka Chattopadhyaya, Atīśa and Tibet: Life and Works of Dīpaṁkara Śrījñāna in Relation to the History and Religion of Tibet (Calcutta: Indian Studies: Past and Present, 1967). 30. P. V. Bapat, ed., 2500 Years of Buddhism (Delhi: The Publication Division Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1959), 190–91. 31.  Lama Chimpa and Alaka Chattopadhyaya, trans., Lama Tāranātha: History of Buddhism in India (Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi Com., 1980), 313. 32.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya , Tāranātha, 304. 33.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya , Tāranātha, 152. 34.  D. R. Patil, Antiquarians Remains of Bihar, Historical Research Series, vol. 4 (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1963), 44–45. 35.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya , Tāranātha, 262, 289, 313. 36.  B. N. Mishra, Nālandā (Sources and Background), vol. 1 (Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 1998), 116; Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 577. 37. Roerich, Dharamāswāmin, 93. 38.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 319. 39.  What the renunciants had in common was a conviction that a path of ascetic and celibate living away from the usual family ties and social obligations held the key to liberation from a nearly interminable cycle of rebirth; Stephen C. Berkwitz, South Asian Buddhism: A Survey (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 5. 40.  S. Dutt, Early Buddhist Monachism, 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1984), 32. 41. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 381–83. 42. N. Dutt, Early Monastic Buddhism (Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1971), 8–10. 43.  Joseph M. Kitagawa, Religions of the East (Philadelphia: West Minster, 1960), 175. 44.  Dutt, Early Monastic Buddhism, 153–55. 45.  Dutt, Early Monastic Buddhism, 156–58. 46.  The Buddha also said monks should travel for the happiness, benefit, and welfare of the gods and humans, which would happen through the preaching of the Dhaṃma, H. Oldenberg, ed., The Vinaya Piṭakam: One of the Principal Buddhist Holy Scriptures in the Pāli Language, vol. 1. Pāli Text Society. (London: Luzac, 1964), 21. 47. Dutt, Early Buddhist Monachism, 112–13. 48.  It is said that the walks during the rainy season would probably kill many small insects and animals wandering on the ground and sheltering under the quickly grown grass and plants. 49.  Uma Chakravarti, The Social Dimension of Early Buddhism (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1996), 82. 50. Melford E. Spiro, Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and Its Burmese Vicissitudes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 281.



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51. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries, 41. 52. Scholars have mentioned this asocial nature of Buddhism in which the Saṁgha is perceived to have functioned as retreat from worldly phenomenon. See Edward Conze, Buddhism: Its Essence and Development (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1957), 54, and V. P. Varma, Early Buddhism and Its Origin (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1973), 379–82. 53. Buddhists believe that bodily mortification does not help to achieve the ostensible goal and extinction of desire, either sexual or material; Spiro, Buddhism and Society, 296. 54.  It has also been stressed by many scholars; Dutt, Early Buddhist Monachism, 99; Richard Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism: A Social History of from Ancient Benaras to Modern Colombo (London: Routledge, 1988), 115; and B. G. Gokhale, New Light on Early Buddhism (Bombay: Popular Prakashana, 1994), 13–24. 55.  Mahāvagga, III.1. 56.  The Buddha is said to have allowed such donations as long as they were located outside of towns and as long as they were given to the Saṁgha as a corporate body rather than to any individual monk; Berkwitz, South Asian Buddhism, 16. 57. The word ‟Aḍḍayoga” meant a house shaped like the Garuḍa bird. For details see D. K. Barua, Vihāras in Ancient India: A Survey of Buddhist Monasteries (Calcutta: Indian Publications, 1969), 10. 58.  Buddhaghoṣa had explained the meaning of the word ‟hammiya” as a pāsāda on whose top has been placed a kūtāgāra. 59.  Rahul Sankrityan, Vinayapitaka (Taiwan: The Corporate Body of the Buddha Education Foundation, 1934), 446–47. 60.  Mahāvagga, VI.1.5. 61. Dutt, Early Buddhist Monachism, 17–19. 62.  Basudeva Upadhyaya, Prachin Bharatiya Stupa (Patna: Hindi Grantha Academy, 1972), 07. 63.  Cullavagga, II.1.2. 64.  Cullavagga, VI.1.4. 65. Barua, Vihāras in Ancient India, 12–13. 66. Upadhyaya, Prachin Bharatiya Stupa, 98. 67. Crystal Mirror, Light of Liberation: A History of Buddhism in India, vol. 7 (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1992), 302, 334–35, 354, 361–62, 373–74, and 375–78. 68.  E. J. Thomas, The History of Buddhist Thought (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1951), 1. 69. Kitagawa, Religions of the East, 173. 70. Dutt, Early Buddhist Monachism, 130. 71.  Mahāvagga, IV.19–22. 72.  Cullavagga, VI.3–6. 73.  Cullavagga, VI.4–10. 74.  Mahāvagga, VI.36.4. 75.  Bela Bhattacharya, “Buddhist Learning and Literature at Nālandā,” in Nālandā—Buddhism and the World, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2001), 145. Fogelin traces this change within the monastery from the seventh through twelfth centuries C.E. as Buddhism became an increasingly scholastic endeavor as the Saṁgha focused on the mastery of important texts; Lars Fogelin,

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An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 205. 76.  Anukul Chandra Banerjee, Aspects of Buddhist Culture from Tibetan Sources (Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1984), 80. 77.  Anand W. P. Guruge, “The Contribution of Buddhism to Education” (paper presented at international seminar on Buddhism’s Contribution to World Civilization and Culture, Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi, March 27–29, 1977). 78.  Pa-Auk Sayadaw, Knowing and Seeing, 2nd ed. (Taiwan: Buddha Dhamma Education Institution, 2000), p. 259 79. Rahul Walpola, History of Buddhism in Ceylon: The Anuradhapura Period 3rd century B.C. to 10th Century A.D., 2nd ed. (Colombo: M. D. Gunasena, 1966), 158–59. 80. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries, 322. 81.  Mahāparinibbāna Suttanta, III.7. 82. Here ‟everyone” used in a comparative sense in terms of the contemporary period, not like modern days. The monasteries tried to assimilate a maximum number of people from different higher and lower castes. The monasteries were more universalistic in nature when we compare them with gurukulas. 83. A. B. Keith, History and Development of Sanskrit Literature (Delhi: Sanjay Prakashan, 2002), 404ff. 84.  A. S. Altekar, Education in Ancient India (Benares: India Book Shop, 1957), 328–31. 85. J. Takakusu, trans., A Record of Buddhist Religion as Practiced in India and the Malay Archipelago by I-Tsiang, reprint (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1966), 176–77. 86.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tārānātha, 72. 87. Takakusu, I-Tsiang, 59. 88.  J. N. Samaddar, The Glories of Magadha, Patna University Readership Lectures (Calcutta: Kautaline Press, 1927), 125–26. 89.  This is further confirmed by the discovery of the Archer type of coins of Kumāragupta I from the layers of monastery site number four, regarded as the earliest finds so far at Nālandā. A. Ghosh, A Guide to Nālandā (Delhi: Manager of Publication, 1950), 10. 90. Patil, Antiquarians Remains of Bihar, 362. 91.  The name Śakrāditya also occurs in a seal discovered at Nālandā. For details see R. K. Mookerji, “The University of Nālandā,” Journal of the Bihar Research Society 30 (1944): 137. 92. Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 83 93.  Evidently Gupta’s interest in Buddhism went beyond its value in politics as Tathāgatagupta appointed Vasubandhu as teacher of his son and sent his own wife to study under the famous Buddhist philosopher. H. Heras, “The Royal Patrons of the University of Nālandā,” Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society 14 (1928): 4. 94. Beal, Life, vol. 2, 136. 95. Beal, Life, vol. 1, 216. 96.  H. C. Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1972), 225.



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 97. Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 84.   98.  It is also confirmed by the finding of the copper plate of Samudragupta, supposed to be spurious; seal of Buddhagupta, Narasimhagupta, Kumāragupta III, Vainyagupta, Maukhari, Sarvavarman, Harṣavardhana of Kanauja and Bhāskarvarman of Prāgyotiṣa. See Sastri, Nālandā and Its Epigraphic Materials, 64–69.   99.  Effects of this fire are still visible on the western walls. The large niches in the north and the south are now filled up, while the other shows the lower part of an image, which, it will be seen, also bears the marks of damage by fire. A. Ghosh, Nālandā, 4th ed. (New Delhi: Director-General of Archaeology in India, 1959), 17–18. 100.  J. A. Page, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1923– 1924 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1926), 70; H. Heras, “The Royal Patrons of the University of Nālandā,” Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society 14 (1928): 8–9. 101. Upendra Thakur quotes a tradition from Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa that says that a foreign king named Gomi entered India through Kashmir and destroyed many monasteries and killed several monks. He identifies Gomi with Toramāṇa, the Hūṇa king, whose political influence extended over Magadha. See Upendra Thakur, The Hūṇas in India (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Studies Office, 1967), 147ff. 102.  Nālandā Stone Inscription of Yaśovarmadeva, Epigraphia Indica, vol. 20, 37. It is stated at the end of this eulogy that Śīlabhadra and Svāmidatta, the two monks of Nālandā, composed it by the order of the Saṁgha. 103.  C. S. Upasak, Nalanda: Past and Present (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 1977), 11. 104.  He patronized the monastery, as is evident from a copperplate at Nālandā, but it is blurred, and we know nothing except the legend ‟Dharmapāladevaḥ,” which is inscribed on the seal. J. A. Page, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1926–1927 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1930), 138–39. 105.  B. R. Subrahmanyam, “Nalanda Towards Heights of Glory,” in Nālandā— Buddhism and the World, edited by R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2001), 07. 106.  The five villages granted for the upkeep and maintenance of this vihāra were Nandivanāka, Manivātaka, Natika, and Hastigrāma belonging to the viṣaya of Rājagṛha and the village Palamaka of Gayā viṣaya. 107.  Epigraphia Indica, vol. 23, 310–27. 108.  This Bālaputradeva was one of the rulers of the famous Śailendra dynasty, which had built up a vast empire in South East Asia in the eighth century A.D. For details see R. C. Majumdar and A. D. Pusalkar, eds., The Age of Imperial Kanauj, vol. 4 of The History and Culture of the Indian People (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidhya Bhawan, 1951–65), 412ff. 109.  M. H. Kuraishi, A Short Guide to the Buddhist Remains Excavated at Nālandā (Calcutta: Central Publication Branch, 1931), 04. 110.  R. D. Banerji, The Pālas of Bengal, vol. 5 of Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1915), 65.

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111.  Majumdar and Pusalkar, Imperial Kanauj, 26. 112. Sankalia, University of Nālandā, 69. 113.  Epigraphia Indica, vol. 9, 4.5 114.  Epigraphia Indica, vol. 21, 77. 115.  Epigraphia Indica, vol. 21, 97. Also see Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 90. 116.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tārānātha, 139. 117.  H. G. Raverty, trans., Tabakāt-i-Nāṣirī: A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, including Hindustan; from A. H. 194 (810 A.D.) to A. H. 658 (1260 A.D.) and the Irruption of the Infidel Mughals into Islam by Minhāj-ud-dīn, Abu-Umari-Uṣmān, vol. 1 (London: Gilbert & Rivington, 1881), 551–52. 118. For details see M. L. Bhatia, “Identifying Buddhism in Early Islamic Sources of Sindh,” Buddhist Studies Review 19 (2002): 143–63. 119. The monastery continued to receive support from a few wealthy merchants and from Buddhasens, king of Magadha, who professed allegiance to his Muslim overlords. Steven Darian, “Buddhism in Bihar from the Eighth to the Twelfth Century with Special Reference to Nālandā,” Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 25 (1971): 335–52. 120. Roerich, Dharamāswāmin, 90–95. 121.  B. P. Mazumdar, Socio-Economic History of Northern India (Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1960), 165. 122. Arthur Waley, “New Light on Buddhism in Medieval India,” Mélanges Chinois et Boudhiques 1 (1931–1932): 355–76. 123.  For example, the Chinese monk Tsung-lé and his party consisted of about thirty people set out for the Western Regions (meaning Tibet, Nepal, and northeastern India) to collect Buddhist Sūtras not available in China from December 9, 1378, to January 26, 1379, by order of Emperor Hung-wu. They shared the hardship of travelling for five years and came back April 22 to May 21 of 1382. We can trace the itinerary of his journey in part on the basis of poems of his extant book entitled Chuan-shih wai-chi. He saw from Gṛidhrakūṭa Mountain that the inhabitants of Rājagṛha were still leading the simple life. He also climbed Kukkuṭapāda-giri and saw a gigantic, shining stūpa, which even the demons could not destroy though they defaced it badly with their axes. ‟The demons” here means Muslims who invaded the place in the beginning of the thirteenth century. Kazuo Enoki, “Tsung-lé’s Mission to the Western Regions in 1378–1382,” Oriens Extremus 19 (1972): 47–53. 124. Gunawardana points out through the study of images and inscriptions that Buddhism was not flourishing but was very much alive at least in South India; R. A. L. H. Gunawardana, Robe and Plough: Monasticism and Economic Interests in Early Medieval Sri Lanka (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1979), 264. 125.  A. No. 4448/4444, Arabic Inscription of the reign of Sultān Shamsu’d-Dīn Fīrūz Shāh of Bengal records the erection of a mosque by one Bahrām, son of Hajī at Chhota Dargah, Bihar Sharif on 1315 A.D.; A. No. 4446 Persian Inscription of the time of Sultān Muhammad Tughluq IV of Delhi records the construction of a mosque by Khwāja Diyā, son of Ulā at Bayley Sarai, Bihar Sharif in 1389–90 A.D.; A. No. 4440 Persian Inscription of the reign of Sultān Mahmūd Shāh Sharqī of Jaunpur records the erection of a Jāmi mosque by Sayyid Ajmal at the instance of Maliku’sh Sharq, Nasīr, the then governor of the province at Bihar Sharif in 1443 A.D. Chinmoy Dutt, Catalogue of Arabic and Persian Inscriptions in the Indian



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Museum Calcutta, Indian Museum Monograph No. 4 (Calcutta: Indian Museum, 1967), pp. 5–11. 126. Patil, Remains of Bihar, 304. 127.  Pintu Kumar, “The Ancient Nālandā Mahāvihāra: The Beginning of Institutional Education,” Journal of the World University Forum 4 (2011): 68. 128.  Ahir explains the decline of Indian Buddhism in terms of Brāhmaṇical propaganda of hatred and Islamic iconoclasm. See D. C. Ahir, Buddhism Declined in India: How and Why (Delhi: B. R. Publishers, 2005). 129. Andre Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of Indo-Islamic World, vol. 2 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), 349–50; and Ronald M. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement (Delhi: Motilala Banarsidass, 2004), 77–83. 130.  A changing patronage base has also been noted as well as its impact on the fortune of the Saṁgha; Romila Thapar, “Patronage and Community,” in The Power of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, ed. Barbara S. Miller (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 30; and Vidya Dahejia, “The Collective and Popular Basis of Early Buddhist Patronage: Sacred Monuments BC 100-AD 250,” in The Power of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, ed. Barbara S. Miller (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 44–45. 131. Misra, Nālandā, vol. 1, 203; Sankalia, University of Nālandā, 246. 132.  For details, see Patil, Remains of Bihar, 324–26. 133. Sankalia, University of Nālandā, 71; Bapat, 2500 Years of Buddhism, 65; Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 90. 134. Samaddar, Magadha, 124. 135. Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 91. 136. Upendra Thakur, Studies in Jainism and Buddhism in Mithilā (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Studies Office, 1964), 142–60. 137    For details see Thakur, Jainism and Buddhism, 152ff. 138.  Johan Elverskog, Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 04. 139.  N. N. Bhattacharya, Buddhism in the History of Ideas (Delhi: Manohar, 1993), 238. 140.  P. S. Jaini, Collected Papers on Buddhist Studies (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2001), 142–43. 141.  Alex Wayman, “Observations on the History and Influence of the Buddhist Tantra in India and Tibet,” in Studies in History of Buddhism: Papers Presented at the International Conference on the History of Buddhism at the University of Wisconsin Madison, WIS, USA, August, 19–21, 1976, ed. A. K. Narain (Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 1980), 360. 142.  Sris Chandra Chatterjee, Magadha Architecture and Culture (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1942), 19–20. 143.  The houses in the suburb of Rājagṛha were built of brick and lime or mud masonry, the deep and red bricks being close-jointed and rubbed smooth; see Chatterjee, Magadha Architecture, 06. 144.  Cullavagga, VI.4.8. 145. M. D. N. Sahi, “Agricultural Production during the Early Iron Age in Northern India,” in Essays in Ancient Indian Economic History, ed. Brajadulal

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Chattopadhyaya Indian History Congress Golden Jubilee Year Publication Series (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1987), 33. 146.  A. A. Macdonell and A. B. Keith, Vedic Index of Names and Subject, vol. 2 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1912, reprint 1967), 214. 147.  K. A. Chowdhury, Ancient Agriculture and Forestry in North India (Bombay: Asia Publication, 1977), 63–66. 148.  S. K. Das, The Economic History of Ancient India: From the Earliest Time Down to the Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Calcutta: Mitra Press, 1937), 185–86. 149. Dilip K. Chakrabarti, The Archaeology of the Deccan Routes: The Ancient Routes from the Ganga Plain to the Deccan (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2005), 156. 150.  Thapar Romila, “The First Millennium B. C. in Northern India (Up to the end of the Mauryan Period),” in Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History, ed. Romila Thapar (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, reprint 2002), 120. 151.  H. P. Ray, “Trade and Contacts,” in Romila Thapar, ed., in Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History, ed. Romila Thapar (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, reprint 2002), 160. 152.  T. W. Rhys-Davids, Buddhist India (Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1957), 44. 153    Heitzman presented an analysis of the relationship between the location of the monastic sites, trade, and empire and the role played by this mutually supportive triad in the expansion of Buddhism. J. Heitzman, “Early Buddhism, Trade and Empire,” in Studies in the Archeology and Palaeoanthropology of South Asia, eds. Kenneth A. R. Kennedy and Gregory L. Possehl (New Delhi: Oxford & IBH Publishing Co., 1984), 121–32. 154.  Ray, “Trade and Contacts,” 152. 155.  M. S. Pandey, Historical Geography and Topography of Bihar (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1963), 195–96. 156. Steven G. Darian, “The Economic History of the Ganges to the End of Gupta Times,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 13(1970): 74. 157.  A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India (New York: Grove Press, 1954), 223. 158.  C. C. Davies, Historical Atlas of the Indian Peninsula (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 17. 159. Chakrabarti, Archaeology of the Deccan Routes, 5. 160.  E. J. Rapson, ed., Ancient India, vol. 1 of The Cambridge History of India (New York, Macmillan Co., 1922), 214. 161.  G. C. Pande, Studies in the Origins of Buddhism (Allahabad: University of Allahabad, 1957), 313–15; R. S. Sharma, Material Culture and Social Formation in Ancient India (Delhi: Macmillan, 1983), 122–28; H. H. Gerth and D. Martindale, ed. and trans., The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism by Max Weber (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1992), 204; Gokhale, Early Buddhism, 43–57; D. K. Chakrabarti, “Location of Buddhist Sites as Influenced by Political and Economic Factors,” World Archeology 27 (1995): 185–202; Davids, Buddhist India, 63–85 and etc. 162.  Ian Mabbett and Greg Bailey, ed., The Sociology of Early Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 34



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163.  G. Erdosy, Urbanisation in Early Historic India (Oxford: BAR International Series 430, 1988), 94–95. 164.  R. Allchin, ed., The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 114f. 165.  Erdosy analyzed that early Buddhism and its monastic sites were totally dependent on the resources of the towns and cities; G. Erdosy, “Early Historical Cities of North India,” South Asian Studies 3 (1987): 01–23. 166. For other views see Majumdar and Pusalkar, Imperial Kanauj, 49; Patil, Remains of Bihar, 302–03. 167. Das, Economic History of Ancient India, 242–43. 168.  Thapar, “First Millennium B. C. in Northern India,” 121–22; Chakravarty, Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism, 93. 169.  Ray, “Trade and Contacts,” 151. 170.  Jonathan A. Silk, Managing Monks: Administrators and Administrative Roles in Indian Buddhist Monasticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 6. 171.  B. D. Chattopadhyaya, “State and Economy in North India: Fourth Century to Twelfth Century,” in Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History, ed. Romila Thapar (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, Reprint 2002), 328–30. 172.  R. N. Nandi, “Growth of Rural Economy in Early Feudal India” (presidential address at the 45th session of Indian History Congress, Annamalai University, Annamalainagar, December 27–29, 1984). 173. V. Jha, “Position and Status of Bamboo-workers and Basket-makers in Ancient and Early Medieval Times” (paper presented at the 39th session of the Indian History Congress, Osmania University, Hyderabad, December 28–30, 1978); V. Jha, “Leatherworkers in Ancient and Early Medieval India” (paper presented at the 40th session of the Indian History Congress, Waltair, December 28–30, 1979); S. Jaiswal, “Some Recent Theories of the Origin of Untouchability: Historical Assessment,” (paper presented at the 39th session of the Indian History Congress, Osmania University, Hyderabad, December 28–30, 1978). 174.  Corpus Inscriptions Indicarum, Vol. III, 132–34. 175.  V. S. Apte, The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary: Containing Appendices on Sanskrit Prosody and important Literary and Geographical Names of Ancient India (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985), 1025–26. 176.  Y. B. Singh, “Hālika-Kara: Crystallization of a Practice into a Tax,” in Essays in Ancient Indian Economic History, ed. Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya Indian History Congress Golden Jubilee Year Publication Series, vol. 2 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1987), 88–89. 177. Bronkhorst points out that at least two segments/classes of the society existed in Magadha according to the medicinal practice during the later Vedic period (i.e., the descendants of Āryans and the local Magadhan, respectively) practicing Vedic healing based on magico-religious and non-Vedic healing with empirico-rational approach; for details see Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha, 55–60. 178. Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha, 2. 179.  The grammarian Patañjali gave the description of the land of the Āryas, “kah punar āryāvartah/prāg ādarsāt pratyak kālakavanād daksinena himavantam uttarena pāriyātram,” which means “where is the land of Āryas? It is the region of the east of where Śrāvastī disappears (ādarsa), west of the Kālaka forest, south of the

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Himalayas, and north of the Pāriyātra mountains.” The Mahābhāsya of Patañjali, 2.4.10. 180.  F. E. Pargiter, “Magadha and Videha,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, (1908): 852. 181. Chatterjee, Magadha Architecture, 10–11. 182.  Manu, X, 129. 183.  Rajeshwar Prasad Singh, “Artisans in Manu,” in Essays in Ancient Indian Economic History, ed. Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya Indian History Congress Golden Jubilee Year Publication Series, vol. 2 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1987), 106. 184. Das, Economic History of Ancient India, 152. 185.  Rig-veda Sanhita, I.20. 186.  Śrī Āitareya Brāhmaṇam, VII.29.3. 187. Chatterjee, Magadha Architecture, 13. 188.  D. D. Kosambi, “Caste and Class in India,” Science and Society 8 (1944): 245–46. 189.  Romila, Thapar, Interpreting Early India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993), 44. 190.  D. D. Kosambi, The Culture and Civilizations of Ancient India in Historical Outline (Delhi: Vikas Publication, 1970), 154. 191.  Kosambi, “Caste and Class,” 246–47. 192. Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha, 52. 193.  It was the common feature of the religious life of those days, which was of the nature of logical disputations such as, “You don’t understand this doctrine and discipline. I do. How should you know about this doctrine and discipline?” D. K. Banerji, “Some Aspects of Social Life in Ancient India in the 6th Century B. C. as Depicted in the Brahmajāla Sutta,” in The Nava-Nālandā-Mahāvihāra Research Publication, vol. 2, ed. Satkari Mookerjee (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 1960), 377. 194. Das, Economic History of Ancient India, 393–98. 195. Beal, Life, vol. 1, 56–57. 196.  There is also no evidence of any other major public learning centers besides the Buddhist ones. See Sarla Khosla, Gupta Civilization (Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House, 1982), 1–26 and 97–107. 197.  Suresh Chandra Ghosh, The History of Education in Ancient India c. 3000 BC to AD 1192 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2001), 67. 198.  K. N. Nilakanta Sastri and G. Srinivasachari, eds., Advanced History of India (Bombay: Allied Publishes, 1970), 218–24. 199.  The four major doctrinal groups with comparable bodies of scriptures (i.e., Sutra, Vinaya, Abhidharma) are identified by Xuanzang and Yijing as active as are the Mahāsāṁghika, Sthavīra, Mūlasarvāstivādin, and Sammitya. For a discussion of the relationship of these and their origins see Sara Webb-Boin, trans., History of Indian Buddhism: From the Origins to the Saka Era of Etienne Lamotte (Louvain-laNeuve: Universite Catholique de Louvain, 1988), 529–49; Nalinaksha Dutt, Buddhist Sects in India (Calcutta: K. L. M. Publishers, 1970), 60. 200.  Ray, “Trade and Contacts,” 152. 201.  Thapar, “The First Millennium B. C. in Northern India,” 125.



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202. The rājadharma was that the king should rule his subjects in such a manner as to give general satisfaction; this meant, in particular, not disturbing the delicate balance of competing, jealous groups, castes, and regions within his kingdom. It is thus very different from rājanīti, though treaties on the former incorporate, englobe, a great deal of the latter. Rājanīti is the way a king should comport himself to be successful, and rājadharma is the way a king should comport himself in order to be righteous. J. Duncan M. Derrett, “Rajadharma,” The Journal of Asian Studies 35 (1976): 606. 203.  Michael Mitchiner, “India: Minute Silver Coins of the Early Mauryan Empire,” East and West 33 (1983): 113–23. 204. Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha, 1–3. 205.  Thapar, “The First Millennium B. C. in Northern India,” 126. 206.  Romila Thapar, The Mauryas Revisited (Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi, 1988), 46. 207.  R. S. Sharma, Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968), 216. 208.  Chattopadhyaya, “State and Economy,” 324. 209. Sharma, Political Ideas and Institutions, 255. 210.  D. D. Kosambi, “Indian Feudal Trade Charters,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 2 (1959): 284. 211.  Radhakrishna Choudhary, “Theory of Commendation and Sub-Infeudation in Ancient India (Based mainly on a Critical Study of the Dudhpani Rock Inscription),” in Essays in Ancient Indian Economic History, ed. Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya Indian History Congress Golden Jubilee Year Publication Series (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1987), 78. 212.  Subrahmanyam, “Nalanda,” 4. 213.  During his missionary journeys in Magadha, the Buddha often stopped at a big mango grove called Pāvārika Ambavana at Nālandā formerly belonging to Pāvārika Seṭṭhi, who constructed a halting place in the grove and donated the same to the Buddha. 214. Sukomal Chaudhuri, “Nalanda—A Centre for Dissemination of Buddhism,” in Nalanda: Interface of Buddhism and Environment, eds. Ravindra Panth and Phuntsho (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2005), 4. 215.  Chaudhuri, “Nalanda,” 5. 216.  According to Xuanzang, there was an orchard of mango trees on the grounds of Nālandā, which was bought by its owner Śreṣṭhī by five hundred merchants for the Buddha. Here the use of words “Śreṣṭhī” and “merchants” is noticeable, which were the rich classes of the contemporary society, and it evidently proves their presence at Nālandā either in small or large numbers. It was also profitable for the merchants as Nālandā lays on Uttarāpatha the northern land trade route of ancient India. 217.  Geofferey Samuel, The Origin of Yoga and Tantra: Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), chapter 6. 218.  The ideal place for the residence of monks described in the Vinaya Pīṭaka with a reference to the Buddha was: “Now where could the Lord stay that would be neither too far from a village nor too near, suitable for coming and going, accessible to people whenever they want, not crowded by the day, having little

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noise at night, little sound, without folks’ breath, secluded from people, fitting for meditation?” The Vinaya Piṭakam, vol. 2, 154–59. 219.  It is very difficult to identify the modern names of these five hills with their ancient representation because their enumeration differs in different texts. The Pālī texts have a set of names like Vaibhāra, Pāṇḍava, Vaipulya, Gṛidhrakūṭa, and Ṛashigiri; Kuraishi, Rajgir, 3. 220.  Trevor also argues that the Buddha was urbane, indeed the urbanity of the Buddha’s words and general style of life was entirely consistent with the sophisticated nature of what he taught; Trevor Ling, “Urban Life and Early Buddhism,” in Towns in Pre-Modern India, ed. Vijay Kumar Thakur (Patna and New Delhi: Janaki Prakashan, 1994), 118–19. 221. Takakusu, I-Tsiang, 70. 222.  Yijing wrote, “Sometimes a hundred sometimes a thousand leave the monastery and proceed in all directions to those ponds, where all of them take a bath.” Takakusu, I-Tsiang, 108–09. 223.  Anil Kumar, “Economy of Nalanda: An Early Medieval Perspective,” in Nālandā- Buddhism and the World, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2001), 45–46. 224.  Epigraphia Indica, vol. 25, 334–35. 225. Sastri, Nālandā and its Epigraphic, 103. 226.  Epigraphia Indica, vol. 25, 334. 227. Sastri, Nālandā and its Epigraphic, 26. 228. Sankalia, University of Nālandā, 60. 229.  L. Rongxi, Buddhist Monastic Traditions of Southern Asia: A Record from the Inner Law Sent Home from the South Seas by Sramana Yijing (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2000), 63. It seems to me that the number of villages mentioned by Yijing probably is exaggerated because there are not many villages around Nālandā. 230. The three brothers (Cunda, Upasena, and Revata Khadiravaniya) and three sisters (Cālā, Upacla, and Sisupacālā) of Sāriputta, and his three nephews (sister’s sons) had received ordination. A Brahmin Mahāgavaccha, the son of Samidhi and Brahmin’s son Sunāga from Nālaka village, joined the Order of Buddha; Devendra Prasad, “Nālandā and Sāriputta,” in Nalanda and Buddhism, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2002), 49–50.

T wo Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra in Travelogues and Archaeology Available early literary sources and later archaeological explorations reveal that Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra liked to be in obscurity. The real nature of the institution was never revealed nor did anybody try and give a detailed interpretation of its existence and functions. But its name as an international university was being used in international politics and education diplomacy of South Asia constantly. There is no evidence that scholars seriously accepted archaeologist Marshall’s invitation to conduct further study and interpretation of the materials that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was bringing to light. Sastri scratched the surface in his ASI memoir and focused on the epigraphy. As of this writing, the overall evidence on the current image of Nālandā Mahāvihāra is somewhat based on the descriptions available in traveling accounts, which ironically misinterpreted it as the first international university instead of a Buddhist monastery even after the archaeology of the site was long available. To accurately put it, the history of Śrī Nālandā was mainly supplied by the published western translations of Buddhist manuscripts and the travel accounts of Chinese and Tibetan Buddhists. The British and Indian archaeologist then practiced verifying these narratives through their explorations. This chapter thus aims to break this stereotypical analysis of the history of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra by incorporating both available literary and archaeological sources and presenting a complete image with its revealed architecture. It would be problematic to avoid the growth of art and the description of images recovered at Nālandā, but it is a popular topic, which needs to be discussed at length in a separate book. The role of Chinese translations in the histories of Indian Buddhism, especially identification of major Buddhist places, is well known. Schopen truly said that the study of the historical geography of India and the archaeology of Buddhist India were both virtually founded on the basis of Chinese sources.1 Generally, the identification of a site for archaeological excavation happens after scientific explorations and digging of a place and is followed by the recovery of some historically important materials. 59

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It seems this was not the case with the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā. The socalled scientific archaeologists of the colonial period of India read about Nālandā Mahāvihāra in the translations of Chinese travelogues, which created interest in them to discover the site. The surveyors followed the description and tried to trace the location and monuments of the monastery of Nālandā in their ways. This historical archaeology of Nālandā is almost still decisive for its fate, which is far from any scientific explanations of the discovered remains. The first prominent surveyor was Cunningham, whose assumptions about the location of Nālandā and the disposition of its monuments were based on the account of Xuanzang rather than archaeological exploration. He owes a lot to Faxian and Xuanzang, who had provided him with basic maps and routes.2 The later archaeologists referred to Cunningham and to Xuanzang. Let us first learn more about the appearance of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra in travelogues for a better understanding of the historical archaeological works at the site. The available travelogues generally describe a history of South Asian Buddhism in the pre-modern era and the existing monasteries come into reference. Records of Indian society and its various rulers, accounts of flourishing monastic institutions, and stories about the magical and miraculous prowess of the Buddha and his disciples often accompanied the descriptions of the pilgrimage sites in their travel records. Most narratives about monasteries include its inclination towards a particular sect of Buddhism with residing monks and followers. Sometimes the larger monasteries like Nālandā are described in detail including its history, origin, growth, decline, buildings and architecture, monks and their life, residents and their activities, management, and cultural and academic activities because some travelers had spent time over there. The development of the buildings and monuments of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, along with its architectural plan, which is available in travelogues relevant to archaeological importance, is discussed in brief. The initial years of Nālandā’s archaeology were mainly based on the narrative of Xuanzang, but traveling accounts of other Chinese pilgrims like Faxian, Yijing, and Ke-Ye and the Tibetan monk Tāranātha have also been incorporated to add to this knowledge. For the first time in the pre-modern period, the existence of Nālandā is known from the references of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims. Indian Buddhism attracted mainly Chinese and Tibetan monks for a sacred journey to India to experience the current Buddhism. Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing were among hundreds of Chinese monks who made pilgrimage to India during the first millennium C.E. Inspired by the desire to benefit their fellow countrymen, these brave scholars set out from time to time to India, in order to visit the scenes of the Master’s life on earth, to study the language in which he taught, and to bring back manuscripts of the



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sacred books yet unknown north of Himalayas.3 The detailed accounts of their journeys, including the descriptions of the monasteries, made them more famous than others.4 They aimed to experience Buddhism both in its practice and in its literature. They tried to visit as many sacred places of Buddhism on the way and in its residency. Their narratives are full of exaggerations with religious motives but one can also find useful content up to a certain extent. In general, they described not only Nālandā but also other monasteries existing at that time, which were related to the assessment of Indian Buddhism with details of its monks, inclination, buildings, and sometimes activities. Commenting on the history of some monasteries like Nālandā has created problems in the past because they give considerable antiquity and relates to the time of the Buddha, which is quite opposite to archaeological evidence. The birthplace of Sāriputta seems comparatively more famous and antique than Nālandā Mahāvihāra, as it is visited by and commented on all travelers, so the relationship between Nālandā and Nā-lo has also been discussed. CHINESE PILGRIMS The monk Faxian, so far recognized as the first known Chinese traveler to India through his travelogue, traditionally gets mentioned in connection to the history of Nālandā. He made the hazardous journey from China to India in 399 A.D. and returned to China in 414 A.D., which was a prosperous stage of South Asian Buddhism with everlasting interest in China. He aimed to take correct and complete copies of the Vinaya, the rules of monastic order, back to China as he felt that Chinese Buddhism was in need of reformation after its introduction probably in the time of Kaniṣka. He lived for three years at Pāṭaliputra to read and write Sanskrit and collected a number of Hīnayāna texts. He followed in the Buddha’s footsteps in his pilgrimage to many sacred places, especially his journey to and from Pāṭaliputra to Bodh Gayā by way of Rājagṛha. He mentions that from the time of the Buddha, kings and wealthy persons had supported and raised vihāras for monks, where all residents are allotted cells and supplied with beds, mats, food, and drink, passing their time in performing acts of mercy in reciting the scriptures, or in meditation.5 Ironically, he does not talk about Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which generally served as a base. This further supports the findings of archaeologists that Nālandā Mahāvihāra could not have existed before or during the Faxian visit in the early part of the fifth century. En route to Bodh Gayā, he stopped at the birthplace of the Buddha’s disciple Sāriputta, a village called Nā-lo. Faxian says that the birthplace of Sāriputta was nine yojanas southwest of a small rocky hill, which he does not name.6 The archaeologists were confused for a long time that

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Nā-lo was Nālandā, which was not the birthplace of Sāriputta; but Nā-lo was the birthplace, a place three to four miles southward of Nālandā.7 Faxian traveled in a southerly direction to Bodh Gayā. Indrasilaguhā, and then Nā-lo may have been on his route. It seems Nālandā would have been considerably out of his way, but sometimes one wonders why he did not talk about or mention anything about Nālandā Mahāvihāra. Perhaps his interests in Hīnayāna Buddhism inhibited him to mention this Mahāyāna center. It is still a mystery in the history of Nālandā, especially when it has been proven to have existed in the fifth century by archaeological shreds of evidence. Without evidence, we cannot say anything with surety, but one can guess that Nālandā Mahāvihāra existed in his time in the form of a small Buddhist relic with less fame. After almost two centuries, another Chinese traveler, Xuanzang, a learned young Buddhist priest of the province of Ho-nan, came to India and wrote an account of his travels, known as the Ta-T’ang hsi-yu-chi for Emperor T’ai Tsung in 646 A.D., and two of his disciples, Huyi Li and Yen-Tsung, wrote his biography, the Ta-tz’u-en-ssu.8 So we have two accounts related to Xuanzang’s journey in South Asia, which are also available in English translations. He was inspired by the journey of Faxian and thought to obtain correct copies of scripts, learn from the sages, and worship at places attached with the Buddha through the visit to India. Archaeologists used his and Huyi Li’s passages to Nālandā as the basis for their exploration of the site. Xuanzang spent fourteen years of his life, from 630 to 644 A.D., in India as a Buddhist pilgrim visiting and residing at Kashmir, Punjab, Deccan, Magadha, and Nālandā. Fortunately, he resided at Nālandā Mahāvihāra for five years, 637–642 A.D. and presented a vivid picture of Nālandā’s monuments and life. Faxian did not mention the existence of the monastery of Nālandā, but Xuanzang and Huyi Li take it back to the time of the Buddha as five hundred merchants bought a mango grove for ten lacs gold pieces and a tank at Nālandā for the Buddha. Both relate to the tradition that construction of a saṁghārāma for the monastic community began at Nālandā shortly after the mahāparinirvāṇa. Xuanzang dates the first building at Nālandā to the first century B.C.9 Both texts state that following the first unknown builder, the Gupta dynasty ruler Śakrāditya built a monastery, followed by Buddhagupta, to the south of Śakrāditya’s, Tathāgatagupta to the east of Buddhagupta’s, Bālāditya to the northwest of Tathāgathagupta’s, and Vajra to the north of Bālāditya’s. Then an unnamed ruler of central India built a monastery to the north of Vajra’s and a high wall with one gate around these constructions.10 Xuanzang and Huyi Li indicated that numerous stūpas and vihāras surrounded this particular enclosed saṁghārāma but described only a few. The most important vihāra appears to be the one dedicated to the spot where the Buddha taught for three months. Tsang did not give



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any detail of the first building built by a ruler. The architecture of earlier rulers especially after the salvation of the Buddha and before the time of Gupta is surprisingly absent in his narrative. The archaeology of the site blindly followed him and put the establishment in and around the Gupta period. Possibly he was more interested in talking about the standing buildings during his time. He did not notice the earlier structures buried deep under the different levels of building, which were revealed during excavations. Xuanzang and Huyi Li also talk about the beauty of the whole establishment having richly carved towers and high minarets, which were constructed with peculiar skill comprising many buildings, devoted to monks and images with about one hundred lecture rooms. The Chinese accounts suggest that thousands of monks were living at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra supplied with the necessities of life; probably it was larger in size in the seventh century than the present site. The compound would have comprised many monasteries for lectures, reading and copying texts, meditation, worship, and residence. Tsang talked about two types of buildings, the one towered and highly ornate for images and the second relatively simple for monks.11 A storied tower, which was usually a temple, was sometimes up to six levels high, highly decorated and painted inside and outside. The monasteries of monks are also larger and higher as Xuanzang resided in the dwelling of Buddhabhadra, having four floors.12 The monks’ cells are decorated on the inside and plain on the outside with a hall in the middle. Xuanzang arrived in the Chinese capital of Ch’ang-an (modern Xi’an) in 645 A.D. from India with a total of 657 texts bound in 520 cases loaded on twenty horses.13 Yijing was motivated by Xuanzang’s account to travel to India in 673 A.D. The manuscript of this Chinese monk was translated into English by the Japanese scholar Junjiro Takakusu for Muller’s Sacred Books of the East series as A Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practiced in India and the Malay Archipelago (A.D. 671–695) by Yijing. By his account he resided at Nālandā for a period of ten years (675–685 A.D.), learning Sanskrit and collecting four hundred manuscripts. Yijing prepared a series of sixty biographies of Chinese and Korean monks who traveled to India generally in search of Sanskrit texts during the T’ang dynasty in the second half of the seventh century. These biographies contain more details about the monks’ past life and origination and less information about their places of visit. He only mentions thirteen monks who resided at Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which shows that he mentioned the monastery and ultimately resulted in scattered references to it. He provided a detailed description of Śrī Nālandā in his biography of the Korean monk Huyi Lun. Huyi Lun went to China and was subsequently ordered by the Chinese emperor to accompany Dharma Master Hiuen-chao to India ca. 635.

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Thus, he was in the country at the same time as Xuanzang and was still living when Yijing arrived at Nālandā. While Yijing’s account of Nālandā corroborates those of Xuanzang and Huyi Li, it is a surprise that the first generation of Nālandā’s archaeologists did not bother to mention it. Yijing locates Nālandā seven yojanas northeast of Bodh Gayā and he also mentions that to get the best idea of an overall form of the monastery it has to be seen from the west. There are more than ten great pools near the monastery of Nālandā and every morning the priests would take a bath in there.14 Similarly, like Xuanzang, he narrates that Śakrāditya built the temple and subsequently successive kings enlarged it more and more. All of these buildings are of bricks; they are three floors high, each deck being more than 10 feet high. There are no fewer than eight halls and three hundred apartments in this monastery, which were housing more than three thousand priests.15 There are two types of buildings in the campus according to Yijing: temples and vihāras, facing each other. All temples, sometimes one-storied and sometimes three-storied, contained images and were perfectly aligned for worship. On one side of each temple the monks had chosen to build structures, sometimes one-storied, sometimes three-storied, for holy images. The monks resided in a separate building called vihāra, which consists of a central court surrounded by cells. As far as the living quarters of the monks are concerned Stewart quotes Chavannes’s translation of Yijing’s memoir, “There are nine on each side. Each cell has a surface area of about 10 square feet. Although the doors are high, they are made as a single swinging door so that the monks can all see each other. At each of the four corners, there is a room built of brick. These are the cells of the learned and venerable monks.”16 Yijing’s description suggests that the 100-feet-high Mūlagandhakuṭi appeared to be the most important building at Nālandā housing holy images of the Buddha, which he also venerated. Probably it is here that the Buddha spent three summer months in retreat. On the west side of the temple, outside the large enclosure, some large stūpas and lots of caityas have been constructed. There are hundreds of them but he mentions only a few. Yijing mentions, “To the north of the gate, there is another beautiful and decorated brick stūpa which was made by King Bālāditya. Further to the southwest, there is a little caitya, which is about 10 feet high, where a Brahmin asked questions to the Buddha. West to the Mūlagandhakuṭi is the Buddha’s toothbrush tree. Further to the west, by the side of the road, is alter of the 10 prohibitions, where the novices entered into the order.”17 The locality and outside of the main campus of Nālandā looked more popular and attractive in the account of Yijing and also more or less in Faxian and Xuanzang. They made these areas sacred in their imagination, especially for Buddhists, and that sometimes made Nālandā more famous.



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Another Chinese monk, Ki Ye (the French spelling) left an account of his travel in India in the tenth century, of which archaeologists made no use. Ki Ye joined three hundred monks who set out for India to look for relics and palm leaf manuscripts in 964 A.D. He stayed until 976 A.D. He was in the kingdom of Magadha either in the beginning of the reign of Mahipāla I or just before it. Going northeast from Bodh Gayā, he visited Rājagṛha, Nālandā, and Sāriputta’s birthplace.18 Ki Ye’s description appears to corroborate Faxian and Xuanzang in placing Nā-lo to the north of Giriyaka and southeast of Indrasilaguhā. He places Nālandā 15 li north of Rājagṛha and to the south and the north of this monastery there are a number of other monasteries. The door of each one opens to the west. Of the sacred sites at Nālandā, he only mentions the seat of the Four Buddhas. It seems when he visited Nālandā it was in a flourishing stage, indicating a pretty large campus. Besides the main monastery—not enough detail—surrounding other monasteries might have been raised during the interval of Yijing and Ki Ye’s visit (around three hundred years). During the end days of Nālandā Mahāvihāra in the last part of the fourteenth century, another Chinese monk, Tsung-lê, came to the western regions (i.e., Tibet, Nepal, and India) to collect Buddhist sūtras not available in China. He wrote two books while traveling of which Ch’uan-shih wai-chi is extant and Hsi-yu-chi has been lost. We can trace the itinerary of his journey in part on the basis of some of his poems in Ch’uan-shih wai-chi but we know nothing about what Tsung-lê actually did in the western regions, which was codified in poem form in Hsi-yu-chi. Tsung-lê was in the vicinity of Rājagṛha and Nālandā between 1378 and 1382 A.D. and mentioned a gigantic standing monastery that survived from the raid of Muslims that might be one of the vihāra of Nālandā Mahāvihāra,19 confirming the account of the Tibetan lama Tāranātha. TIBETAN PILGRIMS The cultural intercourse between India and Tibet started in the seventh century. Chag-lo-tsa-ba (Dharmasvāmin in Sanskrit) is known as the Tibetan pilgrim, and his travel records show that he is important for the history of Nālandā. He came to Nālandā in 1235 A.D. and studied with ācārya Rāhulaśrībhadra20 until 1236. G. N. Roerich translated the records of his travel, entitled Biography of Dharmasvāmin. His account of Śrī Nālandā is brief and comes much later than the Chinese pilgrims but it interestingly sheds light on the last days of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. His narrative about the last scene of Nālandā’s fall due to the Muslim invasion dominated for a long time in the historical intellectual world. After the fall of Nālandā, many Tibetans wrote the account of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, but these are

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more or less about the teachers of Nālandā.21 What we may have there about Nālandā is to be derived from the activities of those senior monks at the monastery of Nālandā. Tāranātha tried to reconstruct the history of the Buddha’s religion in India based on oral practices focusing on important personalities of Buddhism. In this way, Śrī Nālandā is also referenced, especially as a place of contested debate between Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist scholars of different sects. Tāranātha imagined a story that a group of five hundred monks thought that the birthplace of Sāriputta was the suitable place to preach Mahāyāna, and later, King Aśoka built a large temple over here and also two ācāryas–the Brāhmaṇa brothers–built eight temples at Nālandā and placed all the scriptures of Mahāyāna there; thus Aśoka was the founder of the first vihāra at Nālandā.22 Here like Xuanzang, Tāranātha also situated Nālandā Mahāvihāra during the time of the Buddha. Interestingly, he also establishes Nālandā’s connection with Sāriputta’s birthplace, Nā-lo, and stresses the simultaneous rise of Nālandā and Nā-lo. Following Tāranātha’s account after Āryadeva left Nālandā, the Persian king destroyed Magadha by the Turuṣka army, ruined many temples, and heavily damaged Śrī Nalendra, and even the ordained monks fled away. After the Turuṣka raid, King Buddhapakṣa tried to reconstruct all the damaged temples and invite the monks back. In Śrī Nalendra the king established seventy-four centers of doctrine and the queen and the minister constructed another ten. Soon after this, Kukkutasiddha, a minister of the king of Magadha, erected a temple at Nālandā.23 In this way, he talks about both demolition of Nālandā and later its restoration by the Magadhan people. These reconstructed buildings and temples of later days are hard to trace. In another reference to mysterious fire and damages, he talks about three grand buildings called Ratnasāgara, Ratnadadhī, and Ratnarañjaka located at Dharmagañja, which might have served as a library for the establishment. At Ratnadadhī, which was nine-storied, there were sacred scripts called Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra and Tantric works such as Samājaguhya, among others.24 Archaeologists never tried to explore these high buildings on the campus of Nālandā. ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEYS AND EXCAVATIONS Mary Stewart (1989) has presented systematic details of the archaeological history of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra and a brief summary of the exposed monastery. We can assess her account in the detail in this book from an educational perspective. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra grows out of the pioneer efforts of a small group of British East India Company surveyors and engineers from oblivion who in the course of their expe-



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ditions discovered the ruins of the monastery of Nālandā. The British encouraged formal survey of the provinces of India to know more about its culture and topography, which opened up many Hindu and Buddhist sites unintentionally and unconsciously. It was indeed a great service to the country’s past, and Indians still owe a debt to them. Dr. Francis Buchanan25 was the first explorer who noticed antiquities of Nālandā in 1812 while carrying out a survey of Bengal, which he wrongly described as the ruins of Kuṇḍalapura near the village of Baragāon, the capital of King Bhimaka of Vidarbha, the father of Rukmini, wife of Kṛṣṇa, as mentioned in the epic and Paurāṇic tradition. From the account Buchanan has given, there is no doubt that in the beginning, he took it to be the ruins of primarily a Buddhist site though he did not seriously attempt to identify it.26 Buchanan often compared the Kuṇḍalapura images, especially Buddhas, not only single but in rows and clusters with similar ones he had discovered at Rājagṛha and Bodh Gayā. He tried to categorize and identify the antiquities of Bihar scientifically and carefully with practically no works of reference. Even though his perception was incorrect, at least he was the first to show the world the ruins of Nālandā and announce its Buddhist importance. The first official to bear the title “archaeologist” (Archaeological Enquirer for the northwestern provinces of the Honorable Company) who visited Baragāon and identified the Kuṇḍalapura ruins as Nālandā was Captain Markham Kittoe. He was the next explorer who wrote about the ruins in 184727 and attempted to identify “Nā-lo” of Faxian where Sāriputta was born and attained nirvāṇa in the beginning. He identified Baragāon as the ancient town of Kuṇḍalapura,28 which seems to confirm Buchanan. In the beginning, he took Baragāon ruins to be those of Nā-lo, but later he shifted his stand and identified the ancient remains at Giriyaka with Nā-lo. It seems he confused Nā-lo, Baragāon, Nālandā, and Kuṇḍalapura. He had seen the numerous carvings and images at Baragāon but he did not care to deal with them. He discovered by chance a valuable Sanskrit inscription at Gussurawa that dated back to the reign of Devapāla (ca. 810–850), which contains Nālandā and refers to Vīradeva.29 It was found at the site of a Buddha temple, and he indicated that there would have been more than one temple at this site, for the mound is extensive. However, Nālandā does not appear in the translation of the inscription, and they could not identify it as a place completely. Finally, in his last report, Kittoe indicated the Kuṇḍalapura ruins as Nālandā, a place of Buddhists. This is how at last Nālandā came into the light without any proper and exact identification. When Kittoe was busy in his survey, his work mate Alexander Cunningham was writing about Nālandā’s history by utilizing available translations of Chinese travelers and arguing for the establishment of an

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official archaeological survey institute to discover and publish all of the existing remains of architecture and sculpture with coins and inscriptions for the enhancement of the knowledge of Indian religion and better introduction of Christianity in the subcontinent. Cunningham first visited the site of Nālandā in 1861 as the first director of the Archaeological Survey of India, his brainchild.30 He started Nālandā’s official excavation, which was part of historical archaeology31 and was later followed by the British and British-trained Indians and occasionally by European and American archaeologists. He and his colleagues officially surveyed the site for four seasons (1862–1865) following Buchanan and Kittoe, based on the accounts of Chinese travelers. He seemed not much interested in digging except surveying but he clearly established the identity of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. He wrongly identified Nālandā with Baragāon on the basis of testimony of two inscriptions32 found on the spot, which actually mention ‟Nālandā” as being the name of the place itself.33 He equated Nā-lo with Nālandā, as Kittoe finally did, even though he must have read Xuanzang, who locates Sāriputta’s birthplace at Kalapinaka near Indrasilaguhā. He provided the sketch of the ruins of Nālandā in which he designated six monasteries to the east of the mounds, built by six rulers according to Xuanzang’s description. He also noted several tanks, two to the northeast and one to the south surrounding the ruins and mounds to surround them.34 Cunningham also identifies two vihāras (i.e., one built by Bālāditya and a second where the Buddha had explained law for four months, according to Xuanzang). The vihāra where the Buddha taught the Vinaya for four months was subsequently excavated by order of the government under the superintendence of Captain Marshall in 1863 and only discovered an image pedestal in the 20-feet-square-wide central shrine room on the east side. Marshall opined about his explorations of the temple: ‟The general appearance of the building, viz. the false doorway, the abstraction of the idols, and the absence of inside plaster, all gives the notion of the building having been made use of after the glories of the temple had passed away and then to have fallen to pieces by neglect and consequent decay.”35 Until now discovered mounds of Nālandā also attracted interested independent individuals like A. M. Broadley.36 Broadley unofficially invited himself to the site after Marshall in 1872 A.D. to add rather than interfere with the official archaeology. He independently started digging the main mound called Tope No. 4 with the aid of one thousand laborers until ‟within 10 days he laid bare the eastern, western and southern facades of the ruins of the temple or stūpa concealed underneath. Actually, this mound is the same, which Captain Marshall had excavated but wrongly suggested that this mound was the vihāra of Bālāditya. Here, Broadley found a headless Buddha 4 feet high and the vihāra having at least five



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floors containing a temple in the center and an evenly paved court about 100 feet square and surrounded by halls and buildings of every description on all sides except the eastern and these doubtlessly served as the dwelling places.37 He also excavated a new mound, Tope No. 7, which later came to be known as Stūpa No. 3. The result has been the partial uncovering of the northern face-off of a square building flanked by four circular towers, about 25 feet in circumference, whose wall is decorated with the most beautiful brick moldings divided by a line of niches, containing Buddhist figures at regular intervals.38 He also mentioned the two same inscriptions that Cunningham noticed earlier from the reigns of king Gopāla and Mahipāla, respectively.39 Later Cunningham and his assistant surveyor, J. D. Beglar, made an official tour of the site in 1872 and approved the exploration of Broadley with no further excavation. Here, the first phase of the explorations of the ASI ended. The works of Buchanan, Kittoe, Cunningham, Marshall, and Broadley were mainly of explanatory nature as far as corresponding to the aims of the ASI (i.e., survey and exploration). It looks like they were in a hurry to confirm the identity of Nālandā and its monuments. They acted like finders and observers as per their intellectual capacity and available scientific techniques that focused on antiquities of the religious importance of either Hinduism or Buddhism or both. They attempted to notice architectural remains and structures, sculptures, inscriptions, bricks, vihāra, and temple either by availability or minor diggings. Positively, this time of historical explorations brought the mounds of Nālandā on the surface and its connections and importance as a place of Buddhism. Negatively, still, the history of Nālandā Mahāvihāra is shrouded in confusion and mistakes. Each surveyor after Buchanan verified the earlier knowledge and added something new with his own explorations in a desultory manner without any system. Cunningham tried to present an account of the explorations and not the complete history in the report but it was more or less a hasty effort to confirm the accounts of Chinese travelers. The discoveries of Broadley housed at Broadley’s museum at Bihar did not even get a mention in the reports, which were later noticed by archaeologists. Even John Marshall commented on the work of the ASI done under the directorship of Cunningham and Burgess as complete within itself and focused primarily on gathering material for research, but this did not stimulate further research, when he took over the charge in 1902 and held it until 1931 with priorities of conservation, exploration, excavation, epigraphy, and research.40 He aimed to start scientific excavation and conservation on artistic lines intended to present material on a regular and updated basis for research through his annual reports of archaeology. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra by then had become a protected site under the Indian Monuments Act of 1904 but the site was not considered for

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exploration and conservation until 1916.41 The ASI bought the land covering Nālandā’s remains in 1916 and the superintendent of archaeology, Dr. David Brainard Spooner,42 who was already working in the area of Buddhist archaeology in India, started a regular exploration on the site. Spooner followed Cunningham ideologically by accepting Xuanzang’s description and he practically used Cunningham’s sketch of the ruins of Nālandā as his guide for exploration. The ASI now became more serious about the exploration of Śrī Nālandā, which involved almost all parts of the monastery. Some extensive excavations started and took place in this phase. Spooner explored the site of Nālandā in four sessions (i.e., 1915–1916, 1916–1917, 1917–1918, and 1918–1919), which led to excavations and conservations of Monastery No. 1, Temple No. 2, and Stūpa No. 3. In the first season in 1916 Spooner discovered Monastery No. 1 (consisting of two levels of one monastery or two monasteries, one built on top of the other) and 4 (containing a Buddha image surrounded by attendants and a total of 603 seals or tablets bearing the insignia of Nālandā and terra-cotta plaques preserving the portion of royal genealogy of Gupta kings) built by Buddhagupta and Śakrāditya, respectively.43 Work in the second season disclosed three levels of building at Monastery No. 1, which reported as four levels in Marshall’s report for that season. Spooner excavated the fifth level of Monastery No.1 in the third session. Also, Spooner excavated a mound to the left of Monastery No. 1 and referred to it as vihāra but finally designated it as Stūpa No. 3. He revealed that Stūpa No. 3 had three layers of building and a shrine with an image inside of Padmapāṇi surrounded by numerous smaller stūpas, the third being still covered with a stucco ornament including several Buddha figures with attendants.44 Excavation of the Tope No. 7 in Broadley’s sketch, which Spooner designated Temple No. 2, revealed a brick base decorated with 211 sculptured panels over the molded basement surrounded by two, or at places three, decorative cornices. The themes of the carving in the symmetrically arranged panels are drawn mostly from Hindu mythology such as those from the lives of Rāma and Kṛṣṇa and representations of Hindu deities like Śiva, Pārvatī, Kārtikeya, Sūrya, Kubera, Gajalakṣmi, and so forth. All these show that the temple was dedicated to a Hindu deity facing east as against the monasteries facing west.45 From an artistic point of view, Spooner dates the carved panels on the plinth to the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., similar to the Gupta period. It looks like a Hindu temple from other remains also, which is further confirmed, though indirectly by the copperplate of king Devapāladeva (815–854A.D. ) referring to a vihāra established at Nālandā by King Bālaputradeva of the Śailendra dynasty of Suvarṇadvīpa, which also speaks of the provision for bali and caru as Vedic ritualistic offerings.46 It probably indicates that the Bālaputradeva



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vihāra like the parent institution of Nālandā was not an exclusive center of Buddhist learning only but also a prominent seat of Brāhmaṇical studies and practices pursued by non-Buddhist students who were interested in Brāhmaṇical learning. Spooner was appointed deputy director general of the ASI in 1919 and Hirananda Sastri became superintendent at Nālandā. Sastri worked at the site for two sessions, 1919–1920 and 1920–1921, focusing on digging out Monasteries No. 1 and 1A. He began digging outside the Monastery No. 1 to determine how the various levels were connected to each other. He then discovered the remains of Monastery 1A to the southwest of his excavations, which was built at an earlier date than level B, which revealed burnt wood, and the extant portions of their jambs, which show how doorframes were fitted in them.47 He notes evidence of fire in charred and molten remains found in Monasteries 1 and 1A. Fireplaces in the eastern section of the verandah and pots containing burnt rice and lentils in the western section of the verandah of the Monastery No. 1A were found, which might have been used for cooking or for preparing drugs, in which case the structure would be a medical seminary.48 The most important find was the Bālaputradeva copperplate grant, which Sastri claimed at least put a date to the level (i.e., 890 A.D).49 The explorations of Sastri also yielded many small and big Brāhmaṇical50 and Buddhist51 images of stone, bronze, and terra-cotta and he tried to identify those carefully. J. A. Page succeeded Sastri in 1921 and took charge of the conservation and exploration at Nālandā. He continuously worked on the site until 1929 for a total of eight sessions. He was the first to guess that the structure of Nālandā belonged to the Gupta period and tried to explore and conserve many buildings like Monasteries 1, 1A, 1B, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 by the bricks made in the Gupta style and size measuring 15”x10”x3” and 12”x8”x2¾”. It seems he was more focused on conservation of the site and its remains with less archaeology but looked more interested in explanation, identification, and regeneration of the plan of the whole site. Page exposed more of the earliest levels of Monastery No. 1 and found a stone inscription at the Devapāla level and two copperplates attributed to Samudragupta and Dharmapāla.52 The inscription on the top of a stone capital-bracket relates that a certain Malada, the son of a minister or minister of Yaśovarmadeva, made offerings to a temple supposedly erected by Bālāditya.53 He reiterated the sixth-century date for the lowest level at Monastery No. 1, suggesting that the fifth-century Hūṇa invasion was responsible for the devastation of previous buildings. He found layers of ashes, potsherds, heavy brick debris, more ashes, and a finally a natural earth accumulation in a trench cut in the southeast courtyard corner and reiterated the record of fire and destruction and of abandonment and subsequent reoccupation in the until-then revealed eight levels of Monastery

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No. 1. He added one more successive level that includes two subsidiary levels revealed in the central caitya in the courtyard between the fourth and fifth main strata.54 On the north wall of the court of level three, he found a number of ovens in which horizontal air flues and fragments of perforated tile bottom were visible, perhaps having served as a kitchen for the monastery.55 He found another monastery attached to Monastery No. 1A by a party-wall similar in scale (26’x15’) but of the same plan as Monastery No. 1A, having a shrine at the south side, an open court, and a colonnaded verandah, which he called Monastery No. 1B.56 Page found two deep cells with traces of beam-holes in the cell wall on either side of the entrance at Monastery No. 1A, which may have been granaries or stores for treasured possessions.57 Page excavated Monastery No. 4 built by Buddhagupta, north of Monastery No. 1, whereas Cunningham has called it 1 and attributed to Śakrāditya. He revealed that the four levels here were equivalent to the nine levels of Monastery No. 1.58 He reported the discovery of stūpa pedestals with the figures of the Buddha in dharmacakramudrā, dhyānamudrā, bhūmisparshamudrā, and abhayamudrā and eight scenes of the life of the Buddha in a succession of panels and four stūpas bearing dedicatory inscriptions.59 He also got beam holes for the original roof timbers, which is the sole indication so far afforded by the remains of Nālandā of the actual height of the monastery rooms, which is 11 feet from floor to ceiling.60 Page also excavated the core end and the corner towers of Stūpa No. 3 and disclosed seven successive levels being the seventh the outermost structure. The top of the stūpa was cleared to disclose the square plan of a temple like a chamber, with sanctum to the south and entrance lobby to the north.61 Surrounding the main stūpa he found large votive stūpas covered with stucco images, which were dated to the seventh–eighth century on the basis that the brick paving revealed around the tower is at approximately the same level as the similar paving outside the earliest monasteries on the Nālandā site.62 He located earlier levels and the low fragmentary remains of the shrine-like structure by uncovering the eastern half of the stūpa. He mentioned that the drum of the southeast stucco-tower is the earliest known level and in a very good state of preservation, buried deep in solidly laid bricks and covered with stucco Buddha figures in dharmacakramudrā, dhyānamudrā, bhūmisparshamudrā, and Avalokiteśvara.63 Here he found a flight of steps on the north front of the stūpa base, and then along the eastern face flanked by stepped walls elaborately ornamented like the corner tower images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.64 Also, he found a many little votive stūpas that showed signs of having been rebuilt as well.65 At Monastery No. 6 with measured dimension 150’x120’ Page found a well in the northwest corner similar to wells that had been discovered



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in the other monasteries. It had an octagonal top. He discovered decorated chattis in the well.66 Excavation revealed that the cells were only 8 feet high and the courtyard was originally brick with cooking ovens and shrines.67 Page found fragmentary charcoal stumps of actual columns and concluded that the ninth-century level had been destroyed by fire. Later, at Monastery No. 6 two levels were exposed, one Devapāla and one lower, and the main conservation efforts were focused on Monastery No. 7, where three levels came to light—the middle one, Devapāla, and thirty-four cells.68 Bronze images of the Buddha and Brāhmaṇical gods in well-preserved condition were also found in Monastery No. 7 with terracotta plaques and seals. It looks like the maximum part of the structure of the revealed campus of Nālandā came out now, which was an important contribution of the ASI during this period. All monasteries and temples brought out mostly by the British are still serving as the base of our knowledge related to Nālandā Mahāvihāra. These architectures were ready for easy further excavations and explorations because all of them seemed to have been built at the same time, in relatively the same manner. From 1929 to 1938, native Indian archaeologists like Kuraishi, Chandra, Nazim, and Ghosh, who had been trained in historical archaeology by the British, started excavating, conserving, and exploring the remaining monasteries routinely. Page became deputy director general of the ASI in 1929 and Kuraishi was also appointed as superintendent at Nālandā and worked until 1932. He continued to do minor repairs at Monasteries No. 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and at Stūpa No. 3. He cleared Monastery No. 6 revealing paving of the upper and lower courts and two sets of long cooking chulas on the east and west sides of the upper courtyards.69 He continued the work of the discovered three levels at Monastery No. 7 and repaired the shrine in the eastern half of the second level and the ovens unearthed in the middle and earliest levels. He found many bronze images of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas with a lot of ashes and charcoal from the second lowest level at Monastery No. 8, indicating that the last level of the monastery presumably two levels high was destroyed by fire.70 He began exploration at Caitya No. 12 and found two levels of construction and stucco images of the Buddha, Kubera, and others in the niches in the walls. He found a number of votive stūpas in the southeast and a detached shrine in the north of the site.71 G. C. Chandra succeeded Kuraishi as superintendent of Nālandā for the seasons of 1932–1933 and 1933–1934, 1934–1935, and 1935–1936. His main task was the conservation of Stūpa No. 3, Caitya No. 12, and Monasteries No. 9 and 10. He excavated Monastery No. 9 and found thirty-seven cells measuring 9’3”x 9’, the main shrine, an octagonal well, a stair, burnt wood in cells, and three sets of double chulas.72 He also excavated Monasteries No. 10, 11, and 12.73 He gave the dimension of Monastery No. 10 as

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209’9”x173’9”, which contains thirty-five cells, 10’x10’. In Monastery No. 11 (dimension 212’x176’) Chandra excavated the verandah revealing the cells facing onto it, stone lintels supporting a stone doorway, and stone pillars on the verandah with evidence of fire but no well.74 The cell floors are concrete and sometimes brick-on-edge flooring. The courtyard floor was brick. With the recovery of many bronze and stone images from the site, in one of the cells in Monastery No. 10 Chandra found a hoard of fifty-four bullion coins of the Hūṇa dynasty and a rectangular gold-plated copper coin at the same time.75 At Temple No. 2, he found the outline of the garbhagṛha. The plan of the antarāla, the maṇḍapa, and the porch are yet to be fully examined. Chandra also cleared Caitya No. 12 of debris and excavated Caitya No. 13; both were of a similar design and show evidence of rebuilding. Here he found shrines in the south corner of the Caitya and another collection of stūpas to the north. He found many Buddha images from Caitya No. 13. Near Caitya No. 13 Chandra unearthed metal coin mounds that belong to Narasiṁha-Gupta Bālāditya, who was the standing bow and archer type of the imperial Gupta and who is one of the earliest rulers to be intimately connected with Nālandā both according to tradition and epigraphical evidence.76 In 1936–1937, Nazim took charge as superintendent of conservation and exploration of the site, which was nearly complete. At Stūpa No. 3, he found a brick inscribed with Gupta characters and at Caitya No. 13, a Buddha in the central shrine.77 Nazim dug out the forecourt of the shrine at Caitya No. 13 and at the north front of the Caitya structure he found a four-chambered smelting furnace with two flues in each chamber.78 He also found a square pit (3’x3’) constructed with rough bricks and noted that the proximity of this pit to the temple suggested that it might have been a dumping hold for the offering.79 A. Ghosh took charge of the last stages of Nālandā’s conservation and exploration in 1937–1938 and completed the repair work in Monasteries No. 9, 10, and 11. He supervised the final excavation at Caitya No. 13, on the outside walls and the main staircase on the east side. Since 1938, archaeologists have visited Nālandā on a routine basis to carry out maintenance and repairs. Temple No. 14, having the same plan and essentially the same period characteristics as Nos. 12 and 13, appears to have been excavated somewhere between 1939 and 1973. After a gap of several years, the ASI started excavation at Sarai Mound again between the east side of the site and the main road to Baragāon in 1974 and continued it until 1982 under Birendra Nath yielded the remains of a Buddhist temple. It showed the remains of the largest Buddhist temple so far exposed from the ruins of Nālandā, which contains evidence of polychrome painting all around its extensive garbhagṛha hall.80 Prior to this no surviving specimens of mural painting were found in the various excavations



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conducted at the monastery site by Marshall, Broadley, and Spooner. But A. Ghosh had also found evidence of paintings on stone bricks in Temple No. 14 in the course of his excavation, which unfortunately has now perished and nothing definite can be said about it. The entire sanctum hall is plastered with lime plaster, and white, red, black, yellow, and blue pigments have been used on it. The sanctum wall and the upper portion of the stone pedestal are noticed with floral and geometrical designs in polychrome and below that, the stone slabs depicting human and animal figures are painted in white and red colors exclusively.81 The temple has a rectangular plan (31.70 x 22.79) and two projected arms (6.50m x 5.35m), which flanked the entrance to the shrine, which is molded and decorated with pilasters and niches to accommodate deities.82 The outer wall shows the stage of reconstruction and the inner part indicates evidence of an advanced artistry (e.g., the decorative relief, the beautiful motifs, and the figures of the lotus flower in various stages of bloom). During the scientific clearance of the temple, remnants of another brick wall of 1.55 m running east-west and brick lined well were exposed.83 The great height of this temple conforms to the description of a temple given by Xuanzang in his traveling account. An inscription of the seventh–eighth centuries consisting of fourteen lines has also been found inside the brick temple, which was later translated by D. C. Sircar. According to Sircar, the inscription states that a king called Prathamaśiva from Mathura installed about a dozen bronze images of the Buddha including a big copper image of about 80 feet in a Buddhist establishment containing six floors that were apparently at Nālandā. The name of the sculptor who made the beautiful image was Pūrṇavarman. He is called the maker of the said fame-producing object (i.e., an image for the king).84 While clearing the garbhagṛha, a stone pedestal measuring eight meters in length adorned with double-petaled lotuses all around it and painted in red colors that was meant for installing the large Buddha image was also discovered,85 confirming the description given in the inscription. The above-described works of archaeologists at Nālandā Mahāvihāra indicate that the British and their Indian counterparts more or less tried to bring out Nālandā from the literature and preserve it as much as possible, not from beneath the earth but through real archaeology. They looked more interested in putting life in the Nālandā Mahāvihāra described in the available travelogues. They were successful up to an extent in rescuing Nālandā from oblivion but failed in the reconstruction of its celebrated past. The first fifty years of the historical archaeology of ASI was made to appear unprofessional and unscientific. They claimed a scientific approach to the survey, but it was, as they understood science in their day. The categorization, assembling, and interpretation of the findings occurred in an insensitive way. The artifacts were mainly discovered

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by labors while removing the debris in baskets sent out to a chemist for cleaning and then to museums and storage. The needed connected categorization and interpretation of the objects’ finding place, why it was found there, which group these belonged t,o and what are the other possible discoveries have never been provided seriously and scientifically. They did not bother to make claims based on the field of archaeology, believing that they were not paid to think. Also, the available materials of historical Buddhist archaeology were to a large extent ignored by the scientifically oriented archaeologists because the fieldwork failed to bear out the epigraphic and literary claims, and the history of Nālandā remained unnoticed for a long time.86 The antiquarians and archaeologists were said to have been obsessed with the Western translation of manuscripts of Chinese monks, especially Xuanzang. It is hard to understand why Yijing and Tāranātha, who had resided at Nālandā in the seventh and the thirteenth centuries, respectively, did not capture their attention, and unsuccessfully tried to verify the details. They wanted to know whether it is the same monastery where the Chinese monks stayed or the monuments and the buildings exactly matched to their descriptions. The work was started and proceeded with historical inspiration from the Chinese but ironically the relationship to Nālandā Mahāvihāra the Chinese knew was never established during these excavations.87 The monks visited Nālandā as a sacred place associated with the memory of the Buddha but they do not mention him in connection with Nālandā. Also, the first disciples of the Buddha Sāriputta and Moggallāna, often pictured with him on stone images as having born and died at Nālandā, were not explained in with the monastic periphery. They keep reporting the discovered art and architecture of Nālandā. Their classified interests in finding images, image pedestals, parts of images of stone, bronze, copper, and terra-cotta, and buildings with its different levels were so focused that they did not even seriously try to identify them. The size of the monastery was also an unanswered question still. Buchanan and Broadley’s surveys indicated a number of mounds to the southeast of the present site. The archaeologists Spooner, Sastri, and Page often predicted, based on their survey, that the actually acquired area by ASI seems a small part of the whole monastic establishment. Probably the present site represents only a part of the mahāvihāra. It is possible that parts of the village of Baragāon might have risen on the very spots where Nālandā’s monastic building stood. And judging by the uneven topography and the number of tanks in the surroundings, the present site may well have been only one of many monastic complexes. It seems the ASI noticed this issue recently. Nālandā in general and its neighborhood in particular attracted the ASI’s attention in the twentyfirst century constantly mainly for preservation and survey and for oc-



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casional excavation. Now, the neighborhood of Nālandā became more significant archaeologically than the original site to establish the cultural sequence, its own planning, settlement pattern of the site, connection with ancient Nālandā Mahāvihāra, dating of the area in association with Nālandā, and tracing out the extension on ancient Nālandā Mahāvihāra. In 2006–2007, the Patna branch conducted an excavation at village Juafardih, which is situated 3 km west of the ruins of Nālandā and encountered with the earliest mud stūpa in three successive phases dating 600–700 C.E. The stūpas were encased with brick masonry set mud mortar with the evidence of pradakṣiṅāpatha around the stūpa at ground level.88 In 2007–2008, the survey excavated Begampur and Daman-khanda villages situated 1km north of the ruins of ancient Nālandā Mahāvihāra and removed biological assertion and growth from Monastery No. 6. Begampur revealed a fragment of stone votive stūpa with the floral design of the post-Gupta period, a burnt brick wall of the late medieval period in structures forming a rectangular shape and divided into three cells, and an important seal with Brahmi script of the seventh century.89 The small-scale excavation at Daman-khanda revealed a terra-cotta ring well from the Gupta level, two miniature stone stūpas with a headless stone image of the Buddha, and debris of brick structures with decorated stucco plaster like Nālandā from the Pāla level.90 These small-scale excavations clearly established archaeologically that Nālandā Mahāvihāra existed beyond the present original site in its heyday. The connected account of Nālandā and its neighborhood is still missing and needs a more in-depth study of the area. The surveyors were worried about the starting date of the construction of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra since the beginning of their works. Cunningham’s statement that Nālandā did not exist during the time of Faxian’s India visit because he does not mention still dominates in the intellectual world of the twenty-first century. On the other hand, we have a series of references to stūpas, vihāras, and temples dedicated to the incidents of the Buddha’s presence at Nālandā. It is still a mystery in the history of Nālandā. Nālandā’s connection with the Buddha’s life needs more thorough scientific investigation and dating of the site and the founded artifacts. There are still probabilities that the announced date of the establishment of Nālandā around 455 A.D. based on the discovery of an archer type coin of Kumāragupta from Monastery No. 4 might go back (we do not know how far back) but more excavations might reveal something useful in this area. Also at least the yielded forged Samudragupta’s copperplate inscription of circa 335–375 from Monastery No. 1 needs a thorough explanation, which also includes the name of Chandragupta. The reports of the excavation clearly indicate that the monuments and buildings of Nālandā might have existed before the last days of the Gupta dynasty. The archaeologists kept revising the dating of the site as the

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work progressed but they did not come out from their love of the Gupta and the Pāla rulers. There was no physical evidence of any buildings dating to Aśoka and no verified evidence that Xuanzang and Yijing saw any of the pre-Pāla period buildings. Yijing and Tāranātha do not talk about the construction of new buildings, indicating these monuments got in shape before them. The base levels of Stūpa No. 3 and Monasteries No. 1A and 1B seem to have been in existence at the time of Xuanzang, so the question that arises is when were the higher levels of monasteries and other buildings constructed? The dating of monasteries and their different levels needs a scientific revision because early archaeologists lacked the techniques for recording and scientifically dating strata. Also, the inhabitation patterns of the surrounding areas and scientific dating of the discovered objects through archaeological excavations could possibly tell more about it. Interestingly, the ASI intended to review the antiquity of Nālandā Mahāvihāra through the survey of in and around Nālandā and the objects recovered during recent excavations in 2012–2013 and 2013–2014. The surrounding villages of Nālandā Mahāvihāra were surveyed by G. K. Lama and assisted by Pankaj Kumar to throw light on the artistic features of the art objects and to reveal the antiquity of the settlement history of the area in 2012–2013. They discovered many red and gray ware along with a few black slipware with large number of fragments and broken images of the Buddha from villages surrounding Nālandā Mahāvihāra such as Sakraurha (about 8 km north), Tazu Bigha (6 km northwest), Makhdumpur (about 12 km west), Kondi (10 km north), Eksara (7 km northwest), Bara (8 km southwest), Chandaura (8 km southeast), Baraki Aat (10 km west), Bara Khurd (13 km northwest), Ajaypur (14 km northwest), Tungi (16 km east), Aldhanna (18 km north), and Gaura (about 21 km northwest).91 These findings in and around the 20 km radius from the ruins of Nālandā archaeologically prove that the surrounding areas of Nālandā Mahāvihāra were active Buddhist centers going far back to the age of Suṅga-Kuṣāṇa. These highly populated areas might have acted as sacred places during the time of the Buddha and could have also helped in raising the status of Nālandā that time. Similarly, the next year again G. K. Lama and others carried out a more extensive survey of Nālandā and its vicinity covering more than a hundred villages keeping the ruins of Nālandā as a reference point. They captured a radius of about 50km and noticed many small and big mounds and found red ware, black and red ware, brick structures, Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist sculptures, and fragments from different villages. For example, sculptures of the Buddha and sometimes their fragments were noticed at villages that were situated around the ruins of Nālandā such as Bhui (about 12 km southwest), Chandi Mau (about 10 km southeast), Dhurgaon (30 km northwest),



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Ghosrawan (16 km southeast), Khirauti (about 15 km northwest), Kool (about 3 km southeast), Machhaldiha (about 3 km north), Maniyawan (about 9 km east), Mustafapur (about 2 km north), Nanan (about 3 km southeast), Nona (about 2 km south), Parvati (34 km southeast), Rukministhan (2 km southwest), Silao (about 8 km southeast), and Tetrawan (about 16 km east), and these sculptures and fragments were either worshipped by villagers or kept in the village temple.92 These numerous findings of ceramics and other antiquities again indicate towards the antiquity and settlement history of Nālandā, which can be pushed back at least six hundred years. Hopefully, it will be confirmed through extensive vertical excavations in the surrounding area of the ancient Nālandā Mahāvihāra in the near future. The archaeologists constantly showed the demolition and then reconstruction of the buildings of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which is still a mystery of history. Each building in the complex has more than one level and mostly they were built and rebuilt on the same base. The archaeologists never attempted to explain why a vihāra was built over the original vihāra and a stūpa over the original stūpa again and again. Was there any religious motive behind this? Related to this, how did the earlier levels of buildings get annihilated continuously? Was there either natural or human cause behind his? The evidence of fire in its destruction in the terms of charcoal, ashes, and burnt wood that were discovered is pointed throughout the ruins. If the fire destroyed buildings, then the unanswered question that arises is was the fire so extensive so as to devour the whole building? What was the source of the fire? And why did the same fire erupt again and again? Further study at Nālandā, besides scientific dating of levels and materials in a comparative nature with other sites, might possibly determine the types of monastic buildings. However, at least one thing is clear: these earlier levels of the buildings show the antiquity of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which sometimes goes beyond the Pāla and the Gupta periods. The archaeologists seem more concerned about conservation than exploration since the identification of Śrī Nālandā. Once Marshall also pointed out in 1926–1927 that from funds allocated to the ASI, only onetenth was used for exploration and the bulk was used for conservation expenditure. The legacy of consolidation, cleaning, and preservation was also carried out at Monastery Nos. 4, 5, 9, and 11 and Temple Nos. 3, 12, 13, and 14 at Nālandā in 2008–2009, 2009–2010, 2010–2011, 2011–2012, 2012–2013, and 2013–2014.93 On July 2016, the World Heritage Committee inscribed Nālandā Mahāvihāra on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, which will speed up the conservation process. Hopefully, it will also lead to the use of the World Heritage fund for more exploration and excavation at the site.

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THE ARCHITECTURE OF MAHĀVIHĀRA When we mix the archaeological and literary details of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, its architecture emerges up to an extent. Nālandā Mahāvihāra was a religious cum academic institution, which is evident from the available beautiful balance of study and veneration reflected from the campus plan. It was engaged in the organized transmission of knowledge over an uninterrupted period of eight hundred years and the development of Buddhism into a religion. The flourishing monastic and educational traditions are quite visible by the architectural plan of Nālandā. The recent excavations have brought out a good example of highly developed, strong, and comfortable architecture. It shows how the buildings were made of superior quality and admirably texture bricks, which were fitted together so perfectly that in some places the joints between the bricks are altogether inconspicuous.94 There were fourteen temples and thirteen monasteries in opposite directions on the campus.95 Whenever a monk came out of his monastery, the first thing visible was the stūpa or temple or image, which he could easily reach and perform sacrificial rites and prayer. It was also beneficial in the sense that the monks could worship at night also. The temples were also clearly visible from the hostel’s rooms, so they could also pray every time from the room itself. Not only this, there was a small temple constructed with the Buddha images at the gate of every vihāra, inside the monastery facing the main gate and sometimes on every four corners of the hostels. Generally speaking, the images are found in abundance in the monasteries where they were worshiped and in all probability manufactured, while in the stūpa (temple) sites miniature votive stūpas, brick-slabs inscribed with sacred texts or tablets containing the Buddhist creed, are found.96 Xuanzang and Yijing mention the worship of these deities at Nālandā. Here it shows the deep relationship between education and religion. The overall environment of the campus was made entirely religious and pious with a carefully constructed architectural plan in terms of front-facing temples and monasteries. The exact positions of temples and votive stūpas with images in front of all monks constantly reminded them of their religious duty (i.e., to know more about the Buddha’s vacanas). Positively, the comparatively more peaceful religious atmosphere could have generated more enthusiasm for learning and teaching the Buddha’s religion. Meditation and creativity prospered at the monastery of Nālandā due to this. The religious settings of the campus probably could have helped in the visualization of what they were studying and writing and about whom they were reading (i.e., the Buddha). The structure of the entire Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra was well planned and arranged in such a way that students and teachers could perform



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–

Figure 2.1.  Map of the Excavated Site of Sri Na–landa– Maha–viha–ra. Source: Pintu Kumar.

meditation and veneration with their study every time and at every place.97 The establishment was divided into the two parts through a passage of more than 100 feet in width between the sidewalls of Monastery No. 1 on the left and Monastery No. 4 and 5 on the right. On entering through the eastern gate of this passage and moving westward, there were rows of temples on the west comprising four big temples; the thirteen monasteries, of which eight are larger in dimension, were on the east . The passage was not left entirely vacant, as is shown by a few brick structures here and there. The situation of Temple No. 298 and the recently discovered large temple at Sarai Mound in the back of the row of monasteries virtually project a picture of the temple surrounding residential places. It puts monks in the center of the complex with places of worship around. The act of worship was deeply embedded in the learning process because of its religious orientation. On the other hand, we can also say that the act of studying was rooted in the process of adoration. Both were intermingled together as it was difficult to recognize the two separately; even gaining knowledge of Buddhist scriptures was also a sacred work, which is supposed to be the way to reach salvation. Le announces that Śrī Nālandā evolved into its highly structured plan in the Gandhāra plan

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Figure 2.2.  Sacred Buddhist Creed at Na–landa– Maha–viha–ra. Source: Pintu Kumar.

as its architectural model,99 which was also, in turn, a learning center of South Asia. It indirectly confirms that the monastic complex of Nālandā was constructed with a view to foster Buddhist learning. The Theravāda School of Nālandā transformed into a large Mahāyāna center and at the last turned into Tantrayāna Mahāvihāra, which possibly encouraged some changes in the inner architecture, which is hard to trace. We can have an idea of this by the architecture of later emerged Vajrayāna mon-



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asteries like Odantapurī, Vikramaśīlā, and Somapura on the model of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. These monasteries not only exchanged architectural patterns but also teachers and curriculum with Śrī Nālandā, which more or less also founded and flourished during the Pāla period. Wherever Buddhism spread and the monks came and settled, monasteries were built for them, both in the flourishing and in the declining periods of Buddhism. It seems that the building of monasteries was an industry, motivated by a piety that never ceased. Not enough appears to have been known about construction methods of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. It appears that the construction methods in practice at the time of the Gupta and the Pāla dynasty might have applied to buildings of Nālandā. It was built singly or in clusters, and sometimes-contiguous monasteries were enclosed within a circuit wall to form a unitary establishment. The extensiveness of buildings can be imagined from the length of time devoted to getting a house completely built. We are told that with reference to the work of a small vihāra, it may have been given to an in-charge (an overseer) as a navakarma (new work) for a period of five or six years.100 The total area of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra is still unknown. There are many probabilities of the extension of the original Nālandā monastic complex beyond the limits of the site acquired so far for excavation, noticed by many archaeologists during the excavation. The extent of the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā must have been greater in the pre-Pāla period, which can also be seen by looking at the site of the surrounding countryside. The range of monasteries revealed along the eastern boundary of the Nālandā area comprises ten buildings and the northern limit of the area cuts across an eleventh monastery, as the range continues towards the Baragāon village beyond the acquired area. According to the present excavated site, Page gives the Nālandā site dimensions as 1,600 feet north/south by 800 feet east west and altogether monasteries covered 21,000 square feet;101 Kuraishi102 put it to about 2,000 feet by about 700 feet. Page suggested a variation in the orientation of the main entrance and shrines of the monasteries excavated sometimes north-south, and sometimes east-west103 as we know Yijing also suggested an entrance from the west side. It is apparent from the general disposition and arrangement of the several structures at the south end of Nālandā site that they formed of themselves the southern boundary of a large enclosure accommodating a number of monasteries. The excavations of the Buddhist establishment at Nālandā have showed the remains of large and smaller structures of monasteries, stūpas, Caityas, temples, and other subsidiary shrines over an extensive area. Generally, there are mainly two types of monuments at Nālandā Mahāvihāra (i.e., monastery and temple). The central administration of Nālandā issued the largest number of seals, which describe it as a Mahāvihāra: Śrī-NālandāMahāvihāra-ārya-bhikṣu-saṁghasya. The expression caturddis-ārya-bhikṣu-

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saṁghasya points to its huge complex with many small monasteries. The monasteries at Nālandā were subordinate institutions or colleges with their governing body known as Saṁgha. It is interesting to note that each school has its own seal, which points to the existence of at least ten Saṁghas in the campus. Moreover the seals on some inscriptions discovered at Nālandā also point to the existence of several monasteries within the campus of Nālandā such as (1) Śrī-Kara(jña)-mahāvihāram, (2) Śrī-Śakrāditya-kāritaāhāra of king Śakrāditya, (3) Śrī-Harivarmma-Mahāvihāra of king Harivarman, (4) Śrī-Somapāla-kārita-Dhammoyikā-vihārīya-bhikṣusaṁghasya of Śrī Somapala for Dhammoyika sect, (5) Śrī-Prathama-Śivapura-Mahāvihārīyaārya-bhikṣu-saṁgha (of the revered community of monks belonging to the first monastery at Śivapura), (6) Śrī-Nālandā Dharmmapāladeva-gandhakuṭi-vāsika-bhikṣuṇam (of the monks in residence at the gandhakuṭi or Dharmapāladeva at the monastery of Nālandā), and (7) the Bālaputradeva Vihāra established by Śailendra dynasty’s king of same name.104 Archaeological excavations have come out with altogether thirteen monasteries up to this point. The smallest (71’x100’) is Monastery 1B and the largest (178’x255’) is Monastery 11, and the small and cruciform-planned building in front of Vihāra 1B was probably the earliest in Nālandā.105 In northern India, most of the monasteries like at Nālandā were of bricks, while in western India they were caves, probably due to the abundance of caves on the hilltops.106 These Nālandā monasteries present an example of the higher development of monastic architecture. It probably represents the third stage of architectural development in South Asia with a structure of the full-fledged building. Nālandā falls in the third class of James Ferguson’s identification of the growth of vihāras on the Indian subcontinent where the cell expanded into a hall, generally with pillars in the center; around these pillars, the cells of the monks were arranged, the abbot or prior generally occupying cells at either end of the verandah.107 All of the monasteries were built of reddish bricks of superior texture and rubbed so smooth that their joints were hardly seen. The excavated monasteries are very similar in layout and general appearance with a simple design. The monasteries are rectangular buildings, distinguished by their simplicity and uniformity of plan and exciting balance of alignment. The vihāras formed a rectangle bounded by an outer range of cells with an open verandah sometimes colonnaded and sometimes an open terrace running around their inner face and enclosing a spacious quadrangular court, usually containing a well.108 Every monastery has more than one level and as far as we know Monastery No. 1 has nine different levels, indicating as many periods of occupation. The subsequent builders did not generally disturb the old plan: they built on the remains of the older structure, using its old walls and hard debris as the foundation for the new walls. The outer walls were plain, with the exception of a



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simple plinth molding or stringcourse or raised-band running around the building and dividing the whole structure. There was a secret chamber on one side of the entrance and sometimes to both sides, access to which was provided by a very narrow and low opening in the wall of the cell in front of it. The central cell just facing the entrance beyond the courtyard contained a shrine with an image. These special, sacred, and secret cells are supposed to be the formally recognized part of each monastic ground plan; it could hardly have been intended as anything other than Mūlagandhakuṭi.109 These perfume chambers were usually placed in the middle of the back wall facing the main entrance, two cells on each side of the entrance in a quadrangular monastery with more than nine cells. Generally, a monk was charged with the oversight of the Mūlagandhakuṭi but also sometimes a group of monks as in the case of Nālandā. Schopen proves through archaeological, epigraphical, and literary sources that gandhakuṭi was supposed to be the central cell in a Buddhist monastery and reserved as the permanent residence for the Buddha himself, and the Buddha was thought to have been a current resident and an abiding presence in the establishment.110 The idea of a formal and continued presence of the Buddha in the particular monastery could have served as a source of inspiration for learning and teaching activities of monks. There was a verandah, the roof of which rested on the stone pillars; on one side of it was an open courtyard and on the other side row of cells. We also see sometimes, especially in the case of earlier levels of the monasteries, the verandah columns were wood, not stone, and that is why they collapsed in the fire. The courtyard too usually contained a shrine of large dimensions. The walls were plastered thickly, traces of the plaster being seen here and there in every building. It is to be noted that the vihāras built by seṭṭhi of Rājagṛha had plastered walls, which were whitewashed and were provided with doors, windows, verandahs, boundary walls, and so forth.111 The walls of the monastery were generally thick, ranging from 8 to 12 feet to provide strength and defense from natural calamities and human attack. Except Monasteries 1A and 1B, which had a different orientation, all monasteries faced west, and they had a drain discharging the sewage in the east and staircases in the south-west corner of the building, separated from each other by a passage running east to west.112 These staircases were once lighted with the help of ventilated windows, which can still be traced in the remains of Monasteries 4, 6, and 8.113 These discovered staircases confirm the account of the Chinese pilgrims that the monasteries were multi-storied. The intriguing question as to the original height of the monasteries was never answered in the process of conservation of the site. The available one example of actual height of the monastery rooms (i.e., 11 feet from floor to ceiling)114 might give an idea of the height of one deck, which seems a little lower than average.

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The architecture of monasteries at Nālandā expresses the nature and the structure of its scholastic learning with proper facilities for scholars. It was constructed in a way to encourage religious learning and teaching within the campus. It also shows the basic facilities, which were provided by the mahāvihāra scholastic institution to its students and teachers for a better and sound study environment and life in the campus. All of the monasteries look fully equipped with modern infrastructural facilities. Stairs were provided at the four corners and drains were buried under the courtyard floor to discharge dirty water to the back of the monastery; small stūpas for worship, bathroom and toilets, wells for bathing and drinking, a store room and hearths also built in the courtyard, meditation cells, built-in beds, and niches were also provided in some of the cells. Service facilities such as kitchen, mess, and lecture halls were also located within these monasteries. The interesting discovery of sets of double ovens from almost all monasteries probably either indicate cooking food or chemical experiment or metal casting, which is hard to tell or confirm with available knowledge. The whole compound of the monastery was enclosed with ramparts of three kinds, viz. brick walls, fences of stones and wood, which were further surrounded by three kinds of hedges of bamboo, a hedge of thorns, and a ditch.115 These walls basically provided a natural defense and campus to all residents. From the Pāli texts, we learn further details of the construction of vihāras, more or less visible at Nālandā, which were sometimes fitted with doors, door-posts, and lintel, with arrangements for bolts, lock, and key; with windows made by railings, network, or slip of wood, and window blinds and shutters (some of these have recovered from Nālandā during explorations); solid benches against the walls of a room or under the verandah against the outside wall of the house.116 Nālandā’s monasteries were known as dwelling places for monks and consisted mostly of a series of cells sometimes with beds, to which access was gained by a verandah. The general plan was a quadrangular court around which the cells were disposed. It is to be noted that various buildings constituted a Buddhist saṁghārāmas at Nālandā, such as living and sleeping quarters for monks, a refectory or service hall (upaṭṭhāna-sālā), a fire hall (aggi-sālā) that frequently rendered as a kitchen, an open pillared pavilion (maṇḍapa), a promenade and cloister for walking exercise (caṇkamana-sālā), a bathroom (jantaghara), a Kaṭhina-hall for tailoring, a privy, a well and a well house (udapānasālā), a store room (koṭṭhaka), and a provision and drug store (kappiya-kuṭi).117 The archaeologists were successful so far as to recover most of the mentioned parts of a particular monastery. To maintain the privacy and for meditation of the monks, due arrangements were made for the inner chamber, which was shaped like palanquins or chambers on an upper level.118

Figure 2.3.  The Doorway of Na–landa– ’s Monastery No. 4 with a Basic Reinforcing Lintel Cap. Source: Pintu Kumar.

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Figure 2.4.  Sri Na–landa– Maha–viha–ra. Source: Pintu Kumar.

Figure 2.5.  An Octagonal Well in the Campus. Source: Pintu Kumar.

Figure 2.6.  Bathroom in a Monastery of Na–landa–. Source: Pintu Kumar.



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Figure 2.7.  Arched Doorway to a Meditation Chamber at Sri Na–landa–. Source: Pintu Kumar.

Coming again to the general features of the monasteries and monastic organization of Nālandā, it would be seen that out of thirteen (including site No. 5) monasteries excavated so far, eight formed the part of a regular and well-arranged plan and the other two very probably belonged to the preplanning phase of construction. We can describe in detail Monastery No. 1119 lying to the northeast of site 1A, the most important of the monastery group, which will help in better understanding of the plan and layout of other monasteries of Nālandā. Other monasteries more or less followed the rectangular plan and layout of Monastery No. 1. As many as nine levels120 have been discovered through excavated cells, each of which is indicated by concrete pavements and superimposed walls and drains. The main entrance lies in the west wall through a large portico 49 feet by 23 feet, 6 inches of which the roof rested on pillars.121 Flanking this door there existed stucco figures, having been badly damaged by fire. Stucco figures also existed in the large niches in the north and south walls of the portico. The lower monastery, of which the cells are seen near the entrance on the western and along the southern and eastern sides, is believed to have been constructed in the reign of Devapāla by a king of Sumatra, as is stated in a copperplate inscription found in the northwest corner of the entrance.122 The monastery consists of a number of cells with a wide verandah in front that looks like an open quadrangular court.

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Monastery No. 1 originally seems like a building of two or probably more stories as is apparent from the existence of stairs in the southeast corner. The main shrine of the lower monastery is situated in the middle of the east side and originally contained a colossal figure of a seated Buddha. There is a platform with a number of stone column bases in front of the shrine on the other side of the later high wall, which might have been used by the teacher to address students seated in the courtyard. The central court was cleared by the later builders to obtain access to the old well in the northwest corner, and a wider staircase was built against the later high wall mentioned above to lead down to the well. An interesting discovery within the monastery is a two-room set having a barrel-vault roof brick structure with corbelled entrance to the south side.123 The cells of the upper monastery, which vary slightly in size but are an average of about 10 feet square, are built with recesses to contain beds for the monks, a feature which is absent in the earlier monasteries. Indications of the drains constructed one upon the other in different periods may be seen at the northeast corner of the monastery. The broad flight of stairs outside the monastery at its western front led to the highest level of the monastery and therefore belongs to the latest period. Interestingly, it seems Sastri found bathrooms or latrines while exploring the outer side of the southern wall of the main monastery.124 From the excavation, it is clear beyond doubt that each monastery was a self-contained unit with all essential requirements of monastic and student life as was understood in those days.125 We come across three hundred cells in these buildings, which contained monks and students for their living, meditation, and rest. Each monastery contained about 120 to 150 inmates and had its own source of water supply, bathing ghāta, provision for ovens for cooking food, and a shrine for worship; evedry day within the temple they arranged one hundred pupils for preaching.126 The provisions for food rations possibly came from outside villages, which were endowed for the purpose. But the discovery of very large earthen jars, which could contain several mounds of corn, indicates that sometimes, probably during the rainy season, storage was made.127 The area of a cell generally between 9’x9’ to 10’x10’ seems a little small but looks appropriate for a person. The cells of a monastery were fitted with some space in the wall to keep personal belongings and a lantern.128 The floors were of earth, not of wood, and were restored from time to time by fresh clay or dry cow dung being laid down and then covered with a whitewash, in which sometimes black or red color was mixed. From the parallel passages in Mahāvagga129 and Cullavagga,130 it would seem that the red coloring was used rather for walls and the black one for floors. It appears, however, that to remove the dampness, gravel was spread over the floor.131 Later we have evidence at Nālandā of solid floors made of burned bricks and wooden floors on a stone or brick base.



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The cells were meant only for meditation and so even the door, which usually opened onto the inner verandah, had to shut for having a complete concentration of mind.132 The doors opened in one direction as the resident of each cell could see others all the time. The doors were furnished with door-posts and lintel, with hollows like a mortar for the door to revolve in, with projections to revolve in those hollows, with rings on the door for the bolt to work along in, with a block of wood fixed into the edge of the door-post and containing a cavity for the bolt to go into (called the monkey’s head), with a pin to secure a bolt with a connecting bolt, with a key-hole, with a hole for a string with which the door may be closed, and with a string for that purpose.133 The windows were of three kinds according to which they were made: with railings, lattices, or slip of wood. The shutters were adjustable and could be closed or opened whenever required. The cells, which were meant for meditation, were without windows. Other chambers with paved, broad, and long stone beds meant for the residential purpose were furnished with some windows. The next group of monuments at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra was the row of stūpas situated at the west that were facing the row of monasteries, some of which were large and others small. The temples are comparatively higher134and with more decorated creation than monasteries. The large stūpas at Nālandā with their row of niches filled with stucco and terra-cotta statues and their maṇḍala forms and multiple gates and terraces resembling the Borobudur in Jāvā135 directly inspired centuries of building throughout Burma and Southeast Asia. Generally, these structures are ornamented with images of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas in different poses. Also, the temple sites contain miniature votive stūpas, brick slabs inscribed with sacred texts or tablets containing the Buddhist creed. These temples also show many levels of construction (e.g., Temple No. 12 has three, and Temples 13, 14, and 2 have two successive phases of reconstruction). The general layout of both the earlier and the later levels of these temples is almost square, having four corner towers with a sanctum sanctorum in the middle in different dimensions with the exception of Temple No. 2, situated to the northeast of Monastery No. 7. Temple No. 2 has a squarish plinth built of stone with a flight of steps on its east. On this plinth were found the traces of a large temple having a big sanctum and a small porch with a small recess on both its sides. Especially interesting at Temple No. 2 is the dado of 211sculpted panels over the molded plinth.136 Main Stūpa 3137 exposed at the south end of the stūpa row is the largest and most imposing structure both in point of antiquities and sanctity at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which needs special mention. The visitors are not allowed to go up to the top due to risk of falling.138 Cunningham identified this stūpa with that mentioned by Xuanzang as marking the place where the Buddha dwelt for three months and preached.139 It is now a

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huge structure standing in the middle of a court surrounded by a number of small votive stūpas, many of which were built one over the other on the same spot, even twice or thrice. The temple was originally a small structure140 enlarged by later stūpas built over and around the square plan of the original stūpa with a square framework of encasing walls around probably no less than seven times.141 As the main temple increased in size with every addition, the level of original court gradually rose. The first three of these stūpas of 12 feet square were found buried deep under the land. The remaining four levels, which can be examined on the spot, were extensive structures approached by broad flights of stairs on the north side. The best preserved, the fourth, of these stūpas is decorated with rows of niches containing beautiful stucco figures of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas caught in different mudrās, which are a manifestation of Gupta art.142 The excavation shows that the temple building once had a lofty spire probably seen from distance. At the northeast corner of the Main Stūpa is a high platform on which are situated several votive stūpas and in one corner a square chapel containing a large standing image of Avalokiteśvara. Traces of an oblong shrine chamber on the top, facing north with colonnade porch in front of the only remains of the building, can be seen and can be approached by the staircase of the sixth period. Besides big temples or caityas in the campus, we have come across many small votive stūpas, perhaps for the worship by the residents. The caitya was already part of the monastic complex, and the stūpas were not merely approved and accepted by the monastic community but adopted by it and were integrated into coenobitic life as one of the most important elements.143 The maximum number of votive stūpas has been reported around Temples 3 and 12 and the biggest do not exceed 20 feet high. The main temples are surrounded by small votive stūpas, which shows that many who had resided and studied at Śrī Nālandā died here over time and got buried around the temple in the form of memorial stūpas. Most stūpas had square plinths and a dome above with arched niches containing images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.144 Stone stūpas were generally common at Nālandā in the Pāla dynasty and the brick stūpas dated between the fifth and the mid-eighth centuries C.E. could be covered in stucco and probably painted or gilded.145 Here, we can end our explanation of the exposed architecture of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra during the archaeology of the site for a time being. It is not the complete story and needs more analytical and connected account. There is a lot more to be said in the future. There are still many unanswered questions and mysteries to be solved. Though many of the important mounds have been exposed, nevertheless there are still many more mounds in the vicinity of the main site, which is yet to be excavated. The preliminary reports of these minor excavations have been published



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in different volumes of the Annual Reports of the Central Archaeology Department, but no connected account of the entire operation has been published yet, except the inscriptional materials, which were compiled, edited, and published by Hirananda Shastri in 1942. It appears that a review work of the archaeology of Nālandā in the pipeline from Stewart and coming out in 2017 will probably present a connected account. From the excavation conducted by General Cunningham in the latter part of the last century, we know that there is still existing immediately to the south of the ruined monastery a small tank called Kargidya Pokhar, which exactly answers to the position of the Nālandā tank.146 It is hard to comment but it seems like we are still in the same position as we were in 1938 in terms of archaeological knowledge of Nālandā Mahāvihāra and more or less no substantial new ideas have been added so far. It is easily observable that the educational aspect of Nālandā Mahāvihāra was missing in the archaeology since the exploration of the site started. The archaeologists always looked for a Buddhist monastery and accordingly tried to illuminate the religious aspect especially through temples and images. Early surveyors supplied information about the names, origin, and derivations of the place, the date of foundation either historical or traditional or both, its former extent shown by gates and lines of bricks, and a description of principal buildings. Here, we tried to present a brief account of archaeology and architecture of Śrī Nālandā, which indicate the educational aspect of the monastery. The monasteries of Nālandā were typical monasteries as each composed of a conglomerate of huge vihāras within a large monastery much like an educational institution. Still, there is a need of more detailed interpretation of monasteries and temples from an educational perspective. The design and construction of lecture halls, pulpits, rooms, and labs with kitchen and bathrooms need a view from the architectural expert to address their functions, suitability, and comfortability. NOTES 1.  Although Chinese travelers Faxian and Xuanzang were not aware of these two disciplines, without them it would be hard to imagine where these would be today. Gregory Schopen, Figments and Fragments of Mahayana Buddhism in India: More Collected Papers (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 4. 2.  D. K. Chakrabarti, A History of Indian Archaeology: From the Beginning to 1947 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1988), 48–119. 3.  H. G. Rawlinson, Indian Historical Studies (New Delhi and Madras: Asian Education Service, 2001), 59. 4.  These meticulous travel records are important historical resources for understanding the nature of Buddhist doctrines, rituals, and monastic institutions

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in South, Central, and Southeast Asia; Tansen Sen, “Travel Records of Chinese Pilgrims Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing,” Education about Asia 11 (2006): 24–33.  5. Rawlinson, Indian Historical Studies, 65.  6. S. Beal, trans., Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-yun Buddhist Pilgrimage from China to India (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.) 1st ed (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co. Ltd., 1869). , 110.   7.  Recently, the Archaeological Survey of India in a survey of Nālandā and its vicinity under G. K. Lama predicted that the village Nanan, situated 7km southeast from the ruins, may be identified with ancient Nā-lo according to noticed fragments of sculptures and few medieval remains; Rakesh Tewari and D. N. Dimri, eds. Indian Archaeology 2013–14- A Review (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 2016), 20.   8.  Mary L. Stewart, Nālandā Mahāvihāra: A Study of an Indian Pāla Period Buddhist Site and British Historical Archaeology, 1861–1938 (Oxford: Bar International Series 529, 1989), 69.  9. Beal, Life, 110; Beal, Si-Yu-Ki, vol. 2, 167–70. 10. Beal, Si-Yu-Ki, vol. 2, 170. 11. Beal, Si-Yu-Ki, vol. 2, 74. 12. Beal, Life, 109. 13.  They included the following: Mahāyāna sūtras (224), Mahāyāna śāstras (192), Hetuvidyā śāstras (36), Śabdavidyā śāstras (13), and Tripiṭaka texts of the six Hīnayāna schools-Sthavira (22), Kāśyapiya (17), of Dhamma-guptaka (42) and Sarvāstivādin (67): D. Devahuti, ed., The Unknown Hsuan-tsang (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1. 14.  J. Takakusu, J., trans., A Record of Buddhist Religion as Practiced in India and the Malay Archipelago (A. D. 671–695) by I-Tsing. Reprint. (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1966), 108. 15. Takakusu, I-Tsiang, 154. 16.  ÉoudardChavannes, trans., Mémoire Composé a l’epogée de la Grande Dynastie T’ang sur les Religieux Eminents par I-Tsiang (Kau-fa-kuo-sang-chuan) (Paris: E. Leroux, 1894), 86, quoted in Stewart, Nālandā Mahāvihāra, 219. 17. Éoudard, Mémoire Composé, 94–96, quoted in Stewart, Nālandā Mahāvihāra, Appendix 9.3, 234. 18.  “To the northeast of Rājagṛha, he climbed a great mountain. Following a sinuous track, he came to the stūpa of Sāriputta. From there he crossed a ravine and climbed onto the summit of Great Mountain where there are a great stūpa and temple. They say that the seven past Buddhas taught the Dharma. To the north of this mountain, there is a plain where the stūpa to the birth of ā is found. Half of the northern mountain is called Vulture Peak. It is said that here is the spot where the Buddha expounded the Saddharmapuṇḍarika. The town of Rājagṛha is found at the foot of the mountain.” E. Huber, “L’Itineraire du Pèlerin Ki Ye Dans l’Inde,” Bulletin de I’Ecole Francaise d’Extrème-Orient 2 (1902): 256–59, quoted in Stewart, Nālandā Mahāvihāra, Appendix 9.4, 224. 19.  Kazuo Enoki, “Tsung-lê’s Mission to the Western Regions in 1378–1382,” Oriens Extremus 19 (1972): 47–53. 20. There were then about seventy listeners to the doctrine. After he lived Bhumiśrībhadra, Upāyaśrībhadra, Karunāśrībhadra, Munīndraśrībhadra, and



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others also carefully nourished the Law of the Sage; Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 320. 21.  For detail see Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 34. 22.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 101. 23.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 138–41. 24.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 141–42. 25.  He was a surgeon by profession and given a commission by the East India Company in 1794. He started his term in the Bengal presidency in 1807 and finished his report in 1815; Cunningham, Four Reports, vol. 1, iv. 26.  V. H. Jackson, “Journal of Francis Buchanan (Patna and Gayā Districts): Edited with Notes and Introduction,” Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society 8 (1922): 145–366. 27.  A. M. Broadley, “The Buddhistic Remains of Bihār,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 41 (1872): 93. 28.  Captain M. Kittoe, “Places in the Province of Behar, supposed to be those described by Chy-Fa-Hian, the Chinese Buddhist Priest, who made a pilgrimage to India, at the close of the fourth century A.D.,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 16 (1847): 953–70. 29.  Captain M. Kittoe, “Sanskrit Inscription from Behar with a translation by Dr. Ballantyne,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 17 (1848): 492–501. 30.  Lord Canning approved the scheme of Cunningham for identifying India’s ancient monuments and authorized the establishment of an Archaeological Survey of India and the appointment of Cunningham its director in 1861, doing India a service. Cunningham wanted a systematic study of Buddhism not for its own sake but to aid in an understanding of Indian religion so that Christianity might be introduced onto the continent more easily. It seems it was a historical step and service for digging out Indian history whatever the background, as since then the Archaeological Survey of India more or less carried forward the legacy in taking care of the sites the British unearthed. 31.  Historical archaeology (i.e., archaeology carried out at sites for which there is a written history) as opposed to scientific and prehistoric. 32.  Cunningham reference for the Gopāla inscription on the base of a fourarmed female image is A. Cunningham, Four Reports Made During the Years 1862–63–64–65, Archeological Survey of India Reports. 2 vols. (Delhi: Indological, 1972), xiii. The second inscription appeared in his list as No. 10 on the jamb of the entrance door of Bālāditya’s temple discovered by Capt. Marshall. 33.  Also, the village of Bargāon is seven miles north of Rajgir, which is same of Faxian’s Nā-lo; Cunningham, Four Reports, 28. 34.  Cunningham, Four Reports, 33. 35.  Cunningham, Four Reports, 33. 36.  An observant investigator, A. M. Broadley was the assistant magistrate and collector in charge of the subdivision of Bihar, Patna district, who also created a museum in Bihar to keep the antiquities found at the sites he visited. 37.  Broadley, “Buddhistic Remains,” 222–26. 38.  Broadley, “Buddhistic Remains,” 305. 39.  The first inscription found at the base of a sculpture states that king Gopāla and his wife, the worshipful Vāgīśvarī of the country of Suvallavi, erected this.

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The second inscription of the reign of Mahipāla taken from the fifth slab of the pillar from the doorway of the Tope No. 4 states that it was the gift of Bālāditya, the son of Gurudatta and grandson of Haridatta, a follower of the noble Mahāyāna school; Broadley, “Buddhistic Remains,” 303. 40.  J. Marshall, ed., Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report 1902–03 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1904), 03–12. 41. Stewart, Nālandā Mahāvihāra, 128. 42.  Dr. David Brainard Spooner was an American archaeologist with knowledge of Sanskrit, Chinese, and Japanese languages. After joining the ASI in 1906, he discovered the stūpa of Kaniṣka with the relics mentioned in Xuanzang and excavated the Mauryan palace at Pāṭaliputra. 43. D. B. Spooner, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1915–16 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1918), 34–35. 44. Spooner, Nālandā, , 41–42 45. Patil, Remains of Bihar, 327. 46. Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 114–15. 47.  Hirananda Sastri, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1919–20 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1922), 38. 48. Sastri, Nālandā, 36. 49.  Epigraphia Indica, vol. 25, 310–27; Sastri dated it to the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Devapāladeva, or 890, and mentioned in his edit and translation: “It is a grant of villages by Devāpaladeva for the upkeep of the monastery at Nālandā and the comforts of the monks coming from the four quarters, for medical aid and for the writing of religious books and similar other purposes on the request of Bālaputradeva, the king of Suvarṇadvīpa.” 50. Sastri, Nālandā, 39; Sastri also found Brāhmaṇical images at Stūpa No. 3 and believed that either Brāhmaṇical sects also occupied the site or perhaps the Buddhists themselves put these to show that the Brāhmaṇical gods were only subservient to the Buddhas or Bodhisattvas. Later Page suggested on the acquisition of Brāhmaṇical images from all over Nālandā as the evidence of the gradual encroachment of Paurāṇic Hinduism on the preserves of Buddhism; J. A. Page, Nālandā (Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report: 1921–22), 107. But the difficulty is that there is no way of knowing when these figures appeared at Nālandā. 51. Sastri, Nālandā, 38; Monastery No. 1A consisted of five Tārā, five Buddha, one Jambhala, seven Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, and one possible form of Vajradhara. Sastri also found an image of Koteśrī or Sapta-Koti-Buddha-Matri Chunti and Vajrasattva at Stūpa No. 3. 52.  Monastery No. 1 has yielded not only a large number of bronzes and copper images but also the earliest remains so far discovered at Śrī Nālandā. 53.  Sastri’s translation appeared in Nālandā Stone Inscription of the Reign of Yaśovarmadeva, Epigraphia Indica, Vol. 20, 1929–30, 37–46. It also says, “He also gave away to the monks a common dwelling place to which he expected to retire. Nālandā had numerous Caityas, shrines and vihāras.” 54.  J. A. Page, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1922–23 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1924), 104. 55.  J. A. Page, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1924–25. (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1927), 85.



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56. Page, Nālandā, 1922–23, 105. 57.  Page, Nālandā, 1924–25, 25. 58.  Page, Nālandā, 1923–24, 73. 59.  Page, Nālandā, 1924–25, 86. 60.  Page, Nālandā, 1926–27, 27–28. 61.  J. A. Page, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1925–26. (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1928), 102. 62.  Page, Nālandā, 1925–26, 102. 63.  Page, Nālandā, 1925–26, 103. 64.  Page, Nālandā, 1926–27, 128. 65.  Page, Nālandā, 1927–28, 99. 66.  Page, Nālandā, 1926–27, 134. 67.  Page, Nālandā, 1927–28, 29. 68.  M. H. Kuraishi, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1928–29 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1933), 34. 69.  M. H. Kuraishi, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1929–30 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1933), 39. 70.  Kuraishi, Nālandā, 1929–30, 137. 71.  M. H. Kuraishi, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1930–34 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1936), 132–34. 72.  G. C. Chandra, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1930–34 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1936), 30. 73.  Chandra, Nālandā, 1930–34, 137–40. 74.  G. C. Chandra, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1934–35 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1937), 38–39. 75.  Chandra, Nālandā, 1930–34, 140. 76.  G. C. Chandra, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1935–36 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1938), 52. 77.  N. Nazim, Nālandā, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1936–37 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1940), 24. 78.  The discovery in the furnace of metal slugs, fragmentary crucibles, clay mounds, ribs or ridges of furnace made up of clay with the admixture of husk, twigs, and sand, and crucible lids stuck with slag of molten metals shows that the monks and students of Nālandā were familiar with the process of casting metal for their images; Nazim, Nālandā, 1936–37, 44. 79.  Nazim, Nālandā, 1936–37, 44. 80.  This mural painting still retains its linear composition and traces of colors white lime, red ochre, and black, revealing the figure of Avalokiteśvara, Jambhala, and decorative motifs consisting of floral and allied designs; G. C. Chauley, Art and Architecture of Nālandā (New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 2002), 20–21. 81.  Nath concludes that the stylistic trend and the pattern of Nālandā murals of the late Pāla school of painting are more or less similar to the paintings at Ajantā and Bāgh but the painters of Nālandā do not seem to be acquainted with the anatomy, artistic pattern, floral and geometrical designs, the ornamentation, and the use of different types of pigments as noticed at Ajānta and Bāgh; B. Nath, Nalanda Murals (New Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1983), 41–55. 82.  Nath, Nalanda Murals, xxii.

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83.  Rakesh Tewari, D. N. Dimri, and Jeeban Kumar Patnaik, eds., Indian Archaeology 2006–07- A Review (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 2016), 6–9. 84.  Epigraphia Indica, vol. 39, 117–18. 85.  The floral decoration at the Nālandā murals is natural and the scrolls are derived from foliar-motifs; Nath, Nalanda Murals, 55. 86.  N. Ray, “Archaeology in India Today,” Ancient India 18–19 (1962–63): 224. 87. Sastri wrote, “Which part of the area under exploration contains the remains of six monasteries or saṁghārāmas mentioned by Xuanzang has not yet been determined”; Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 21. 88.  Tewari, Dimri, and Patnaik, Indian Archaeology 2006–07, 6–9 89.  The seal has a three-line inscription “Śrī Sakkraditya Chaturddisaryya nama ya” and on its left side a running deer; Rakesh Tewari, Sathyabhama Badhreenath, and D. N. Dimri, eds., Indian Archaeology 2007–08- A Review (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 2016), 23–26. These discoveries probably show its construction during the Gupta age, and Buddhist inclination seems directly associated with Nālandā Mahāvihāra as the word chaturddisāryya and deer have been also found there also on many seals. 90. Tewari, Badreenath, and Dimri, Indian Archaeology 2007–08, 26–32. The brick remains of the Pala period indicate towards a Nālandā-like temple at Daman-khada, and the discovery of three terra-cotta sealings with Buddhist creed bearing the inscription ‟ye dharma hetu” and small stone sculpture of the Buddha in bhūmisparsa and dharmachakrapravartan pose clearly indicate the extension of Nālandā Mahāvihāra up to this village. 91.  Rakesh Tewari, D. N. Dimri, and Jeeban Kumar Patnaik, eds., Indian Archaeology 2012–13- A Review (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 2015), 9–17. 92.  Tewari and Dimri, Indian Archaeology 2013–14, 02–24. 93. For details see Rakesh Tewari and D. N. Dimri, eds., Indian Archaeology 2008–09- A Review (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 2015), 287; Tewari Rakesh, Millan Kumar Chauley, and D. N. Dimri, eds. Indian Archaeology 2009–10 A Review (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 2016), 381; Rakesh Tewari, D. N. Dimri, and Indu Prakash, eds., Indian Archaeology 2010–11- A Review (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 2016), 293–94; Tewari Rakesh, D. N. Dimri, and Sangeeta Chakraborty, eds., Indian Archaeology 2011–12- A Review (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 2016), 260; Tewari, Dimri, and Patnaik, Indian Archaeology 2012–13, 301–33, and Tewari and Dimri, Indian Archaeology 2013–14, 341–42. 94. Samaddar, Magadha, 121. 95.  There are eleven monasteries on the site of Nālandā, but during excavation, Monastery No. 1emerged with its two parts, named as Monastery 1A and 1B. See Ghosh, Nālandā, 16–24. 96. “Ye dharmā hetuprabhavā hetuṃ teṣāṃ tathagato hy avadat teṣāṃ ca yo nirodha evaṃ vādi mahāśramaṇah” means “Of those things which spring from a cause, has been told by Tathāgatha; and their suppression likewise, the great monk has revealed.” See H. N. Sastri, Archaeology and Ancient Indian History, No. 31. (Ahmedabad: Gujarat Vernacular Research Series, 1944), 67.   97.  See the graph of excavated site of Nālandā in Plate II.1.



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 98.  The religious affiliation of Temple 2 needs to be pinned down. We cannot blindly say it was a Hindu temple. Obviously, it was part of Nālandā Mahāvihāra and lies within the campus, which is still growing.  99.  The vihāras typically have a quadrangular plan like Gandhara monasteries; Huu Phuuoc Le, Buddhist Architecture (USA: Grafikol, 2010), 58–62. 100.  Cullavagga, VI.5. 101.  Page, Nālandā, 1923–24, 70. 102.  Kuraishi, Short Guide, 1. 103.  Page, Nālandā, 1921–22, p. 40. 104.  Mookerji, “University of Nalanda,” 146–47. 105.  Le, Buddhist Architecture, 62. 106.  Heinrich Zimmer, The Art of Indian Asia: Its Mythology and Transformation, vol. 1 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1960), 246. 107.  James Fergusson, Illustrations of the Rock-Cut Temples in India (London: John Weale, 1845), xv–xvi. 108.  Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 21. 109.  Two seals from Nālandā also refer to two distinct groups of gandhakuṭivārikas (i.e., the monks in charge of the perfume chamber of Śrī Baladitya and Dharmapāladeva at Śrī Nālandā). 110.  The gandhakuṭi owned its own property and the Buddha had a claim to certain parts of it. Usually he owned one share in a threefold division of total property among the Dharma and the Saṁgha, which might be used for repair of the chamber and for installation of an image; Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy and Texts of Monastic Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), 258–78. 111.  Cullavagga, VI.2 and 3. 112.  Ghosh, Nālandā, 26 113.  Chauley, Art and Architecture, 16. 114.  Page, Nālandā, 1926–27, 27–28. 115.  Cullavagga, VI.3.10. 116.  Cullavagga, VI.2. 117.  Barua, Vihāras in Ancient India, 4. 118.  Barua, Vihāras in Ancient India, 18. 119.  Chauley supposed Monastery No. 1 as the earliest monastery constructed at Nālandā might have served as the most important official building and the archives of the entire monastic complex with the largest number of findings; Chauley, Art and Architecture, 18–19. 120.  They are indicated by as many concrete pavements found at different levels one beneath the other and by the superimposed walls. 121.  Kuraishi, Short Guide, 3. 122.  Ghosh, Nālandā, 18. 123.  These are similar to the rock-cut caves at Barābar or at Suvarṅabhandāra at Rājagṛha that have similar chambers with vaulted roofs; Chauley, Art and Architecture, 18. 124.  He found several outer cells with numerous earthen pots and the debris was very stinky; Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 23.

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125.  Beal, Life, 170. 126.  Mookerji, “The University of Nalanda,” 149–55. 127. Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 97. 128. Sastri opines that these small-corbelled niches in the thickness of their walls meant to enshrine an image, the chief, or perhaps, the only companion of a devotee at the time of meditation; Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic Material, 21. 129. I.25.5. 130. VIII.3.1. 131. Das, Economic History of Ancient India, 233. 132. Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 21. 133.  Cullavagga, VI.3.8; 2.1 and 17.1. 134. This temple building seems once to have had a very lofty spire, visible from afar. It is possible to establish some similarity with the spire of the Mahābodhi Temple at Bodh Gayā; Roy C. Craven, Indian Art: A Concise History (London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., reprinted 2014), 170. 135.  Robert E. Fisher, Buddhist Art and Architecture (London: Thames & Hudson, reprinted 2006), 62. 136.  It reminds one of the terra-cotta plaques arranged in a row on the different terraces of the temple at Paharpur and Vikramaśīlā Mahāvihāra; Brajmohan Kumar, Archaeology of Pataliputra and Nalanda (Delhi: Ramanand Vidhya Bhawan, 1987), 180. 137.  Chauley guesses with uncertainty that this stūpa might be the same caitya, which was constructed by Emperor Aśoka on the remains of Sāriputta; Chauley, Art and Architecture, 19. 138.  On the north side of the structure, a flight of stairs ascends to the altar of the shrine at the top, which probably once housed a statue of the Buddha; Nishant Tiwary, Celebrating Bihar: The Heritage of Nalanda (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014), 11. 139. Kuraishi, Short Guide, 3. 140.  This innermost little stūpa (i.e., the first and the most ancient stūpa) may be said to belong to the beginning of the Gupta period, confirmed by yielded bricks and stucco figures; Kumar, Archaeology of Pataliputra, 179. 141.  Kuraishi, Short Guide, 3, and Ghosh, Nālandā, 15–16. 142. Tiwary, Celebrating Bihar, 11. 143.  D. Mitra, Buddhist Monuments (Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, 1971), 20–52, and G. Nagao, “The Architectural Tradition in Buddhist Monasticism,” in Studies in History of Buddhism: Papers Presented at the International Conference on the History of Buddhism at the University of Wisconsin, ed. A. K. Narain (Delhi: B. R. Pub., 1980), 194–95. 144. Mishra, Nālandā, vol. 3, 252–60. 145.  Nālandā votive stūpas with their square plan, drums, and image niches on the domes also show definite Gandhāra influence; Le, Buddhist Architecture, 65–66. 146. Cunningham, Four Reports, 30.

T hree Pre-Nālandā/Brāhmaṇical Education: Gurukulas The last chapter showed us the excavated site of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra and its monuments. It reflected both archaeological and historical discovery of Nālandā Mahāvihāra as a full-fledged Buddhist monastery with religious attachments engaged in teaching and learning activities. The question arises: when Śrī Nālandā was emerging as an educational center in a Buddhist religious complex, was any another form of learning activities witnessed by ancient India during that time? If yes, then did Nālandā recognize that system and either directly or indirectly adopt any of its particular features? We need to have a general sketch of preNālandā education to answer these questions. Before the rise of Nālandā or the birth of the Buddha and even during the heyday and declining phase of Nālandā, a Brāhmaṇical form of unorganized teaching and learning was taking place in gurukulas, or the home of ṛṣi. This chapter focuses on particular traits of the previous system of Brāhmaṇical education in ancient India (i.e., gurukulas discussing its method of instruction, sessions, curriculum, accessibility, teachers, brahmacārins life, objectives, and output). It represents an intellectual pursuit for a better understanding of the Nālandā system of education. The discussion takes place in a way to mainly highlight the particular aspects of āśramas’ learning, which later directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, and partially or wholly assimilated into the monastic instruction system. We can start with Takṣaśīlā, because it was more or less the pinnacle of the gurukula system and functioned as a primary Brāhmaṇical learning institution in South Asia, and somewhere the organizational setup of Takṣaśīlā inspired and impacted the monastery of Nālandā in its origin, growth, and function as an educational institution. The economic factors helped Takṣaśīlā to develop as a center of higher and specialized learning and touched the height of the gurukula education system, the remains of which have been traced in Rawalpindi district of Punjab in Pakistan. Takṣaśīlā remained the Brāhmaṇical intellectual capital of South Asia for a long time.1 We learn from the Jātakas that there was a 101

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steady movement of scholars and students from different and distant parts of Benares, Rājagṛha, Mithilā, Ujjain, Kośala, Magadha, Sīvī, and Kuru towards Takṣaśīlā to complete the education they had in the Vedic schools of their native places.2 Thus the various centers of learning in ancient India became affiliated, as it were, to the educational center or the college of Takṣaśīlā, which exercised a kind of intellectual suzerainty over the vast world of letters in ancient India.3 Students entered Takṣaśīlā at the age of sixteen and resided with their teacher under a conventional roof where they provided boarding, lodging, and other necessaries. But residence with the teacher was not a necessary condition of studentship. Day scholars such as householders and married students also were admitted to instruction. Curriculum included the four Vedas, grammar, philosophy, and the so-called eighteen arts, which included skills such as archery, astronomy, astrology, accountancy, hunting, magic charms, and elephant lore; also taught were the individual schools of law, medicine, and military science on account of the excellence of the learned teachers there, who were all recognized as authorities on their respective subjects.4 The list of subjects taught at Takṣaśīlā underwent many additions over the years, with even Greek being taught there after the Alexandrian conquests. A staff of assistant masters (piṭṭhiācāriya) also used to help an individual teacher. It was only the most advanced or senior pupils appointed as assistant teachers. Sometimes the students are referred to as selecting the study of Vedas alone or the arts alone. We may conveniently distinguish teaching in the Vedas as literary education and teaching in the arts as scientific and technical education. There was freedom to choose courses for study because the classes admitted did not always confine themselves to their traditional subject of study. There is a reference to a Brāhmaṇa boy choosing science for his study, and another is spoken of as having gone in for liberal arts and ultimately specialized in archery.5 It seems that law was a specialized subject at Takṣaśīlā and its scholars were masters in discussions on matters of learning.6 We learn from Pāli texts that Brāhmaṇa youth, khaṭṭiya princes, and sons of seṭṭhi from Rājagṛha, Kāsī, Kośala, and other places were of course in large numbers in comparison to children of merchants, sailors, and fisherman at Takṣaśīlā.7 Side by side with these colleges of a cosmopolitan composition, we find references to colleges of distinct communities only. Sometimes teachers would have only Brāhmaṇa and Kṣatriya pupils. It looks like Takṣaśīlā was more a center of higher education and specialized training for the highest classes as Mookerji mentions that almost all princes who were at that time in India to the number of 101 were enrolled there.8 We also read of a teacher at Takṣaśīlā whose school had on its roll only princes as pupils. Caṇḍālas and women were not admitted as students.9 Their teachers usually admitted the students to instruction on payment



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in advance of their entire tuition fees. A fixed sum seems to have been specified for the purpose at Takṣaśīlā, amounting to a thousand gold coins. There was again another class of students who paid the teacher’s fee from the scholarship awarded to them by the king. Such students sent as companions of the princes of their respective kingdoms were deputed to Takṣaśīlā for education. We read of the sons of the royal chaplains of the courts of Benares and Rājagṛha accompanying their respective princes to Takṣaśīlā for their studies.10 Takṣaśīlā is perhaps best known because of its association with Cāṇakya, also known as Kauṭilya, the strategist who guided Candragupta Maurya and assisted in the founding of the Mauryan Empire. The Arthaśāstra of Cāṇakya is said to have been composed at Takṣaśīlā itself.11 The Āyurvedic healer Caraka also studied at Takṣaśīlā, and he also started teaching at Takṣaśīlā in the later period.12 The ancient grammarian Pāṇini, who codified the rules that would define classical Sanskrit, had also been part of the community at Takṣaśīlā. Jīvaka, the famous physician of Bimbisāra who cured the Buddha, learned the science of medicine at Takṣaśīlā and on his return was appointed court physician at Magadha.13 Another important product of Takṣaśīlā was the enlightened ruler of Kośala, Prasenajit, intimately associated with the events of the time of Buddha.14 Early India had a unique position in South Asia in particular for its highly institutionalized education system and also sometimes for the ancient ways of unorganized learning. The secular and religious knowledge diffused from Indian learning centers attempted to show the right path. Some of the features of these antique teaching centers, like the friendly relations between student and teacher, the natural environment for study, suitability to the society and life, and guidance to be perfect human beings, are still a dream for recent schooling. The contemporary education reflected a connection with the needs of society and religion. Related to this, we can see modifications and changes in Asian education according to the development and stability of society, economy, polity, and religion. The early education was also an integral part of the Āryan faith, and there had been an abundance of religious literature on the subject since the days of the Ṛgveda, which is one of the oldest textbooks of worship. The oldest religious scripture had indicated the existence of the oldest education system in South Asia.15 A series of religious scriptures after the composition of the Ṛgveda (Knowledge of Thanksgiving) mention positively the educational activities in ancient India, pointing out the model of education and the relationship between teacher and disciple focused on the recitation of Vedic texts. From the advent of Āryan till the arrival of Muslims, Indians had a long tradition of indigenous learning in the different form of institutions. The various findings at the Harappan sites16 are impressive and tend to strengthen the belief that this civilization created and has sus-

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tained an advanced state of professional knowledge.17 But the genesis of this knowledge is yet to be traced as the decipherment of their script of pictorial writing is awaited. A new era began in South Asian education with the arrival of Āryan in Indian subcontinent, which maintained its continuity until the medieval age. Āryans in general and Brahmins in particular started the first form of instruction under the guidance of an individual teacher in his home, and its peak point is reflected in monastic educational complexes like Nālandā. The student was expected to protect the teacher and his material and intellectual property as the teacher was supposed to protect him. The Ṛgvedic Age evidenced the beginning of the Indian education system in its guru-śiṣya paramparā or gurukula tradition, which later developed as Vedic schools and colleges. The common expression ‟gurukula” for the teacher’s house is found among the older texts in the Baudhāyana tradition. There are numerous references to unbroken lines of succession of teacher and students engaged in the attainment of knowledge in the Brāhmaṇas and the Upaniṣads, which goes up to many generations. This continuous chain of faculty and students in the particular hermitage perhaps made this tradition of learning worthwhile and lasting. The new heterodox sects like Buddhism in the Gupta Age contributed a lot to the development of massive education complexes in the form of mahāvihāras, where almost all the facilities for studying were available. It also symbolizes the modest beginning of organized or institutional education, which is visible in the establishments like Nālandā, Vikramaśīlā, Odantapurī, and Valabhī Mahāvihāra. Among these institutions, Nālandā Mahāvihāra was the earliest and the coordinator of all the mahāvihāras’ educational system. We will discuss this detail in the subsequent chapter. We can here presume that the educational development in ancient South Asia was broadly represented by two categories of centers such as gurukula and mahāvihāra traditions. The gurukula education symbolizes guru-śiṣya paramparā related to Vedic school teaching and was an unorganized system. It was one to one (i.e., one teacher teaching one student or sometimes a group of students), but in both cases, there is no indication of organized structure regarding campus and regulations within the hermitage. On the other hand, the mahāvihāra education signifies the beginning of institutional/organized knowledge within large complexes in a modest way. The growth of Nālandā Mahāvihāra was more or less a divider line and also the link between the gurukula and the mahāvihāra learning apparatus. The first and the largest Nālandā Mahāvihāra was the beginning of the institutional study, which reflected the peak point of both gurukula and mahāvihāra traditions with assimilation and improvement of their features. In this way, we can also call the gurukula and the mahāvihāra traditions, respectively, the pre-Nālandā and the Nālandā education system, the dominant characteristics of the age. Gurukulas mainly served



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the literacy needs of the society before the rise of Nālandā. When Buddhist monasteries institutionalized the learning process up to an extent and opened its doors for all, probably it became the most popular center to get education in comparison to gurukulas. According to religion, the Brāhmaṇical gurukulas and Buddhist mahāvihāras captured most of the literacy movement with little contributions by Jain monasteries. Overall, the story of gurukulas and mahāvihāras can serve the maximum part of the canvas of pre-modern South Asian education and can be broadly termed as the pre-Nālandā and Nālandā systems of learning. It is also important that both developments were going on simultaneously in the contemporary society. The Vedic schools and the Buddhist mahāvihāras existed and functioned side-by-side with their rules, regulations, and patronages, and comparatively, the āśramas were at a disadvantage in respect to donations.18 And it was the Vedic schools that provided a base for the mahāvihāra education or monastic learning through the supply of students, learned teachers, and courses for study. The pre-modern South Asian learning center gurukulas pervaded the rational world and the popular imagination as the only survived tradition of learning at least until the projection of Nālandā as an international university by the nationalist scholars. The gurukula education system is what we see in mainstream South Asian historical writing, which represents the guru-śiṣya paramparā or ācārya-kula-s.19 Almost every South Asian historian has said something about this old tradition while dealing with early Indian culture. It is hard to trace the beginning of this tradition of learning, but we can trace it from the Vedic Age, which got incorporated and validated in the regulation of social life in the later Vedic Age. The Brāhmaṇical literature divides the entire life of a Hindu into four stages: brahmacāri, gṛhastha, vānaprastha, and saṃnyāsa.20 The Vedic ascetics in their different stages of life ran the gurukulas, as they served as an abode for them. Bronkhorst connects vānaprastha and saṃnyāsa to the Vedic sacrificial tradition, where the ascetic lived the life of a sacrificer and renouncer. These āśramas of ascetic life look more connected with gurukula tradition, where ascetics might have taught students with sacrifice and fire worship. The life of all āśramas undoubtedly pervades Vedic recitation and practice of chanting,21 adding to this, which was the core of gurukulas. The gurukula system looks intimately connected to Vedic asceticism, which helped in its functions through their simple daily ascetic life. The first stage, brahmacāri, was the age of studying or studentship on which success of the remaining steps was dependent. In this juncture, students got admitted in gurukula for studying.22 With the passing of the Araṇyakas in the Upaniṣads, the concept of the scope of brahmacāri was widened to include not merely the student period but the entire course of life regulated by the disciplines of its four successive āśramas or stages as the way leading to becoming a

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Brāhmaṇa. Thus, the knowledge in ancient India was created, preserved, and transmitted for posterity by ṛṣis, sages or seers who mostly belonged to the priestly class among the Āryans and were known as Brāhmaṇas, possessors of “Brahma” or excellent knowledge of the Brahma or the universe through tapa or yoga or meditation. THE METHOD OF INSTRUCTION The pre-Nālandā education necessarily represents oral traditions of learning at least until 300 B.C. as writing known in India shortly after that time and a few centuries earlier in the extreme northwest.23 As in the age of the four Vedas, the students were admitted to the Vedic schools after the performance of the upanayana ceremony (this marked the entrance of the pupil into the house of his teacher for learning) at the latest age of twentyfour and the minimum age of eight according to one’s varṇa affiliation and spent as many years at the residence of their teachers as brahmacāri. The Brāhmaṇical literature mentions fixed different ages for the beginning of the study for various varṇas such as the eighth year for a Brahmin, the eleventh year for a Kṣatriya, and the twelfth year for a Vaiśya, but the age for the termination of the study is not so rigidly determined. The nature of education in early childhood or before the upanayana ceremony was difficult to trace. Some scholars like Raja and Scharfe opined by the details of the upanayana ceremony and the duties prescribed for a student that the boy must have had some previous education, which might have consisted mainly of language and literature, besides the practice in writing and reading. Scharfe traces the start of the study with the caula ceremony at the age of three indicated from the first or second century A.D. from elementary teachers and regularly from the father in arithmetic and writing.24 These schools for elementary education, in general, which used to be held in the open air or during the inclement weather in the covered shade, taught the letters of the alphabet.25 The first testimony for Vedic instruction in the gurukula found in the Ṛgveda, where the rainy season croaking of frogs is placed in correlation with the exchange between chanting Brahmins,26 also indirectly indicates oral methods of instruction. Before the introduction of writing, the pupil learned by listening and memorizing the recitations of the master—a laborious and prolonged process. And when they had books, they were read aloud until they were known by heart. Thus, receiving tradition from the lips of a master was necessarily the form of all teaching at gurukulas. The Vedic scholar could be asked anytime by his peers to recite a particular portion of their sacred text and demonstrate his competence. The highest knowledge was built, acquired, conserved, and transmitted up by these ṛṣis, or teachers, who



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revealed and stored up the knowledge in the hymns often after discussion at the assemblies that were held on some sacrificial occasions. Simultaneously, the student served the teacher by begging alms for him, collecting fuel from the forest for the sacrificial fires, and looking after the cattle grazing on the pasture.27 The external duties in the form of services to the teacher were meant to instill in the student those mental and moral attributes that would help him to receive the highest knowledge: the knowledge of the Brahma, the universal subject matter of the Upaniṣads. There was no final examination. Classes were small, and teacher and students were in daily and personal contact and communication, affording the teacher a real appreciation of his students’ progress (or lack of it).28 This guru-śiṣya paramparā was the core feature of pre-Nālandā education continued in the Nālandā form of learning in Buddhist monasteries. The discipline was normally gentle and only in the extreme cases was there any severity. Manu says, “Good instruction must be given to pupils without unpleasant sensations, and the teacher who reverences virtue must use sweet and gentle words. If a scholar is guilty of a fault, his instructor may punish him with harsh words, and threaten that on the next offense he will give him blows, and, if the error is committed in cold weather, the teacher may douse him with cold water.”29 Teachers used sweet and mild words, but when a pupil committed grave faults, he was beaten with a rope or split bamboo on the back part of his body only, and never on the gentle parts.30 The Sessions It is interesting that the study sessions in the gurukulas had some similarity with modern education regarding the semester-wise study. It was also about six months of the study period in a year with many holidays with no recitation. The school term opened solemnly with the performance of a special ceremony called Upakarma on the full moon of the month of Śrāvaṇa (July–August) and continued until the full moon of Pausha (December –January). Then, it was solemnly closed with the performance of the Utsarjana ceremony, after which the brahmacārins had to leave off learning the Veda. However, the brahmacāri had to recapitulate what he had learned from his teacher in the next five or six months till the school term opened again in the month of Śrāvaṇa.31 With the opening of the new session of the school when the names of those who had contributed most of the study of Vedas and the allied subjects were gratefully recalled, the brahmacāri began to learn from his teacher a new part of the Veda and other topics. It is quite observable here that the next six-month period after the study fixed for recapitulation of their last knowledge.

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The Curriculum The subject of learning in gurukulas shows the nature, extent, and variety of the ancient Indian education system. It is notable that the curriculum of these gurukulas was not static and was always reviewed and renewed. It was continuously changing and getting expanded according to new developments in society and religion by adding new knowledge. The study of any subject carried on with sufficient attention, principal motive, and in graded steps mostly in mantra form not only imparted proficiency in that line but also trained up the mental powers for general use and application in other branches as well. We can divide these subjects into two categories for study: religious and non-religious, or secular. Religious Courses The interesting thing about the religious classes is that the creation of sacred scriptures was a continuous process and respectively new texts were getting added to the curriculum. By 600 B.C., the subject of learning in the Vedic schools was the hymns of the four Vedas. These hymns were to be uttered correctly by bringing out their meaning clearly. And for this particular purpose, all these subsidiary studies or auxiliary sciences— phonetics, ritual, astronomy, prosody, grammar, and etymology—were developed in the Vedic schools as aids to the study of the Vedas and were known as the limbs of the Vedas.32 These had to be studied as aids to the comprehension of the meaning of the Vedic text upon which so much stress was laid. Besides such courses, it now included Nyāya and Mimāṃsā, Ithihasa-Purāṇa, Gāthā, Rāsi, Daiva, Nidhi, and a whole range of vidyās including Kṣatravidyā, Nakṣatrayavidyā, Bhutavidyā, Sarpavidyā, Devavidyā, Brahmavidyā, and Devajana-vidyā, many of which traced to the Atharvaveda.33 By the time of the Sūtra Age (c. 400–200 B.C.), the course of study not only included the four Vedas with the six Aṇgas but also the rahasyas or the secret treaties such as the Brāhmaṇas, the Araṇyakas or the Upaniṣads. They gave birth to a number of independent and allied sciences like philosophy and yoga, grammar and philology, anatomy and physiology, medicine, tree care, statecraft, law, aesthetics, arithmetic, algebra and geometry, astrology and astronomy, music and songs, sculpture and painting, and countless others, some with direct practical applications, others more theoretical. An older listing of fourteen sciences was later expanded to eighteen,34 which was still serving the end of Āryan religion. The Vyākaraṇa or grammar developed as an independent science—as reflected in Pāṇini’s Aṣtādhyāyī— which laid down the rules applicable to the language of the Vedas. In the beginning, phonetics, etymology, grammar, geometry, and philosophical speculations were clearly nothing but adjuncts to the study of the ancient hymns and rituals assuring their proper conservation and understanding.35



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The Sūtra Age represents tremendous growth and development in philosophy and law and Aṇgas. The six systems of philosophy have come to be distinguished as conventional systems from the heterodox philosophical systems of the Buddhists, Jains, and Cāṛvakas as they are somehow reconcilable with the Vedic system of philosophy. They are: (1) the Śāṁkhya of Kapila, (2) Yoga of Patañjali, (3) Nyāya of Gautama, (4) Vaiśeṣika of Kaṇada, (5) Karma or Purva Mimāṃsā of Jamini, and (6) Sariraka or Uttara Mimāṃsā or Vedānta of Badarayana. The foundation of these six different schools of philosophy rests on a conventional system known as varṇāśramadharma (i.e., the regulations belonging to the different āśramas or stages of life in the Āryan society).36 We have until now been discussing the courses offered at the Vedic schools. In the words of Muṇdakopaniṣada this knowledge—technically called aparāvidyā, as distinguished from all other knowledge termed as parāvidyā—is that knowledge through which the ultimate reality is known.37 They had to search for gurus to obtain this secret knowledge, and this could involve them in traveling from one part of the country to another. And how was the knowledge of soul taught to a disciple by a teacher? The answer is by discourses (illustrations, stories, and parables), dialogues, questions, and answers. How could this knowledge be acquired? The acquisition of this knowledge involves the annihilation of all desires and illusions of a complex universe or consciousness of plurality through saṃnyāsa and yoga.38 Non-Religious Courses The Sūtra Age also saw the emergence of some new disciplines to meet the requirements of a particular class in society. Since such subjects developed independently of the gurukula system, which centered on the Āryan religion, these could be termed as non-religious, or parāvidyā. One such subject is the study of statecraft or treatise on governance, and the most outstanding work of the age is Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra.39 Other examples are Ayurveda, military science, and various arts and crafts whose origin is traced to the metrical hymns of the Atharvaveda, which presumably was composed around 800 B.C. The foremost among these subjects as indicated above was the Āyurvedic medicine. Strabo says: “The Indians do not pursue accurate knowledge in any line, except medicine.”40 The interest in the subject may be traced partly to the sacrifice of the living being as well as partly to yoga or meditation. Āyurvedic medicine was one of the largest programs of study at Vedic schools at Takṣaśīlā, where Caraka taught it in the first century.41 The study of Āyurvedic medicine, including a six-month probationary period according to Susruta Samhita, lasted nearly seven years and was open to all classes including the Śūdras. However, all candidates for admission to this

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program were required to be physically fit and mentally sound with good morals and manners such as courage, intelligence, patience, tenacity, capacity, humility, and generosity.42 Āyurveda had two aspects—theory and practice—and both aspects were studied simultaneously under the careful eye of a teacher. The Āyurvedic medicine consisted of diverse disciplines, such as pathology, medicine, trichology, blood test, bones, snakebite and surgery; and the students were expected to master different disciplines.43 A king’s license or authorization from him was required before one could start practicing medicine. An unsuccessful student in medicine practicing it without permission was liable to be punished by the king. It is evident that the teacher usually certified for the issuance of this authorization for his student, who had successfully followed a prescribed course in Āyurveda under him.44 Whether there were provisions for hospitals as in modern times for studying the practical aspect of Āyurvedic medicine, we do not know. However, the existence of charitable dispensaries, where persons were treated for free—as noted by Faxian as late as the fifth century A.D.—in the major cities like Pāṭaliputra could fill in the gap. The courses on warfare were also regularly taught at Vedic schools. The basic training in combat provided at gurukulas was a special area of interest for the future king. Elephant lore, horsemanship, cavalry training, and use of contemporary weapons including bows and arrows were taught at Takṣaśīlā. However, the military schools at Takṣaśīlā required a fee of about a thousand pieces of coin, silver or copper, which only the members of the royal families and wealthy classes like merchants and traders could afford. It is therefore obvious that the majority of the Āryans, who were willing to take up this profession, were unable to pay the required fee and also to undertake an expensive and hazardous journey to the extreme of the northwest.45 The contemporary religious pieces of literature of the Āryans, both Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist, put the total number of arts and crafts described as kalās at sixty-four. These sixty-four arts and crafts cover possibly all aspects and needs of the emerging Āryan civilization such as painting, music, dancing, architecture, sculpture, cooking, preparing drinks, washing, and constructing ships, chariots, weapons, and so forth. However, for most of the crafts, there was the traditional system of learning through guru-śiṣya paramparā, which we would call “apprenticeship.” The rules of learning as given by Nārada in Dharmaśāstra indicate that admission to craft was free and open to all.46 In this apprenticeship system, the master would teach the student in his house and feed him. And he was not allowed to employ him in a work of different description, and could not treat him like a son. While the home of the artisan functioned as the school, the collective interests of the craft as a whole, in a particular area, were administered by an organization called śreṇī,



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or guild, such as guilds of artists and dancers, cultivators, traders, artisans, and so on.47 Each guild had its rules to administer its craft. Thus, all guilds could be understood to function like schools of fine arts and crafts in those days.48 ACCESS TO VEDIC EDUCATION The offer of a variety of courses of study does not make an educational system successful, but it depends upon its accessibility to the maximum classes of that particular society. In this way, we can evaluate gurukula as either universal or reserved for dominant categories of the society. Regarding this, we can say that as the early community was getting regulated and strict on the consciousness of class respectively, the access to the education was getting more and more limited. In the beginning, in the Vedic Age, when society was open and not very rigid in class consciousness, the access to this education was open for all four classes, viz. Brāhmaṇa, Kṣatriya, Vaiśya, and Śūdra. Except for the Brāhmaṇas who mastered the four Vedas, the other three categories were possibly instructed in the same way as the women were, to participate in the religious life of the Āryans. As a matter of fact, the Yajurveda enjoins the imparting of Vedic knowledge to all classes: Brāhmaṇas, Rajaṇyas, Śūdras, Vaiśyas, Anāryas, and Caraṇas. The Ṛgveda, besides including Viśvamitra, a Kṣatriya under the mandalas II to VII, as one of the six ṛṣis, preserves the names of several ṛṣis like Ambariṣa, Sindhudvīpa, Sindhukṣit, Sudas, Mandhata, Sīvī, as well as Pratardana of Kāsī who were originally kings or Kṣatriyas. After the Vedic Age, unlike the Brāhmaṇas and the Kṣatriyas, the religious literature of the age did not throw any light at all on the intellectual attainment of these two classes—the Vaiśyas and the Śūdras. However, though they had no or little access to the religious scripture of the time, most of them were involved in some of the contemporary arts and crafts like dancing, singing, playing on musical instruments, perfumery, dyeing, and the like. In the Sūtra Age, everybody except perhaps the Śūdras was required to go to a Vedic school, and Veda study had to be halted whenever a Śūdra came within earshot.49 Also, students were admitted after an inquiry into their family of birth, individual merits, and capability to serve and venerate their teachers, who were called gurus, ācāryas, or preceptors.50 As a matter of fact, the knowledge of the highest kind at gurukulas was not imparted to those who were not calm and tranquil in spirit and not trained in the cultivated language.51 The system of brahmacāri also covered the women who were admitted to the Vedic schools after the performance of the upanayana ceremony. They were given prescribed courses of study in the Vedas to enable them to as-

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sist their husbands in the sacrificial offerings.52 The ambition of a father was often to see his daughter grow into an educated woman and get a comparably suitable husband in a learned man.53 The age of the four Vedas produced many women sages called ṛṣikas and brahmavādinis like Romasa, Lopmudra, Apala, Kadru, Visvavara, Ghosa, Juhu, Jarita, Urvasi, Yami, Indrani, Savitri, Devajani, Nodh, and Gaupayana. Up to the Upaniṣad Age (600 B.C.), the social position of women was high enough. After this, their education was neglected, but the women of most senior classes of society such as courtesans, priests, kings, and so forth were trained in arts and crafts and taught in religious literature in the urban areas.54 Scharfe by quoting Patañjali proves that women were not usually instructed in Sanskrit; women tended to be excluded from higher studies.55 The extent of literacy in Indian antiquity is terrible to imagine. Altekar56 concluded from the obligatory upanayana of the twice-born Āryas in the Vedic society and with the subsequent study they became literate, and he estimated literacy among the three upper classes in the first millennium B.C. at 80 percent (including even girls). In the next millennium, Altekar saw a decline in the observation of upanayana, and he inferred a decrease in literacy to 40 percent in A.D. 800. We cannot say to what extent this data is correct, as the significant chunk of the population was not entitled to the upanayana ceremony. Also, it seems that the literacy rate in ancient India would have been lesser than Altekar’s prediction because the monastic education welcomed these illiterate people and achieved lots of success concerning membership. THE TEACHERS As we have discussed above, the teacher was the center of attraction of gurukulas’ performance because he was the only man who composed and uttered the hymns and ran the āśramas. What qualities did teachers have in this education system? A teacher had to be truthful, kind, and compassionate besides being reflective. He had to possess the highest moral and spiritual qualifications and to be well versed in the sacred lore and dwelling in the Brāhmaṇa.57 He had to illuminate the inner beings of his pupils with his spiritual enlightenment otherwise it would be like the blind leading the blind. A teacher had to teach his students the truth exactly as he knew it, and it was the natural desire of every teacher that the truth he had discovered should live after him in his pupils through a succession of teachers, guru-paramparā, and thereby would contribute to the continuity of knowledge. If a teacher found that he was not fit enough to teach any of his students on a particular subject, he considered it to be his duty and responsibility to send him to a fitter teacher. Similarly, if a teacher



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found that the student was not fit to acquire the knowledge he came for, he could withhold his instructions to him.58 To which classes did the teacher belong? Ancient India witnessed and established the Brahmin as the ideal teacher suitable for preaching and teaching, which is still widely accepted by Indians. Normally and usually as in the days of four Vedas, the teachers were Brāhmaṇas and came from the priestly class such as Asvala or Auddalaki, Gargi Vachnavi, Gotama Rahugana, Kamalayana, Kṛṣṇa Devakiputra, Maitreyi, Satyakama, Javala, Sukesi Bharadvaja, Yajñavalkya, Uddalaka Aruni, and so on. However, a Kṣatriya’s status through the attainment of divine knowledge could be elevated, usually by a king or by a Brāhmaṇa teacher. We have examples of learned kings who had acquired excellent knowledge and who acted as teachers even to Brāhmaṇa students, viz. Kṣatriya kings Aśvapati Kaikeya, Janaka of Videha, Ajātaśatru of Kāsī, and Pravahana Jaibali of Pañcāla.59 Overall Brāhmaṇas served the role of teacher for the society and occasionally Kṣatriya or philosophical kings in the time of distress and the absence of Brahmin teacher on particular subject acted as a substitute teacher. Unfortunately, two other varṇas, Vaiśya and Śūdra, seem to have no literary reference as teachers in the Vedic period. The education of the girls was not neglected in the beginning, but girls were also declared to be better teachers than their male counterparts. The Atharvaveda has a hymn 11.15.8 endorsed by the Yajurveda in the hymn 12.59 and the Ṛgveda says the same in 10.109.4 that “the girl who wishes to practice a single Veda, or two or three or four Vedas and four Vedāṇgas besides being an expert in grammar can become herself a scholarly teacher for the benefit of other girls.”60 In the Sūtra Age, there seems to have emerged a gradation of teachers known as ācārya and upādhyāya. The Āācārya, who was ten times more venerable than the upādhyāya, was chief among all teachers. Manu defines ācārya as one who initiated a pupil and taught him the Veda, together with the Kalpa and Rahsayas. Having initiated as per vidyārambha saṃskāra, he who makes a student conversant with the Veda in entirety (i.e. the preliminary branches of knowledge, such as the alphabet, etc.) is an ācārya. The teacher is called ācārya because he imparts traditional precepts and because he systematically arranges the various objects of knowledge and consistently develops the intellectual faculty.61 Upādhyāya is defined as one who taught only a portion of the Veda or the Aṇgas to his students “for a fee” or “for his livelihood.”62 In fact, it was one of the obligations of the brahmacāri to bring to a close the period of his formal pupillage by making presents to his teacher. Such parting gifts to the ācārya, which depended on the economic ability of a student and his parents, often took the shape, in the words of Manu, of “a field, a cow, a horse, a parasol and shoes, a seat, grain, even vegetables” and when any one of these were presented to a teacher, it gave immense pleasure to him.63

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It is possible that many of the upādhyāya who taught “for livelihood” could have come from the class other than Brāhmaṇas for some of the Sūtrakāras of the age mention the existence of non-Brāhmaṇa teachers. Manu says: “In times of distress (a student) may learn (the Veda) from one who is not a Brāhmaṇa and that he shall walk behind and serve (such a) teacher as long as the instruction lasts.”64 It shows that teaching as a profession was attracting classes other than the Brāhmaṇas and also in the Ṛgvedic Age the class in which a person was born did not determine the adoption of business. This relaxation of the rule of the former age in education was possibly due to the challenge of Buddhism, which could boast of teachers coming from different classes of the Āryan society. BRAHMACĀRI LIFE IN THE GURUKULAS Every student got admission in the gurukula with the upanayana ceremony and was known as a vrātacari or brahmacārin. The period of their studentship at such schools was known as brahmacāri. The typical age of upanayana was eight for a Brāhmaṇa, eleven for a Kṣatriya, and twelve for a Vaiśya and the similar maximum period was sixteen for a Brāhmaṇa, twenty-two for a Kṣatriya, and twenty-four for a Vaiśya.65 The ages were fixed by the different capacities and aptitudes for learning, which varied from class to class. Students usually spent twelve years in studying the Vedas, leading self-controlled lives and serving their gurus. In the Sūtra Age, there was a change related to the beginning of a child’s education or vidyārambha (child offering worship to the deities, Hari, Lakṣmī, and Śrāvastī as well as to the vidyā cultivated by his family, the Sūtrakāras of that particular vidyā and the vidyā or subject of his choice), which now started in the fifth year of his age.66 A few years later, the vidyārambha ceremony was performed after chhudakarma or tonsure of the head. In a lengthy hymn, the Atharvaveda gives us insight into the rigorous discipline that was brahmacāri.67 A brahmacāri had to undergo a twofold course of discipline comprising of transmission of knowledge and the molding of the character.68 Every day the students started recitation of the Vedic texts before the birds started chirping—announcing the break of the day. It included offering fuel to Agni and worshiping him twice daily, controlling senses, practicing austerities, living a dedicated life, and satisfying the teachers. For those students who wanted to enter family life, the period of brahmacāri formally came to an end with the completion of their courses at the Vedic schools. But for those who wanted to pursue knowledge for a longer time or their whole life, brahmacāri continued as before. Related to character formation, Majumder asserts quoting Manu that the student has to collect wood for the holy fire; take care of animals; beg food of his relations; sleep on a low



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bed; avoid eating to excess and honey, meat, sweet, pungent drinks, and acid liquid; refrain from intercourse with women; refrain from smearing the body with oil, using shoes, or an umbrella; and curb desire for enjoyment and perform such offices as might please his preceptor.69 Thus, the life of a brahmacāri at the Vedic school was disciplined, pure, and simply characterized by self-restraint, penance, and consecration. After the end of the Vedic study, the returning home of the student was marked by a solemn ceremony known as Samāvartana (or also snāna or āplavana “bath” denoting different aspects of this rite) first mentioned in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa and the Cāndogya Upaniṣad. There was no particular age for this ritual. The duration of the student life varied with different courses and students.70 The student had to perform or go through several activities signifying the end of his studentship before he left his school.71 In the first place the brahmacāri was confined in a room in the morning. At midday, the brahmacāri would come out of the chamber, shave head and beard and take a bath accompanied by the use of powder, perfumes, ground sandalwood, and the like—all presented to him by his friends and relatives. Then all the external signs of the brahmacāri such as the upper and lower garments, girdle, staff, and skin went into the water.72 After the bath he would become a snātaka or a graduate or one who has taken a bath, wearing new garments, two earrings, and a perforated pellet of sandalwood overlaid with gold, which was to bring him gain, superiority in battles and assemblies at its aperture.73 THE OBJECTIVES The pre-Nālandā education was characterized by a series of religious and vocational courses and was always getting modified according to the needs, requirements, and developments of ancient society. This continuous review in curriculum and emerging new trends were very much related to the final goal of this education system. Most of the Western educationists understood that ancient Indian education was concerned with religious, ritual, and philosophic matters. Thus, it is not surprising that they announced the ultimate goal of education in religious terms.74 In the earlier Vedic texts it was the attainment of heaven and the luster of Brahma; later the release or liberation from bondage (i.e., mokṣa) became prominent.75 In a broad sense, mokṣa means the freedom from the bond of death and becoming one with God forever or a merger with absolute reality. The achievement of salvation could only only possible by the shaping of the student’s character; in this way, it was intimately related to the pre-Nālandā education. Besides this ultimate goal, we can say that the objectives of the gurukulas education included the three qualities of (1) sharpening of the intellect, (2)

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formation of character, and (3) the attainment of social efficiency, which was reflected in the achievement of trivargasamanvaya (i.e., the balance of dharma, artha, and kāma).76 Dharma played a central role in Indian life and as an educational goal, so these objectives overall were achieved by teaching and focusing on dharma on every aspect of life. The goal was the personal improvement and development of qualities to meet one’s religious and social duties. Gurukulas pursued the formation of the ideal character, the preservation of the ancestral heritage including customs and social conventions, and many secular skills. The study of yoga, philosophy, and other meditation techniques aimed to shape the student’s character. The pre-Nālandā education system provided a cohesive force for the contemporary society through the teaching of dharma or paradigm of proper behavior to all its students. Then its ultimate goal was to produce a student with all the qualities through a twelve-year vivid study such as spiritual, vocational, scholarly, generosity, morality, and so forth. As in the Sūtra Age when education developed as a profession, this system produced many snātakas, or graduates, who were fit for the teacher’s job and sometimes for the service of kings. THE OUTPUT The early part of gurukula education, say from 1500 B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era, saw an outburst of creative activities. It was an age of intellectual freedom where the desire to know natural affairs and to provide an explanation was at the peak point, which in turn led to the creation of new frontiers of knowledge. These new boundaries were related to all fields of knowledge and especially there was a significant generation of religious and spiritual knowledge. Brāhmaṇism rejuvenated itself through the works of the Sūtrākāras to meet the challenge of Buddhism, but in the process of Sūtrākāras canonization, it adversely affected the growth and development of original and creative ideas in future. The succeeding centuries after the birth of Jesus Christ were characterized more by a desire to preserve, explain, and comment on the wisdom of the past than have any serious attempt to broaden and widen the horizon of learning by discovering a new philosophy or idea that not in conformity with the canonized scriptures. After the discovery of writing, the prose commentaries in literary style were composed in gurukulas. The composition of Ṛgveda, Sāmaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda, Brāhmaṇas, Araṇyakas and Upaniṣads, and other literature including Vedāṇgas occurred.77 These are mostly basic religious scriptures, which throw light on every aspect of our society and knowledge. As the Brāhmaṇical religion was getting complex, sometimes new and mostly the commentaries on the earlier pious books were brought out. We have books on every aspect of sacrifice and ritual from birth to



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death. The established texts of Brāhmaṇical oral traditions survived, and the preserved documents were protected by the existence of major commentaries in India, but the oldest and the older instructional books and the necessary outdated materials entirely disappeared, like the priestly hymns of ancient Greece, which are lost.78 By the Sūtra Age, it was the needs and requirements of the developing Āryan society that contributed a lot to the generation of professional knowledge. Notably, the increasing importance of rituals led to the substantial development of astronomy, medicine, mathematics, and other subjects. The Āryans knew about the existence of the seven planets through observation with the naked eye and added two more to the list— Rahu and Ketu, the ascending and descending modes of the moon. The seven planets are Surya or the Sun, Chandra or Moon, Budha or Mercury, Sukra or Venus, Mangala or Mars, Brihaspati or Jupiter, and Sani or Saturn. They also knew the twenty-seven nakṣatras or stars, which formed the constellations of these seven planets. For calculating the date and time of a sacrifice, the Āryan priestly class mainly relied on the moon. It was the tithi, or lunar day, that formed the core unit of such calculations. Approximately thirty tithes formed a lunar month of twenty-nine and a half days. There were two pakṣas, Sukla and Kṛṣṇa, which divided a lunar month into two halves of fifteen days each. A year consisted of twelve lunar months, which again split into six seasons of two months each—summer, rains, autumn, mild winter, and extreme winter. The Āryan priestly class also knew by the time of the Sūtra Age that the universe was classified by five elements—earth, air, fire, water, and sky. These five elements were thought of as a medium of five sense impressions: the land of smell, the air of feeling, the fire of vision, the water of taste, and the sky of sound.79 It is also very surprising to know that this basic knowledge of astronomy is still continuing and functioning in our modern villages. And still, current Brāhmaṇas in Hindu religion are practicing these concepts in their rituals and various ceremonies, performed for individuals from birth to death. As a matter of fact, the shaping of the Āryan School of Learning and its different disciplines was coterminous with the shaping of Āryan political organizations from tribal to monarchical. Until then Brahmin and Brāhmaṇical centers of learning received the exclusive patronage of the kings, who were mostly Kṣatriyas. THE CONTINUITIES BETWEEN PRE-NĀLANDĀ AND NĀLANDĀ EDUCATION As we know, there are two dominant parts of education on the Indian subcontinent: the pre-Nālandā and the Nālandā intellectual traditions.

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These were the two stages of growth, and both had reached their point of culmination. It was the accumulation of knowledge and internal structure of the gurukula system of education that provided a base for the development of the monastic educational framework to fulfill the needs of the changing society. Both of these processes were simultaneously occurring, each with its ups and downs, and contributed a lot to the generation of knowledge in their ways. In this way, we can see many features of the Brāhmaṇical enlightening continuing in the Buddhist system of teaching. How did this maximum extent of continuity occur? The continuity between the gurukula and mahāvihāra systems of education was a distinct phenomenon. As we have said, these were developments taking place within the same ancient Indian society and were intimately related to the contemporary religions. Due to issues arising from the Brāhmaṇical religion, the new religion of Buddhism emerged, maintaining many ideas from Brāhmaṇism. Since Buddhism did not separate itself entirely from Brāhmaṇism, Brāhmaṇism later devoured it. It was also one of the reasons behind Buddhism’s longer existence and increased popularity over Jainism in India. It is also interesting that the founder of the Nālandā educational system, or Buddhist education, the Buddha, was also a product of Brāhmaṇical religion. When the Buddha was in search of truth and enlightenment, he also studied under two renowned Brāhmaṇa teachers: first Ālāra Kālāma, then Uddaka Rāmaputta. The main propagators of the Nālandā learning system belonged to the Brāhmaṇical religion and were mostly the product or the owner of gurukulas. Such true Brāhmaṇas remained idealistic in early Buddhist texts and were regarded as highly qualified teachers in Buddhist orders like Nāgasena,80 Sāriputta and Moggallāna,81 Aśvaghośa, Nāgārjuna, and Vasubandhu, just to name a few. When such scholars embraced the Buddhist doctrine, they did not forget their initial training and learning, and their linguistic refinement and intellectual sophistication influenced not only the development of Buddhist literature and thought but also the structure and nature of the Nālandā system of instruction. The ultimate goal of pre-Nālandā and Nālandā systems of teaching was more or less the same: the attainment of salvation and freedom from the miseries of the material world. They tried to achieve this objective through Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist modes in a religious atmosphere. The religious background and setting are common in both systems. The contribution of the Vedic education is its search for truth, for the knowledge of the ātman and Brahma. Such a search continued vigorously at Nālandā educational institutions in different forms, focused on gaining more and more knowledge of ultimate truth to attain freedom from the cycle of rebirth. Spiritual liberty, or nirvāṇa, was the main aim of monastic life and training. Indian teachers were always keen to inculcate the spirit of



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activity among the inert disciples and tried to sharpen the dull wits.82 Both simultaneously stressed societal needs and the cohesiveness of their followers by providing religious and ritual services. As the ancient Indian philosophy, the Buddha also considered Dharma as the highest aim of life. The monasteries and the Buddhist Saṁgha preached on Dharma. Buddhist education laid much emphasis on the physical, mental, and spiritual development of novices. The first step for entry into the monastic system was the going forth (pabajjā), that is, leaving one’s civic life (or in the case of ascetics of different creeds, their sectarian affiliations) to jin, or the Buddhist community. This process is very similar to the upanayana ceremony (i.e., the initiation to study by leaving the parents’ house and joining the teacher). Both the Brāhmaṇical tradition and the Buddhist system of education agreed that the student had to leave his home and reside with the teacher. There is also a gradation of teachers in the Nālandā scholastic system just as in Vedic schools, such as the upājjhāya and the ācārya, and the ācārya and the upādhyāya. The newly joined monks (sāmanera or Sanskrit śramaṇa) in training required a teacher (ācārya, also called karmācārya, or “teacher of deeds,” possibly because of his concern with conduct and discipline) on whose guidance he depended (nissāya).83 A monk could accept only one novice for training, or as many as he could handle.84 The upājjhāya seemed to rank higher than the ācārya since he alone could confer ordination as a monk after twenty years of training of a śramaṇa. Also, he got the blame if a monk was ordained before the age of twenty, which was against the rules.85 An ācārya, as well as an upājjhāya, needed to be a monk for at least ten years and be considered competent by the monastic community.86 In the Brāhmaṇical system, only an ācārya initiated a pupil and taught him the Vedic texts, and later awarded snātaka and upādhyāya, provided such a pupil had already received initial training and elementary education in parts of the Vedas, mostly in consideration of fees. It seems the Nālandā system of learning adopted this scheme from the pre-Nālandā system with a slight modification in ranking contra to Brāhmaṇical practice87 since here the upājjhāya ranks above the ācārya. The cordial and informal relationship between teacher and student continued in the tradition of Nālandā learning, as a part of guru-śiṣya paramparā. The Buddhist didactic institutions not only followed but also expanded upon and institutionalized the ways of guru-śiṣya paramparā. The relation between a monk and a trainee could also be described as that of the teacher (ācārya) and student (antevāsin) and were as close-knit as in the Brāhmaṇical gurukulas. The idealistic relationship between the teacher and the student was a personal one, just like a father and son. In both systems, the teacher was regarded with the utmost respect and veneration. Corporal punishment was forbidden. Like the ancient Brāhmaṇical

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system, the Buddhist system also insisted upon the duty of students to serve their teacher by all means. In both systems, the teacher admitted only as many students as he could cope with. Both the teachers and students led disciplined lives in the pre-Nālandā and Nālandā systems of learning. The simple brahmacāri life was practiced throughout the period of study, following the rules prescribed by the particular religion. In other words, we can say that the teaching and learning community both led a religious life with a sense of purity, simplicity, and devotedness. The gurukula life used to start in the early morning with preparation for the study, which continued until the evening. We can also observe similarities in the daily life of the monks, as observed by Yijing.88 They used to start their day with the rising of the sun and began chanting religious scriptures after morning prayer. The practice of religious rituals and worship took place all day, alongside studying. Before the invention of writing, the primary teaching method of gurukulas continued in the monasteries. The Brāhmaṇical method of oral instruction, including discourse (illustrations, stories, and parables), dialogue, inquiry, and so forth entered into the Buddhist monasteries. The Buddhist vihāra, with its functional departments of learning and monk teachers, expanded the oral method in its increasing number of lectures. After the beginning of writing in the time of Aśoka, monasteries vigorously practiced writing and codifying Buddhist sermons and translating other religious scriptures. The Brāhmaṇical system of learning also shows features of the Buddhist vihāras, such as debates and discussions at conferences and assemblies held on sacrificial occasions at the king’s court and a local pariṣad. NOTES 1.  Bronkhorst emphasized that Takṣásīlā was a famous center of learning from the pre-Buddhist time as frequently referred to in the Jātakas and higher Brāhmaṇical presence in the region, where Alexander also met a number of naked ascetics; Johannes Bronkhorst, How the Brahmins Won: From Alexander to the Guptas (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 34 and 467. 2.  D. G. Apte, Universities in Ancient India (Gujarat: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda), 11. 3. R. K. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education: Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist, 2nd ed (London: Macmillan, 1951), 478. 4.  D. G. Apte, Universities in Ancient India (Gujarat: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda), 9. 5. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 482. 6.  The author quotes the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata. Mitra Veda, Education in Ancient India (New Delhi: Arya Book Depot, 1964), 107–08.



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 7. Buddha Prakash, Political and Social Movements in Ancient Punjab (From the Vedic Age up to the Maurya Period) (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1964), 141.  8. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 484.  9. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 482. 10. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 480. 11. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 17. 12. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 479. 13.  Mahāvagga, viii, 1.3.6. 14. Prakash, Political and Social, 141. 15.  Although there is no actual and direct reference to teaching in the Ṛgveda, there are certain verses from which we can know something about the mode of education at that time (i.e., svādhyāya). The famous passage is: “When among them one frog repeats the words of the other as a student that of the teacher,” Ṛgveda, VIII, 103–5. This translation and other similar verses with educational reference quoted in C. Kunhan Raja, Some Aspects of Education in Ancient India (Madras: The Adyar Library, 1950), 4–8. 16. The discoveries show that they acquired advanced technical knowledge such as unified units of weight and measurement, potter’s wheel, kiln-burnt same size bricks, massive building architecture, town planning, casting alloy metals and the superb relief figures on seals, and the execution of fine stone statues. For detail of these activities of the Harappans see J. Marshall, ed., Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization: Being an Official Account of Archeological Excavation at Mohenjodaro Carried out by the Government of India Between the Year 1922 and 1927, 3 vols. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1931. 17.  M. L. Bhagi, Ancient India: Culture and Thought (Ambala Cantt.: The Indian Publication, 1970), 57. 18.  Johannes Bronkhorst, “Āśramas, Agrahāras, and Monasteries” (paper presented at the Fifth Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 11–16 August 2008). 19. Scharfe termed the guru-śiṣya paramparā or the gurukula tradition by the name of ācārya-kula-s. See, Hartmut Scharfe, Education in Ancient India (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 120ff. 20.  These are four alternatives, four options without succession regarding how to spend one’s life after an initial period in the family of a teacher; for a detailed discussion see Johannes Bronkhorst, The Two Sources of Indian Asceticism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998), 5. 21. Bronkhorst, Two Sources of Indian Asceticism, 33–34. 22.  It seems like one needed to study Vedas to be a Brahmin or ascetic. Bronkhorst quotes Jātakas and accordingly suggests after the learning of the Vedas rather the choice between married life and asceticism made; Bronkhorst, Two Sources of Indian Asceticism, 73. 23. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 19. 24.  Raja said that it was the Cūḍākarma ceremony; Raja, Some Aspects of Education, 30. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 75–76. 25.  Nogendra Nath Majumder, A History of Education in Ancient India (Calcutta: Macmillan & Co., 1928), 67. 26.  Rig-Veda Sanhita, VII.103.

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27.  Suresh Chandra Ghosh, The History of Education in Ancient India c. 3000 BC to AD 1192 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2001), 35. 28. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 291. 29.  Manu Samhita, II.23; S. S. Laurie, “The History of Early Education III: The Āryan or Indo-European Races,” The School Review 1 (1893): 668–81. 30.  Nogendra Nath Majumder, A History of Education in Ancient India (Calcutta: Macmillan & Co., 1928), 78. 31. Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 74–75. 32.  The Ordinances of Manu, II.10. 33. Ghosh, History of Early Indian Education, 37. 34.  P. V. Kane, History of Dharmasastra, vol. 2 (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1968–75), 355. 35. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 59. 36. Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 80. 37. S. K. Das, The Education System of the Ancient Hindus (New Delhi: Gyan Publication, 1996), 20–23. 38.  A. S. Geden, trans., Philosophy of the Upanishads by Paul Deussen (Delhi: Oriental Publishers, 1972), 121–29; and Das, Education System of Ancient Hindus, 139. 39. R. P. Kangle, trans., The Kautilīlya Arthaśāstra, Part I & II (Bombay: University of Bombay Studies in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali, first edition 1963, second edition 1972). 40.  John W. Macrindle, Ancient India as Described in Classical Literature (Amsterdam: Philo, 1971), 25. 41.  Mahāvagga, II.VIII.3. 42.  Mahāvagga, II.VIII.26.6 and 8. 43. Das, Education System of Ancient Hindus, 217. 44. Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 90–95. 45. Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 95–96. 46.  For details see Das, Education System of Ancient Hindus, 207–209. 47.  M. R. Dobie, trans., Ancient India and Indian Civilization eds. by Paul MassonOursel, Helena De William-Grabowska and Philippe Stern (New Delhi: Lakshmi Book Store, 1967), 112. 48.  R. C. Majumdar, Corporate Life in Ancient India (Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay Firma, 1969), 68. 49.  A. S. Altekar, Education in Ancient India (Benares: India Book Shop, 1957), 46. 50.  R. P. Singh, A Critique of Indian Education (Developing Insights) (Delhi: Ravi Books, 2002), 300. 51. Das, Education System of Ancient Hindus, 49. 52. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 51. 53.  P. V. Kane, History of Dharmasastra, vol. 2 (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1968–1975), 366; Altekar, Education in Ancient India, 215. 54. Brij Narain Sharma, Social Life in Northern India (A.D. 600–1000) (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1966), 74–76. 55.  The priestly class preserved Sanskrit within their group, but women have succumbed to incorrect popular usage; Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 53. 56. Altekar, Education in Ancient India, 176. 57. Singh, Critique of Indian Education, 299.



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58. Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 36. 59. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 195–96. 60. Singh, Critique of Indian Education, 303. 61.  Sudarshan Kumar Sharma, “Vidyā, Veda—their Genesis, Scope and Illustration,” in Education in Ancient India: Shri S. B. Velankar Felicitation Volume: Paper Presented at the Seminar Conducted on 25 April 1995 at Thane under the Auspices of the Institute of Oriental Studies, ed. Vijay V. Bedekar (Thane: Itihas Patrika Prakashan, 1996), 32. 62.  Manu Samhita, 140, 141, 145. 63.  The Ordinances of Manu, II.242 and 246. 64.  Manu, II. 241–243, but Yajñavalkya is silent on the above issue. See also Chattopadhyaya, Social Life in Ancient India, 39. 65.  Yajñavalkya Smriti, 1.37. 66.  Manu, II.37; Kane, History of Dharmasastra, vol. 2, 275. 67.  The Hymns of the Atharvaveda, XI, and V. 68.  B. G. Gokhale, Ancient India History and Culture (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, reprint 1970), 140. 69. Majumder, History of Education in Ancient India, 74–75. 70. Altekar, Education in Ancient India, 311–12. 71. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 290. 72.  The Ordinances of Manu, II.26. 73. Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 77. 74. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 290. 75.  Rig-Veda Sanhita, VIII, 67.18 and 40.8. 76. Sharma, Social Life in Northern India, 74–76. Also, see Das, Education System of Ancient Hindus, 19. 77. Bhagi, Ancient India, 79. 78. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 20. 79. Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 10–11. 80.  B. N. Mishra, Nālandā (Sources and Background), 3 vols. (Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 1998), vol. 1, 282–302. 81.  Mahāvagga, I, 23; also H. A. Giles, trans., The Travels of Fa-hsien, second edition (Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1972), 22f. 82.  T. Watters, trans., On Yuan-Chwang’s Travels in India (A.D. 629–695). 2 vols., second edition (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1961), 160. 83. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 198, and 209. 84.  Mahāvagga, I.54. 85.  Mahāvagga, I.28 and 29. 86.  Mahāvagga, I.31.8 and 32.1. Buddhaghośa makes a distinction that ācārya needs only six years’ standing as a monk against ten years for the upājjhāya, and Mahāvagga allows a competent monk to give nissāya, even if he had been a monk for five years. 87.  An ācārya is ten times more venerable than an upādhyāya; Mitra, Education in Ancient India, 41. 88. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 21.

F our Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra: An Institution of Religious Learning After brief details of the gurukula, or pre-Nālandā education, we will now look into the mahāvihāra, or Nālandā education system, another important form of early religious learning in South Asia. Broadly, the remaining present-day monasteries are also functioning as rich sources of learning and practice of Buddhism in South Asia, somewhat inspired by the process of monastic learning started on the Indian subcontinent more or less by Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra or other monasteries. Monasteries also often acted as a point of cultural, religious, and social exchange between India and other South Asian countries. We will concentrate on the similarities and differences between these Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist learning apparatuses to better understand them as a mode of religious scholarship. The rise of the mahāvihāra as an intellectual center is interrelated with the Buddha or the Buddhist religion, already discussed in detail in chapter 1. The Buddha revolted against the prevalent Brāhmaṇical religion, which also indirectly questioned the existing structure of gurukula learning and the dominance of Brahmins. Subsequently, the monasteries and vihāras became the centers of cultural and religious life for the common man, who was neglected by the gurukulas. The method of these monasteries almost became the educational method of the contemporary time. These Buddhist monasteries, prominently being organizations of the Buddha’s thoughts, started and promoted institutional instruction focused on religion and philosophy in South Asia. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra almost took the leadership role in this process, probably being the first and largest full-fledged monastery of ancient India. The religious and cultural aspect of Nālandā will be discussed in the last chapter of this book. This chapter focuses on the educational aspects of Nālandā and attempts to situate this monastery as an institution of religious learning from the broader religious perspective. Here a general introduction of the organized mahāvihāra education system will also be presented, and later we shall go into the details of particular traits of Nālandā’s learning concerning its objective, scope, teacher, and students. We will try to see the monastery of Nālandā as an institution of 125

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learning and research in Buddhism. We will be able to look into the partial popular view of nationalist historians about Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra as an international university with secular learning. THE BEGINNING OF ORGANIZED EDUCATION Historical literature is filled with the religious activities within the monastery but misses the related educational aspect. Undoubtedly, monasteries were centers of Buddhist religious life, but at the same time, there was much teaching, writing, and learning happening inside. The clear indication of monastic learning is available in the series of Buddhist scriptures, mostly composed within the vihāras by different renowned monk scholars. There is a need to establish and situate Buddhist monasteries from the educational perspective. The intellectual aspect of monasteries was an inseparable part of their cultural life and at the same time was also promoted by their daily life. Appropriately, monasteries served as a needed means for the establishment and proliferation of Buddhism as a faith. Similarly, the purpose gurukulas served for Brāhmaṇical religion was carried out by mahāvihāras for Buddhism. If we can put faith to rest for a while, then we can apparently say that the Buddhist mahāvihāras served as an important center of learning in the contemporary period of South Asia. The history of Buddhist vihāras in the Indian subcontinent commences almost from the time of the Buddha, after which they undergo a gradual evolution and ornamentation. Vihāras acted as places of residence for Buddhist mendicants to follow the instructions of the Buddha. Sometimes the words ‟Ārāma” and ‟Vihāra” are synonymous.1 In Pāli, the word ‟Ārāma” has been used largely in connection with a residence for monks; hence it signifies a monastery.2 It was built not too far from the town but also not too near, making it convenient for coming and going. The monastery was readily available to anyone who wished to visit by day but was left uncrowded at night, and it was not exposed to too much noise and chaos.3 It helped quicken the growth of vihāras. The monasteries started as institutions of Buddhist monks and devotees for an organized, settled life financed by the royal munificence and liberal donations from lay-devotees. Later, these monasteries expanded into large institutions of learning, termed mahāvihāras, already discussed in chapter 1. To continue the previous discussion, we will address questions like what type of learning did monasteries provide? Was it the beginning of a new practice? What was the nature of monastic education? And how was it different from the earlier tradition of teaching? These questions take us back to gurukula custom, which was an existing source of learning in contemporary South Asia. Apparently, the new system of monastic education might



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have borrowed something from the previously existing tradition. More precisely, the rise of Buddhist learning seems to have been an offshoot of Brāhmaṇical learning, and it received direct and indirect stimulation from gurukulas and their glitches. When the gurukula education system reached its pinnacle, it attracted many evils that were also part of its consolidation. Early Indian society was changing rapidly around B.C. In fact, the age of the Upaniṣads was one of spiritual unrest and revolt against the formalism and exclusivity of the Brāhmaṇical system.4 The Vedic educational apparatus now did not satisfy the needs and requirements of this new society and its members. The gurukula schools later became instruments for the dominance of Brahmins in contemporary society. The Brāhmaṇas managed these Vedic schools since they had attained the supreme knowledge of Brahma, or the universe, through their mastery of the Vedas. Gradually they became the only spiritual supervisors of society and did not leave any place for the other three classes (i.e., the Kṣatriyas, the Vaiśyas, and the Śūdras). For the Kṣatriyas and the Vaiśyas, the study of the Vedas, specifically the first three Vedas, was compulsory before they could acquire their professional knowledge, which would earn them their livelihood. The Kṣatriyas, in particular, wanted to be the partner in this enlightenment game as they belonged to the ruling class. By 600 B.C., the Śūdras, women, and other untouchables were outlawed from admission to gurukulas. For the Śūdras and women in the Āryan society, the study of the Vedas was forbidden. They learned their professional knowledge of agriculture and animal husbandry, spinning and weaving, fine arts, and crafts through the expertise of their families. Sanskrit was the language of instruction in the gurukulas. It had become a status symbol of high dignity and intellectuality and was only known by a select few. By 600 B.C., the religion of the Āryans, which had been dominated by Brahmins, had become too ritualistic, dogmatic, and complex to attract simpler folk.5 Also, it propagated the belief that Śūdras and women would not be able to attain salvation. The consequence of these developments was that local inhabitants and a major chunk of the population moved further and further away from the contemporary educational setup. The growing need for a simpler religion and education motivated Kṣatriyas like the Mahāvīra and the Buddha to start new paths and challenge Brāhmaṇical domination within spiritual and educational domains. They preached the simplest way for all to attain salvation. However, it was Buddhism more than Jainism that posed a threat to Brāhmaṇism, possibly because of an elaborate educational apparatus that contested gurukulas. It was the Buddha who preached that everybody could reach salvation and rid themselves of the misery of this material world in the easiest possible way: knowing the ultimate truth by learning more and more about the Buddhist path.6 It led to the evolution of the new

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mahāvihāra education system to satisfy the expectation of all scholars and ordinary folks. In this way, it was the flaws of the gurukula tradition and the changes in Brāhmaṇical society and religion that created the environment for the evolution of mahāvihāra education. Furthermore, Buddhist monasteries, in addressing limitations of Vedic learning, improved the structure and nature of the tradition and almost started a new era of institutional knowledge. The Buddhist vihāras opened their doors to virtually all classes of the Āryan society and provided them with secured and closed campuses. The Śūdras and the Vaiśyas especially benefited by this move, but women remained more or less side-lined. Many of these people passionately wanted to be educated on religion but were previously rejected by the Brāhmaṇical gurukulas. Early monastic education seems to have focused upon instructions from the Buddhist doctrines, on the rules of discipline, and on the accounts of the previous lives of the Buddha in the local dialect of Pāli. During the Buddha’s lifetime, all teachings were imparted by word of mouth, without the use of books. There was unlimited freedom to argue, to dispute, and to debate, and everyone was expected to think, reason, and decide for themselves on all matters of Vinaya and Dhamma. Monks and nuns were also trained in various cultural subjects, in the tenets of other faiths, and in the system of Buddhist philosophy. The mahāvihāra education system adopted different methodological approaches to teaching and learning for monks and nuns, such as the Gradual Approach, Illustrative Approach, Analytical Approach, and Experimental Approaches. Gradually, as the monastic institutions grew in size and complexity, the pattern of education also expanded. In this way, mahāvihāra learning seems to be an extended and institutionalized version of the gurukula. The Nālandā system exhibited some fundamental differences from the Vedic schooling. These primary variances were positive in nature, which reflected the gradual institutionalization of the gurukula education system. The changing society, economy, and religion demanded revolutionary transformations in Brāhmaṇical education, which emerged in the new formal way of monastic learning. The incorporated changes in the mahāvihāra education system were supposed to fulfill the spiritual and educational wishes of marginalized sections of the society. The evolution and development of Nālandā education were simultaneous with the growth of the Buddhist religion. It was essential for the newly emerging religion to discover any institution that could be the center for creation and propagation of its doctrines. The vihāras and mahāvihāras fulfilled this need as residential complexex and acted as the best tools for spreading Buddhist ideas. However, the Buddhist vihāras possessed the inherent vitality of the Vedic schools to a certain extent. This natural vitality consisted of making the Āryan society entirely dependent on the learning imparted by the Vedic schools. The Vedic schools



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taught not merely the religious scriptures but also various arts and crafts, including medicine and other useful sciences, to meet the different requirements of the society. Meanwhile, the services of the Brahmins or teachers of the Vedic schools were always required by the people at large for various religious observances. It was not completely true for the Buddhist vihāras, whose residents had renounced the world to achieve nirvāṇa. The Buddhist monks in the Buddhist vihāras may well be compared to the saṃnyāsa stage of the four āśramas, wherein a person, having lived this life fully, becomes a renunciate to achieve salvation. The Vinaya Piṭaka allowed a monk to legitimately break the rain retreat for up to seven days, during which he was otherwise restricted to travel, in order to learn a sūtra in danger of being lost by a lay brother, for a ceremony marking the completion of a dwelling place for monks by a lay follower, for a completion ceremony for the home of a lay follower, for attending and performing the weddings of lay followers’ children, for funerals and death rituals, and for service to and treatment of a lay follower suffering an illness.7 Thus, it looks like monastic monks provided occasional and limited services to the society in a variety of domestic rituals connected with birth, marriage, death, house construction, and sickness. However, these services were only provided to individuals who were formally designated as lay brothers and lay sisters (upāsakas and upāsikās).8 This reflects sanctioned and assumed monastic participation in the domestic rituals, and the daily-life ceremonies of Buddhists partially inherited the vitality and practical implications of an educational institution. As a matter of fact, the emergence of vihāras was the main difference between organized and unorganized systems of education in South Asia, concerning institutionalization of learning. Although it seemed similar to the Brāhmaṇical learning model, the educational system of Nālandā, in fact, marked the beginning of the age of organized or institutional instruction. Unlike its contemporary Brāhmaṇical pattern, the Buddhist learning system centered around the monasteries that functioned as permanent establishments for training Buddhists and common folk, and for imparting and propagating Buddhist knowledge and philosophy. Nālandā, as a residential and autonomous monastic organization, provided systematic learning to its monks with basic infrastructural facilities such as hostels, cafeterias, lecture halls, apartments with beds, libraries, wells, temples, and so forth. The gurukulas were predominantly a domestic system of education under which the individual teacher’s home became a school for young children who were admitted as pupils. These centers of learning did not function as campuses. The single teacher determined the infrastructural and organizational facilities necessary for sound education. Learning occurred alongside the domestic affairs within the teacher’s home. On the other hand, Nālandā was only focused on religious rituals,

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learning, and teaching. Interestingly, gurukulas were known by their patron teachers, such as Vālmiki’s āśrama and Atṛi’s āśrama, with no defined rules and regulations. However, mahāvihāras were known by their names, such as Nālandā Mahāvihāra, and had defined codes of conduct, which also reflected their distinct individual identities as institutions. The necessity of a domestic environment in the Brāhmaṇical system did not favor the expansion of a small school under an individual teacher into a large educational institution. One teacher taught all the subjects he knew in his gurukula. Sometimes, one teacher taught one book in his possession. If there was a group of teachers, then each one taught their hereditary knowledge. All students were compelled to receive the same education at the same time. It seems there was no specialization or diversity of knowledge at gurukulas. On the other hand, Nālandā shifted school from the home of the teacher to the large monastery, providing an opportunity for expansion regarding knowledge and facilities. A collective body of teachers, who were specialized in different subjects, offered their knowledge to interested students. Each teacher was a master of one or more parts of Buddhist education, which he taught to his pupils. Hundreds of teachers taught different courses at the same time in many lecture halls, and students were free to attend these lectures. The prevailing diversity and specialization of knowledge at Nālandā was not static, and it was increasing with the inclusion of new teachers in the system. This structural difference from the Brāhmaṇical education system was significant, as it led to different pathways of formal evolution. While the Buddhist learning institutions were specialized only in higher spiritual and religious training, the Brāhmaṇical system could attain a broader scope by teaching a broad range of subjects necessary for social good. With the passage of time, especially after the Ṛgveda era, the Brāhmaṇical system rapidly began responding to the social changes and became limited in accessibility. But the mahāvihāra education system took the time to adjust to the changing situations. However, with the later diversification of Buddhism into different sects, the monasteries reconciled gradually and began accepting the evolution of realities by turning into Mahāyāna, Hīnayāna, and Tantrāyāna. They invited those students who had become snātaka in Vedic schools. However, the gurukulas could teach only the elementary forms of knowledge to their pupils. Students completing their primary education at gurukulas were considered graduates by monasteries. It was one of the major reasons why the Buddhist Saṁgha is especially interested in the continuous functioning and success of Vedic schools. The successes in both the academic and spiritual lives of each education system in ancient times, therefore, remained auxiliary to them. The Nālandā system of education began with the destruction of home life as the starting point, and then the monastery superseded the home.



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The entry into monasteries symbolized the end of the previous life and the beginning of a new phase, severing active connections with the home. But in the gurukulas, students did not lose their past identities and the culture to which they originally belonged. Students lived in a kind of joint family situation in gurukulas, which was, comparatively, a little larger than their previous family. The upanayana ceremony symbolized students’ transfer from their parents’ home to their teacher’s home. They usually returned home after the completion of their studies to begin their household life, fulfilling both the material and spiritual goals. They never lost their self-identity unless and until they willingly opted for Vānaprastha and Saṃnyāsa. The monk’s life in monasteries had a close resemblance to that of an ascetic life of a Vānaprastha or Saṃnyāsa engaged in their search for excellent knowledge. The doors of the Buddhist vihāras were open to almost anyone interested in Buddhism, except for women in the beginning. The Vinaya texts claim that the comfortable life within the order drew many to it to solve their problems of survival. One of the major limitations of the Brāhmaṇical system of education was that it excluded Śūdras, women, Anāryas, and most of the Vaiśyas from its spiritual and material guidance, leaving behind more than half of the population. The mahāvihāra system of education, on the other hand, insisted that the student should be admitted on his personal merit and not by his family or caste. It allowed Śūdras, Vaiśyas, untouchables, and later women, as well, into its fold. The maximum participation of the society became possible through the inclusion of Śūdras and Vaiśyas in monastic instruction. Vaiśyas, especially, helped in its success concerning financial support. Theologically, while the Brāhmaṇical system of learning appealed more to the head than to the heart, the Buddhist system of knowledge did just the opposite, eventually attracting millions. While Brāhmaṇical education was taught in Sanskrit, the language of the elite, the Buddhist system of education insisted upon Pāli or Prākṛt and other popular languages as the language of instruction. In this way, Nālandā institutionalized education, not only through the inclusion of all varṇas but also through instruction in local dialects. It was another step towards the democratization and popularization of education,9 and we can say it was comparatively a more democratic and universal system, with less participation of Brahmins and increased participation of women. OBJECTIVES OF STUDY AT ŚRĪ NĀLANDĀ The objectives of Nālandā Mahāvihāra may be seen in the academic and cultural activities held at the campus. The Buddha’s discourses were

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the source of inspiration in the emergence and development of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. In the beginning, while the Buddha was institutionalizing the vihāras as the resident place for monks, he said that it would be the place where his followers could live with ease, think in peace about the sorrows of life, and try to attain the ways of salvation. In other words, the monks were to critically examine the ideas of the Buddha to solve the problems of life. The ultimate aim, however, was to expand the horizon of Buddhism and spread the philosophy of the Buddha. When the vihāras developed into mahāvihāras and then transformed into temples of learning, they began to work systematically to achieve this aim. In this way, Fergusson has rightly suggested that what clergy and clairvoyants were to France in the Middle Ages, Nālandā was to Central India, the depository of all learning and foundation from which it spread over all the Buddhist land.10 The ultimate mission of Nālandā Mahāvihāra as a learning institution was the maximum advertisement of the Buddha’s thoughts and philosophy, and the propagation of Buddhism in untouched parts of the ancient world, which Buddhists treated as a sacred duty. Consistent efforts, namely training, research, studying, and writing, were undertaken to codify Buddhist thoughts and thus make it more relevant to the contemporary time and space. For this purpose, they also critically evaluated modern religions and thought. The education and training imparted here enabled students to develop self-confidence and an analytical mind and become faithful followers of the Buddha’s path. This ultimate objective was followed by the two additional goals. The first goal concerned beginners who got admitted to Nālandā due to their interest in Buddhism. Nālandā provided initial training to inspired novices to make them capable of joining the Order of the Buddha and following the path. It was a method to familiarize them with the ideas of the Buddha until the age of twenty. In case they did not join the Buddhist order as a monk, they entered into household life and propagated the ideas of Buddhism in contemporary society as lay brothers or lay followers. And if they were ordained as monks, then the number of fully devoted Buddhist followers increased. The second primary purpose was to achieve salvation by exploring the knowledge of Buddhism. It was the lifetime aim for the fully ordained monks. It was the basic objective of monastic life around which all the educational and religious activities were moving. The making of a Buddhist man was a continuous process and an artistic event that took place at Nālandā. It was the ideal objective of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, an anchor of learning, which was popularly known as the Oxford of Buddhist India.11 It consciously or unconsciously dived deep down into the Indian psyche and tried to generate the maximum number of Buddhists. The purpose of education at Nālandā was the all-around



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development of its monks and their instincts, patent or latent. The uplifting of a monk’s inborn moral, spiritual, and intellectual fervor was the solitary motive of Nālandā’s learning. The intellectual pursuit was not at a discount here, but what was most important was spiritual attainment.12 This gave Nālandā Mahāvihāra a rare character of its own. In the words of Yijing, Nālandā could claim to be a magnificent ‟Temple of Learning in Jambudvīpa.”13 It is apparent that Nālandā was a learning institution but in a religious complex, so we can call it an institution of religious learning. SCOPE OF STUDY Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, being an organization of religious education, did not show much interest in the material benefits of the study. An average man could have entered into the monastery with an aim to learn the Buddhist way of life. Imparting practical spiritual knowledge and learning was the applaud-worthy aspect of the study at Nālandā Mahāvihāra. Nevertheless, the followers theoretically introduced the teachings and training. Education, as conceived and understood by the custodians and professors of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, meant all-around development (i.e., intellectual, moral, spiritual, and aesthetic).14 Inside the mahāvihāra, every follower was trained to live a highly moral and spiritual life according to the advice passed down by the Buddha. During the training until the age of twenty, the ācāryas of Nālandā taught a man how to live in peace and how to manage himself in troublesome situations. Hopefully, the installed Buddhist way of life could have helped the alumni of Nālandā to have a better life. One scope of the study at Nālandā could have been getting the designation of an upāsaka (i.e., the lay brother, lay sister, or lay follower of Buddhism). It enabled upāsakas to get free ritual services from monks in the age of costly religious services from Brāhmaṇas, on the occasions of domestic and life-changing events. The practical aspect of study at Śrī Nālandā was to provide secure spiritual peace to all when Brāhmaṇism outlawed many from perfect amity. Nālandā provided a kind of mental peace to individuals from following a simpler religion than Brāhmaṇism. The monk alumni and professors of Nālandā Mahāvihāra strenuously supported and practiced the eightfold path as taught by Lord Buddha. They sincerely tried to live up to the ideals shown by their masters. The students of Nālandā Mahāvihāra sought to cultivate and imbibe the higher spiritual life, besides contributing enormously to the field of philosophy and logic. The practical value of graduation from such a prestigious institution can be gauged by the fact that wicked men fraudulently claimed graduation, and “those who stole the name of Nālandā brother

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were all treated with respect wherever they went.”15 It is hard to articulate the extent of respect a Buddhist got in the contemporary society after the completion of training from Nālandā, especially when compared to a Hindu. We can say for sure, as also observed by the Chinese pilgrims, that an educated person from Nālandā was treated with admiration in society, at least among the educated community. The scope of study at Nālandā, regarding being able to secure a job, seems no more provocative. The lay followers mostly started a household life after basic and initial training in Buddhism from Nālandā, lacking the ability to get jobs. The monks were renouncers and did not seem interested in material benefits, even after specializing in Buddhist knowledge. The contemporary ruling kings, especially those who were inclined towards Buddhism, showed interest in the skills of monks. The king often requested a monk scholar from Nālandā to prove his higher status in the frequently organized religious debates between Buddhism and Brāhmaṇism at the royal courts. Yijing also mentioned that sometimes the monks of Nālandā Mahāvihāra went to the King’s court, and after showing their skills in Buddhist scriptures got a position in the efficient government. Probably at times, they were appointed as the religious Guru or the spiritual guide of the kings. It seems one of the earliest abbots of Nālandā, Nāgārjuna, stayed as a personal tutor to King Udayana Bhadra of Northern India for three years. Śāntarakṣita served as the spiritual guide of the King of Nepal, and Śāntideva was a minister to the Kingdom of Pañcamasimha.16 The kings who patronized Buddhism also provided jobs such as explaining the Buddha’s preaching, translating Buddhist scriptures, or teaching princes. In this case, there were chances of both the expansion of Buddhism and the surety of a luxurious life for a particular monk. ADMISSION AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION The conditions for admission to Nālandā show that it was run as an institution of higher learning where admission was a prestigious matter and by no means an easy task. To cope with the rush for admission, the rules for entry were strict. At Nālandā, the Dwārapaṇḍita, or gatekeepers, who were specialists in discussion and expert religious controversialists, admitted the students. Xuanzang observed, “Of those aspirants who wished to enter the schools of debate, the majority, beaten by the difficulties of problems, withdrew and those who were deeply versed in old and modern learning were admitted, only two or three out of ten succeeding. One must have studied intensely both the old and new books before getting admission.”17 It is hard to say what kind of interview it was, but it sounds



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quite rudimentary. What is important to note here is that this interview process was not as severe as the Chinese travelers have described. We know that the door of monasteries was open to all, and this emerging order was in need of new followers. In this case, Xuanzang has mentioned that the success ratio was only two out of ten. How, then, would it be possible to admit about four thousand monks to Nālandā Mahāvihāra? What we can say is that the initial interview by the gatekeepers was meant to determine a candidate’s degree of loyalty and devotion towards Buddhism. The readiness of a candidate to accept the monastic life and training could be a potential threat to the order. It seems that the educational qualifications could have been an extra or minor thing, since Śūdras and other untouchables, who were already barred from Vedic education, were major participants in this monastic training. About the method of study at Śrī Nālandā, the old Brāhmaṇical gurukula practice of reciting the texts and understanding their meaning was still in practice.18 The method of teaching at Nālandā seems to have been both tutorial and discussion-based, besides lecturing. Instructions were imparted orally and characterized by much earnestness and painstaking labor on the part of teachers. The teaching/training method was mainly oral; it was carried out by way of discussion and questioning, besides formal lectures by teachers. They arranged about one hundred pulpits every day for preaching, and the students attended these discourses without fail, even for a minute.19 These were like bigger classes. The number of podiums seems to be an exaggeration, as per the archaeologically revealed thirteen monasteries within the campus, and we can imagine a maximum of fifty-two classes in a day.20 Therefore, if one class was held every two hours for eight hours each day, then in the excavated thirteen monasteries there would have been fifty-two lectures in a working day. Apparently, about fifty topics were discussed daily. It also shows that the academic calendar of Nālandā was tight and it kept both the teachers and the students quite busy throughout the year. The expansion of the Vedic tradition of delivering lectures is an important development to note here. Now it was carried out on a large, institutional scale and within a confined boundary. A principal place was also given to discussion and debate, at least in the higher part of the course in the era of various dogmas and philosophical attitudes having only in common called ‟views” (dṛṣṭi) as far as sixty-two from a Buddhist perspective described in Brahmajāla Sutta. It was a regular practice to open up the subjects taught for review and discussion inspired by one’s love for one’s own views and feeling that others’ opinions are defective. It is evident from the account of Xuanzang about Nālandā: “The brethren are often assembled for discussion to test intellectual capacity to reject the worthless and advance the intelligent. Again, the day is not suf-

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Figure 4.1.  The Pulpit for Teachers to Address Students Living in Rooms. Source: Pintu Kumar.

ficient for asking and answering profound questions. From morning until night, they engage in a discussion where the old and the youth mutually help one another.”21 The intellectual but religious debates, like modern-day academic workshops, attracted learned men from different cities at the monastery of Nālandā to test and to share their scholarship on a particular theme. Learning through dialogue not only helped in solving intellectual disputes and settling doubts but also improved Buddhist knowledge, religion, and philosophy. The monks, with improved knowledge and broad scholarship, would have quickly acquired fame throughout the country. Being a premier institution of Buddhist learning, Śrī Nālandā played a significant role in the advancement and diffusion of Buddhist knowledge and philosophy through institutionalization and legitimation of debate. The age and activities of Śrī Nālandā promoted the institutionalization of dialectics in terms of debate as a permissible and recommended practice and later as a codified discipline in the campus and outside. Johannes Bronkhorst22 often truly indicated that debate might have been instrumental in the rise of doctrinal systematicity, philosophy, and more generally rational inquiry in ancient India. Bronkhorst refers to this old and silent feature of Indian tradition as rational debate but Bruno Lo Turco23 replaces the term



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‟rational” with ‟theoretical” to mean that which offers a systematic model of understanding including both scientific and theoretical elaboration and philosophical theoretical elaboration. Buddhist canonical sources clearly forbid the practice of debates, quarrels, disputes, and discussions, all of which originate in false views, are detrimental to salvation, and result in ethically transgressed forms of speech. The strong canonical prohibitions did not stop the Buddhists from indulging in doctrinal debates from an early date. The rise of many Buddhist sects testifies to dispute and contention in disciplinary as well as doctrinal matters in the absence of any centralized authority and the numerous local identities. The gradual fragmentation of the Buddhist order was either caused by, involved, or resulted in intrabuddhistic controversies.24 The institutionalization and legitimation of dialectics in the Buddhist monastic environment evidenced from the third to fourth century C.E. presented an interesting set of events that coincided with the growth of Buddhism and monastic apparatus visible from the creation of various genres of Buddhist dialectical literature. There are two stages visible in the process correspondingly related to the Early and Middle25 (systematic) and the later (post-systematic) periods of Indian Buddhism in terms of target groups and self-legitimation. Contrary to the popular view, Elischinger argues that the majority of Buddhist polemical rhetoric seems to address fellow Buddhists in the Early and Middle Buddhist periods of the pre-fifth century, and the Buddhist epistemologists also made the outsiders and their fallaciousness the principal addressees of their polemical and apologetic endeavors after the end of the fifth century; one of the earlier legitimation strategies (polemical/apologetic, against the outsiders) overshadowed the other (didactic/catechetic, Abhidharmic and intrabuddhistic).26 We know that the monastery of Nālandā became a big center of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and the Mahāyāna was, first and foremost, to promote its superiority by contrasting itself with the mainstream Buddhism within the same or neighboring monasteries. The practiced Bodhisattvayāna was institutionally located within the larger, dominant, established monastic order as a marginal element struggling for recognition and acceptance27 in the views of other Buddhists. Generally, the outsiders occupy a more than marginal place in the manuscripts of the pre-Dignāga period such as the works of Asaṅga and Nāgārjuna. Nāgārjuna also tried to establish Mahāyāna in the monastic environment as a powerful tool in order to defeat rival schools, mainly the Sarvāstivādin, through his works.28 The Buddhist dialectical treatises of the Dignāga and the post-Dignāga period stressed the study and practice of hetuvidyā by a bodhisattva in order to defeat outsiders such as the dialectical treatises of Dignāga, Sthiramati, Dharmakīrti, Kamalaśīla, and so forth. The Buddhist dialecticians were still striving for institutional recognition by elaborating self-legitimation in the Middle Period through scriptural authority. This important feature of

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legitimation strategy included reliable scriptures or manuscripts of a truthful person (i.e., the Buddhist scriptures). Some legitimated their branch of knowledge by excluding disputation and presenting it as a didactic catechetic methodology for religious education that would help fellow Buddhists reach salvation knowledge, mental concentration, and liberation reflected from the hetuvidyā section of the Yogācārabhūmi and a short section of the Sāṃkathyaviniścaya chapter of the Abhidharmasamuccaya and others decided to legitimate dialectics by conceding disputation as polemical and soteriological detrimental but beneficial, originated in defilements motivated by compassion to get rid of soteriological harmful views and to protect the Buddhist law from outward assaults (i.e., from the hostility of the Māras, the outsiders and the human beings beset with wrong views) testified by the Bodhisattvabhūmiḥ, the Mahāyāna-Sūtrālaṅkāra, and the Upāyahṛdaya.29 The later Buddhist period does not criticize monks engaged in debate allowing to conclude the hetuvidyā to be of a polemical nature and an integral part of the monastic curriculum, reflected from the texts such as the Bodhisattvabhūmiḥ, the Mahāyāna-Sūtrālaṅkāra, and the Upāyahṛdaya. These treatises show that the Buddhist epistemologists legitimated hetuvidyā by imparting expertise in the means of valid cognition, rational justification, and self-understanding. The monastery of Nālandā witnessed or went through both processes of institutionalization and legitimation of debate as a medium to educate the coreligionists and to protect Buddhism from outsiders. The later stage of the process seems more visible, when the monks of Nālandā zealously targeted the Brāhmaṇical and non-Brāhmaṇical outsiders together through the creation of many Buddhist scriptures and also defeated them in frequent debates in its prosperous days. The change in legitimation strategies happened probably because of different historical circumstances, needs, interests, circumstances, and environments such as the rise of the epistemological school arguing the rationality of Buddhism as a salvation path, hostility towards the Brāhmaṇical and non-Brāhmaṇical traditions, the dawn of the Early Medieval period, economic pressure and political reformulation, and adoption-cum-adaptation of the Śaiva aesthetic, symbolics, and ritual.30 The Buddhist monasteries quickly adopted and promoted learning through written language after it began on the Indian subcontinent a little after 300 B.C. It became one of the important methods of learning and sacred activities within the campus of Nālandā. Often the learned monks penned their understanding of Buddhist religion and philosophy in the form of commentaries, annotations, reviews, and essays. The monks were indulged in copying, transcribing, and inscribing Buddhist literature and the Buddha’s sermons and life with teachings, reflected from the reference of many texts composed at Nālandā. The Chinese pilgrims Xuanzang and Yijing translated and wrote several books at Nālandā during



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their stay. They also collected and carried many religious manuscripts back to China. Teachers used religious, pedagogical methods to quicken and increase the latent powers of thinking in the students and gradually lead them to conclusions. They explained the general meaning with all details; they inspired students to be active and to progress. When disciples, intelligent and acute, were addicted to idle shirking, the teacher doggedly repeated instructions until training was finished.31 Śrī Nālandā practiced teaching and training through religion. On campus, learning could not be separated from religion. The Buddha’s religion seems to have been the sole motivator for all academic happenings. Daily life was full of rituals, work, worship, and meditations embedded for teaching purposes. The constant practice of rituals and worship on campus aimed to develop a better understanding of Buddhism, and later its successful performance in the homes of followers. The monk performed various menial tasks assigned to him to draw up a sense of responsibility and self-realization. Meditation acted as a powerful tool of pedagogy to control the minds and to achieve mental peace and a healthy life.32 It is believed that meditating on the preaching of the Buddha could lead to a higher and deeper appreciation. It was hard to separate introspection and study from the daily life of Nālandian monks. The practice of meditation later became more prominent on campus to get magical and supernatural powers. The methods discussed above, carried out in a wonderful religious atmosphere, were sacred duties of residents. TEACHERS OF NĀLANDĀ All educational institutions are extended shadows of their teachers and students, of which they are the makers and the destroyers. Śrī Nālandā, for instance, was like the extended shadow of its paṇḍitas (generally scholars and particularly teachers) and students. Nālandā is still known in the Buddhist rational world for its famed and highly qualified teachers and their philosophical and logical works on Buddhism, which attracted scholars of religious studies. In Nālandā, it appears that Paṇḍit was a distinctive title bestowed upon the head of the mahāvihāra. It is also significant that the title of Mokṣa-deva or Mokṣa-ācārya was applied to Buddhist monks of distinction as Jñānaprabha called this to Xuanzang in his letter.33 There were many monk-scholars at Nālandā, and it is hard to count them. Xuanzang says that in his time as many as 1,510 teachers were at Nālandā. Among them, there were a thousand men who could explain twenty collections of sūtras and śāstras, five hundred who could explain thirty collections, and perhaps ten (including Xuanzang) who could explain fifty collections.34 These numbers seem more than usual, as if he doubled them,

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but we cannot say with certainty due to lack of evidence. Archaeological excavations revealed that the architecture also does not support such big numbers. It is also hard to identify the difference between a teacher’s residence and a student’s room in a monastery. It may not have always been the case that the teachers were provided with separate apartments on campus, due to a lack of such small homes. The contemporary Indian Buddhist arena also does not allow for 1,510 scholars at Nālandā alone. Such a large number of researchers could account for the whole Indian subcontinent. We can say for sure that there were a sufficient number of teachers at Nālandā to instruct all residents, including both junior and senior teachers. The teacher-to-student ratio was balanced to an extent: Sankalia puts it at one to seven.35 Nālandā was and still is well known for its learned and renowned upājjhāya, or professors. The following experts in Buddhist religion and philosophy were associated with Nālandā: Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, Dharmapāla,36 Śīlabhadra, Candrakīrti, Candranātha, Dignāga,37 Dharmakīrti,38 Kamalaśīla,39 Āryadeva,40 Śāntarakṣita,41 Vasubandhu,42 Candragomī, Rāhulaśrībhadra, and so on. The earliest ācārya and abbot of Nālandā, as far as we know, was Nāgārjuna, a Brāhmaṇa from Southern India. There are many figures named Nāgārjuna in Buddhist history, and we are not sure which one this is. This Nāgārjuna has special significance in the history of Nālandā and was the first responsible for establishing Mahāyāna and destroying many distorted views of Buddhism and bringing honor and recognition to the learned monks in the three higher trainings at Nālandā.43 Later, when the Mahāyāna doctrine had been gradually weakened, and none of the practicing monks possessed Mahāyāna understanding, Asaṅga and his eight disciples reestablished the doctrine by their teaching of the Dharma during the twelve years of Asaṅga’s abbotship.44 Famed teachers like Yāna Chandra, Prabhākarmitra, Sthiramati,45 and Guṇamati were the contemporaries of Xuanzang. Interestingly, most of them were the products of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, in the sense that first they came to Nālandā and were later ordained as monks, or they came to Nālandā for ordination. Then, while searching for knowledge under their preceptor or upājjhāya, they reached the height of religious institution by lasting contribution to Buddhist religion and philosophy. It appears that all famous teachers and abbots of Nālandā belonged to Brāhmaṇa families, except Sthiramati. Also, surprisingly, most of the teachers seem to come from South India. Brahmanism was in full swing in South India during the flourishing stage of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which might have compelled these Brāhmaṇas to migrate to Madhyadeśa looking for respect, wisdom, and knowledge. Their Brāhmaṇical orientation might have been hidden in their daily life and activities. Probably, the latter part of the lives of masters more clearly reflected their association with Brāhmaṇical



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ideology, since they moved out of the monastery and wandered as ascetics, sometimes taking refuge in caves and forests. The monk teachers of Nālandā were ‟Dignified,” ‟Grave,” ‟Venerable,” and ‟‘Learned,” for which they deserved respect and honor from the society. The poet, dramatist, and king Harṣa’s tribute to the paṇḍitas of Nālandā is worth mentioning. In a letter to Śīlabhadra, the head of the Nālandā convent, he wrote,46 “Now I know that in your convent there are eminent priests and exceedingly gifted ones, belonging to different schools of learning, which will undoubtedly be able to overthrow them (priests of the Little Vehicle).” So, we can assume that there was no doubt about the high qualification of these professors. Interestingly enough, almost every well-learned scholar was specialized in either one thought or several ideas of Buddhism. Sometimes they also founded a new school of thought and were the chief exponents of that particular idea. This new discipline used to be the focus and attraction of Nālandā Mahāvihāra studies. For example, Ācārya Kamalaśīla was the authority of the Tantrā Vidyā, and Nāgārjuna became the founder of the Mādhyāmika school of the Mahāyāna philosophy. We can evidence the gradation of teachers in Nālandā Mahāvihāra by the facilities they received from monastery administration. The teachers were divided into two categories, called ācāryas and upājjhāyas.47 Against Brāhmaṇical practice,48 here the upājjhāya seemed to be ranked higher than the ācārya. In Saṁgha, they followed the Brāhmaṇa terminology ācārya and antevāsika for earlier training, which ended for traditional students at the age of twenty, at the latest. Then, they became snātakas and returned home to marry and set up a household. But for those who left the world to join the Buddhist order, at about the same age, the ordination (upasampadā) into full monkhood came with a new system of guidance and new terms to match: upājjhāya and saddhivihārika. The latter was comparable to the brahmacārins of the Vedic schools.49 The upājjhāya only could confer the ordination of a monk, and he got the blame if a monk was ordained before the age of twenty, which was against the rules. The succession of Vinaya teachers is a succession of upājjhāya and saddhivihārika, and not of ācāryas and antevāsikas.50 We have less information about the ācāryas because both the Chinese and the Tibetan sources do not tell us about them. They might not have had significant positions in the mahāvihāra educational system. But what we do know is that they were performing the basic but important work of training beginner students, making them capable of becoming Buddhist monks and taking care of monastic chores. Their range of studies rather than their depth of knowledge of a particular subject ranked the resident monks, according to Xuanzang’s account. Each position carried with it different privileges. In this way, the highest dignitary of Nālandā paṇḍitas had a lot of opportunities and facilities,

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which is evidenced by Xuanzang’s presentation before Śīlabhadra, “The Brother who expounds orally one treatise, whether Vinaya, Abhidharma, or Sūtra, is exempted from serving under the Prior; he who expounds two is invested with the outfit of a Superior; he who expounds three has Brethren deputed to assist him; he who expounds four has lay servants assigned to him; he who expounds five rides an elephant; he who describes six rides an elephant and has surrounding retinue.”51 Among the status privileges attained by Xuanzang, the supply of menial servants and the riding of an elephant are mentioned.52 Yijing saw the “venerable and learned priests at Nālandā ride in the sedan chairs but never on horseback, while their necessary baggage is carried by other persons or taken by boys.” It looks like all essential items—clothes, food, medicine, servants, and transportation—for a comfortable religious and academic life were provided by the monastic administration to the masters. Now, what were the duties these monk teachers had towards Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra? If they were provided with all the possible facilities from the monastic administration, then obviously their duties were extensive and various in nature. They had to perform different tasks ranging from teaching, reading, and writing to the management of the Mahāvihāra. It means they had tight schedules. They were consciously and actively working with the aim to achieve salvation by knowing the deep meaning of the Buddha’s sayings and expanding Buddhism to the whole parts and among non-followers. Also, it was the responsibility of monks to take care of the property of the monastery. Some monks acted as caretakers and took care of the supply of essentials to the monastery. It is evident from the biography of paṇḍitas that not all monks of Nālandā were devoted to their assigned duties, knowing the extent of his realization and only concerned with eating, sleeping, gossiping, and defecating. Such monks were treated as a threat to the community living in the monastery, and often monks complained about them to the abbot. For example, some monks at Nālandā became upset about Candrakīrti and Śāntideva and complained to the contemporary abbot, saying, “He never does any study, meditation or work, he only eats and sleeps. Besides this, he holds the views of a non-Buddhist. There is no doubt that he will bring us problems. It would be better to expel him.”53 The primary duty of upājjhāyas and ācāryas was the delivering of lectures. The professors had the high standard of teaching various Buddhist thoughts and ideas. The paṇḍitas of Nālandā were famous all over ancient Magadha and its neighborhood for their religious knowledge. Besides this, these upājjhāyas acted as the new guides or supervisors for monks in their achievement of salvation. In this way, they used to solve the problems of their students regarding re-exploring Buddhist ideas. And not only this but they also guided their students in achieving their spiritual,



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peaceful, and moral life. Simultaneously, these tutors carried on their writing and translating works of Buddhist religion, philosophy, logic, grammar, and dictionaries. There are shreds of evidence that almost every instructor wrote either original texts or brief and lengthy commentary on earlier Buddhist scriptures, or translated those into various languages. For example, Xuanzang also wrote two books on Mahāyāna principles and Yogācāra while studying at Nālandā.54 This work was deeply incorporated in their daily life and became an inseparable part of their academic activity. Teachers mainly gave a teaching on the texts and the subjects they had written about. It was how the professors of Nālandā contributed a lot in the generation of Buddhist knowledge. At Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, there was a rule that paṇḍitas who could successfully challenge and defeat non-Buddhists were allowed to teach outside the iron fence. However, those who were unable to do so could teach only within the boundaries of Nālandā, as Candragomī noticed the contemporary abbot Candrakīrti giving teachings outside the fence.55 This shows the prevalence of an unusual practice of indoor and outdoor teachings at Śrī Nālandā. It appears that the senior and learned scholars also arranged lectures outside the door of Nālandā for everyday people. It could have been more or less an all-purpose, exciting, and ear-catching religious preaching to attract more followers to the order. Indirectly, it relates to the sacred practice of conversion, (i.e., non-Buddhist to Buddhist), which senior monks, experienced in confrontations with non-Buddhists, were eligible to carry out. The Mahāvihāra has contributed much to the development of Buddhist learning and its expansion as the idealistic philosophy and religion through the intellectuality of fellows in South Asia. The life and activities of the teachers of Nālandā involved frequent encounters with non-Buddhists and later their conversion in Buddhism through wandering all over the Indian subcontinent. Monk teachers looked more interested in converting Brāhmaṇas to the path of the Buddha. Madhyadeśa, or the area around Magadha, was the focus of these intellectual conversion activities, with numerous incidents of individual and group conversions. But it was also carried out in other parts of the country. Asaṅga spread Dhamma in eastern, western, and southern parts of India, and Vasubandhu, Dignāga, and Dharmakīrti were respectively active in Kashmir, Odivisha, and Gujarat. The propagation of Buddhism was understood as a sacred duty, which the masters of Nālandā carried out very sincerely. Nālandā’s reputed teachers also went outside of India, upon invitation, to places such as Tibet, Nepal, Śrī Lanka, China, Central Asia, Jāvā, and Sumatra, where they propagated Buddhism. The upājjhāyas Śāntarakṣita, Paḍmasaṃbhava, Kamalaśīla, and Atīśa Dīpāṁkara 56 were the first amongst many to visit Tibet, where they learned the Tibetan language and translated the Bud-

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dhist and Sanskrit works into Tibetan. Consequently, they converted the inhabitants to Buddhism.57 Śāntarakṣita, and later Paḍmasaṃbhava and Kamalaśīla, went to Tibet from Nālandā on a special invitation to reestablish the Buddhist doctrine there. According to most of the later sources, bSam-yas (Beyond Imagination) was the first monastery to be founded in Tibet in 779 A.D., at the behest of King Khri-srong-le-btsan, by Śāntarakṣita on the model of Odantapurī.58 Alongside overseeing the construction and consecration of the first monastery in Tibet, Śāntarakṣita became its abbot, and the Paṇḍit Kamalaśīla succeeded him after his death. It was the beginning of organized monastic Buddhism in Tibet. Prabhākarmitra studied the śāstras with Śīlabhadra and was at last appointed as a teacher of Abhidharma at Nālandā. Traveling towards the north en route to China, he came to the camp of the Chief of the Western Turks and taught Buddhism. He reached China in 627 A.D. and translated several Sanskrit Buddhist manuscripts into Chinese until 633 A.D., the most important amongst them being the Mahāyāna Sūtrālamkāra-śāstra of Asaṅga.59 Vajrabodhi, a member of the royal family of Madhyadeśa, studied at Nālandā for many years and went to Ceylon and from there to China, where he translated many Sanskrit manuscripts into Chinese and introduced Tantrā in China.60 Buddhakīrti, the monk of Nālandā, gave to the Chinese emperor as presents some relics of the Buddha and some Sanskrit manuscripts. He came to China from Nālandā in 989 A.D. The ācārya Vasubandhu went to Nepal in the final days of his life with many disciples, and taught the Mahāyāna doctrine widely and established many Dharma foundations.61 The senior most upājjhāya, sometimes also called Mahāpaṇḍita or the Master of Masters, also succeeded as the abbot of the Nālandā Mahāvihāra. This professor could be compared to the current vicechancellors who were the heads of all religious activities. The duration of this highest post of Nālandā seems unclear, but it appears to have depended upon the wish of the monk for whatever time he wanted to serve the institution. The head of Nālandā looked after the administration of the mahāvihāra and also controlled and regulated the moral, pious, and spiritual life of the monastery. It was on them that the present and future of Nālandā depended, and so they were provided with all possible facilities by the institution. There are narratives of many such professors who worked as the head of the Nālandā learning organization. Nāgārjuna and his pupil Āryadeva were among the early founders and abbots of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The mahāvihāra found other paṇḍitas in Dignāga, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu, who, placing their services at its disposal, made the monastery famous by their contribution to Logic. Perhaps, next to Dignāga, as only Tāranātha refers, Jayadeva had the distinction of occupying the abbot chair.62 Candrakīrti succeeded Jay-



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adeva. Tāranātha says that he was a Master of Masters. As the Paṇḍit of Nālandā, Candrakīrti composed commentaries upon Mādhyāmikamula, Mādhyāmikavicāra, and First Principles.63 Later, Dharmapāla became the head of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, around the beginning of the seventh century. Both Yijing and Xuanzang64 refer to Dharmapāla’s profound learning, and it was under him that Xuanzang learned Sanskrit at Nālandā. When Xuanzang visited Nālandā in 635 A.D., Śīlabhadra, preceded by Dharmapāla, was the head of the mahāvihāra.65 There was a generation of many important teachers at Nālandā, famous for their remarkable talent, robust learning, pronounced ability, and important virtue. Here it is evident they showed their virtues and scholarship in almost every part of Buddhist religion and philosophy and possessed much less knowledge of other branches of learning. The Kathāsaritsāgara, a text of the eleventh century, references the Brāhmaṇa Vasudatta choosing to send his son, as soon as he completed his elementary education, to Valabhī from his native place in Antrāvedī in the Gaṅgetic Valley. It shows that the Brahmin father did not consider Nālandā a suitable place for his son’s education. It means that Nālandā might have been a prestigious institution of Buddhist religion and philosophy, but other subjects such as Nītisāra, medicine, Brāhmaṇical literature, and so on had less representation there in comparison to Valabhī. The life history of Paṇḍitas of Nālandā also supports this argument. For example, Āryadeva in his youth became a famous Hindu logician of South India. His mother was a Buddhist, and she sent him to Central India, probably to Nālandā, where he met his equal, defeated him in the debate, and consequently converted to Buddhism.66 Here, a mother from South India knew that all great Buddhist masters of religion, philosophy, and logic lived at Nālandā. STUDENTS The fame of Nālandā’s teachers helped in attracting students and scholars from all parts of India and South Asia in general. The number of students residing at Nālandā amounted to ten thousand in Xuanzang’s time, while in Yijing’s time the number of students increased to thirteen thousand. It is not clear if these figures included student-monks. Basham believes that these figures are not compatible with the findings from excavations; he thinks the number could have exceeded not more than one thousand.67 Sankalia had already considered the number ten thousand too high, but hewing closer to the number given by Yijing, he assumed approximately four thousand students lived there. It is hard to determine the real number of students of Nālandā, especially in the case of such fluctuation observed by the Chinese pilgrims. Also, there is a chance that

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the Chinese pilgrims, being Buddhists, have exaggerated the numbers for added glory to Nālandā. In this situation, it is clear that the number of residents increased during the time of Yijing in comparison to the period of Xuanzang at Nālandā. Apparently, the total number of ten thousand seems too much and would have been impossible to accommodate in the exposed architecture of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. Keeping in mind the area and buildings of Nālandā, we can imagine the number of residents during Yijing’s time would have been more than one thousand but not exceeding three thousand, including everyone (i.e., upājjhāyas, ācāryas, senior monks, junior monks, students, administrative staff, and others). The time of Xuanzang and Yijing was the prosperous time for Nālandā, during which it might have had its maximum number of participants. Tāranātha entered into Nālandā in its deteriorating phase and mentioned only four Paṇḍitas and seventy monks residing under the leadership of Mahāpaṇḍita Rāhulaśrībhadra.68 We can see the unexpected decline in the number of residents and students in the thirteenth century. Xuanzang says, “Learned men from different cities, who desired to acquire fame in the discussion quickly, came here in multitude to settle their doubts and then spread far and wide.69 It seems Nālandā Mahāvihāra attracted scholars, students, followers, and non-Buddhists from all parts of India. The Madhyadeśa, or the area around Magadha, would have obviously supplied Nālandā with its maximum number of residents. The continuous flow of students and teachers already from the far southern part of India to Nālandā was reflected during the discussion of teachers. Some of the scholars came from outside of India, such as China, Tibet, Mongolia,70 and Korea.71 Again we learn from Yijing that before and after Xuanzang’s visit, in the interval of forty years, as many as fifty-six student scholars visited India from China, Japan, Tibet, and Korea. Most of them came to Nālandā on land via Khotan, Tibet, and Nepal, while some of them came by way of the sea via Tāmraliptī. Yijing also gives a list of thirteen foreign scholars who were his contemporaries at Nālandā. We can count the students from overseas on our fingers who came to Śrī Nālandā and resided and studied there for a considerable period. It looks like the international scholars were not hard to notice on the campus and were treated with special care. They might have enjoyed some freedom in their studies, as Xuanzang and Yijing both studied Yogācāra philosophy in periods of five and ten years, respectively. These scholars came with a special purpose at Nālandā to learn about and explore Buddhism and Buddhist manuscripts and soon returned. There is a lack of evidence that anybody stayed forever at Nālandā. The international character of Nālandā Mahāvihāra has been pointed out for a long time, focusing on the presence of a vast number of scholars from abroad. It seems partially right. The number of transnational students is few in comparison with



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the total number of residents. We also do not know about any teacher at Nālandā from abroad. At least the scholars from outside the Indian subcontinent were present on the campus in the age of less migration and arduous journeys, so we can say Nālandā Mahāvihāra was an international institution of Buddhist learning in a limited sense. The presence of international scholars engaged in study at Nālandā was most notable between the seventh and the tenth centuries, and after that, we do not have frequent travelers visiting or staying for a substantial period, except Tāranātha. Apparently, sources allow us to suppose Nālandā was internationally active for a limited time, especially in its booming days of the seventh to tenth centuries. Also, the composition of outsiders reflects mostly people from Asia and countries neighboring India. In this sense, we can say more or less that Nālandā was an institution of Buddhist learning of South Asia, not of the world. Interestingly, most of the students who came to Nālandā belonged to Buddhist places or were believers of Buddhism. Most of them were either fully ordained monks or on the way to becoming such. The aim of these students was to learn and understand Buddhist religion and philosophy. Most of the students from abroad got admitted at Nālandā Mahāvihāra to collect some valuable and religious manuscripts of their Buddhist religion, and take them to their birthplace and propagate Buddhism there. For example, Xuanzang himself was responsible for founding the Yogācāra Vijñānavāda School in China known as Fa-hsiang (Dharma-lakṣana). He studied this philosophy in India with Śīlabhadra of Nālandā, one the exponents of this school.72 He was also responsible for another Buddhist school in China known as the Kiu-she (Kośa) school, derived from Nālandian Vasubandhu’s work, Abhidharmakośa. It is true that at Nālandā Mahāvihāra in later centuries, not only monks but also general students were admitted. There was a natural transition into the development of these seats of learning—without the preceding of its original monastic character for the sake of being an educational seminary.73 It can be safely presumed that the monk students at Nālandā Mahāvihāra outnumbered the non-monks. Also, it is possible that Indians were attracted to Nālandā after hearing about the reputations of foreigners within the campus. It is hard to observe the intellectual activities of general students. Many disciples surpassed their teachers in knowledge, reached the highest post of the monastery, and served as the abbot, such as Śīlabhadra, who was the pupil of Dharmapāla, who was himself a disciple of the logician Dignāga, who was trained by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. Ācārya Vasubandhu’s four pupils were more excelled than the ācārya himself, with Sthiramati excellent in Abhidharma, Dignāga excellent in Pramāṇa, Guṇaprabhā excellent in Vinaya, and Vimuktsena excellent in Pāramitā. It seems some of the meritorious students of Nālandā utilized their studies in foreign countries

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Table 4.1.  Foreigners at Sri Na–landa– Scholar ’

Country of Origin

Time at Na–landa–

Study

China

Before Yijing

Maha-ya-na

660–663 A.D.

Ma-dhyamika S’a-stra and S’a-ta S’a-stra under Jinaprabha and Yoga under Ratnasimha

 1

Tao Hi (Srideva)

 2

S’ramana Hiuen-Tchao (Praksa-s’amati)

 3

Fu-touo-ta-mouo (Buddhadharma or Bodhidharma)

 4

Tao-cheng or Taousing (Gandradeva)

 5

Tang (Ta-Cheng-teng)

 6

Tao-lin or Taou-lin (S’ila-laprabha)

Kos’a

 7

Ling-yun (Prajna-deva)

Fine Arts

 8

Hwui-Ta

 9

Wou-king

10

Tche-hong

11

Qu-ling

12

Ki-ye

China

964–976 A.D.

13

Xuanzang

China

635–641 A.D.

Yogas’a-stra from – Śi labhadra and Sanskrit

14

Yijing

China

675–685A.D.

Vinaya, Vajrayāna

15

Chag-lo-tsa-ba or Dharmasva-min

Tibet

1235–1236 A.D.

Studied with a- ca-rya – Ra-hulas’ri bhadra

16

Thon-mi Sambhota

Tibet

Before and during Xuanzang

Aca-rya Devavid . Simha taught him the sacred literature of the Buddhists and Bra-hman.as

17

Hwui-Lun

Korea

635 A.D. 630 A.D.

Tukha-ra

Yijing met

649 A.D. China

Came with Yijing

10 years Yoga, Kos’a Maha-ya-na Yoga, Kos’a and Vinaya

China

18

Āryavarma

Korea

19

Hwui-Yieh

Korea

20

Tsung-lê

China

1378–1382 A.D.

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to prorogate Buddhism and Buddhist ideas. They enjoyed going outside of the country after getting an education from the premier institution of Buddhism in India. Śubhākarasiṁha, after ordination, studied the Buddhist texts in the monastery of Nālandā and moved to foreign lands to preach the law of the Buddha. Śubhākarasiṁha reached China in 716 A.D. with a collection of Buddhist texts and became engaged in teaching Mahāyāna and translating many manuscripts of the mystic school of Mahāyāna (i.e., Vajrayāna), into Chinese. In fact, he was the first to introduce the teachings of this school in China in a systematic manner.74 In the tenth century A.D., Dharma Deva, a scholar from Nālandā, went to China as a member of the Imperial Bureau of Translation, and later headed the bureau. He translated many Sanskrit works on Tantrā, Dhāraṇīs, and medicine into Chinese. He translated the short medical treatises Kāśyapaṛṣi-prokta-strīcikitsā-sūtra (included in the Tripiṭaka) and the Kumāra-tantra of Rāvaṇa into Chinese.75 The work for the better understanding and propagation of Buddhism was colossal at Nālandā. Buddhist scholars from South Asia came to Nālandā, and Nālandā’s scholars went to South Asian countries to help and to collaborate with Buddhist scholars there on their works. The Nālandā Monastery in India and the principal monasteries of China, Tibet, and Nepal served as important institutions of Buddhist learning and presented a beautiful example of cooperation. The representation of contemporary religions, namely Brāhmaṇism and Jainism, among students and teachers of Nālandā Mahāvihāra seems negligible. Regarding Jain students and educators, we have no references at all possibly because the Jains were the main rival of Buddhism in the spheres of both religion and education. It seems there were few students from the Brāhmaṇical religion getting higher education at Nālandā, as Temple No. 2 on the campus looks archaeologically more Hinduoriented. It is also surprising that at Nālandā most of the teachers were from the Brāhmaṇical tradition by birth, but Brāhmaṇas were not coming to study there. Whatever the number of Brāhmaṇical students at Nālandā, they most probably got admitted for the initial training under an ācārya. Here they might have entered to expose themselves to Buddhist life. It makes it quite clear that the nature of education imparted at Nālandā was prominently Buddhist. It seems there was no co-education, as the students and teachers were all males. It might be because of how the Buddha did not allow women in the monastic atmosphere in the beginning. It seems abnormal that we do not have any reference to female students or teachers at the Nālandā Monastery when it is said that the Buddha allowed women into the monastery system later, and the condition of women improved under Buddhism.

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHERS AND STUDENTS The relationship between faculty and students demonstrated, accepted, and followed by Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra appears to expand on the formalization of the guru-śiṣya paramparā of gurukulas. The blood and family relations between teachers and students acted as the bond of connection at gurukulas, but monasteries did not accept and promote any caste, class, or blood relationships among them. The ācāryas of Nālandā treated disciples as metaphorical sons and passed along their lineages without any previous connections. Only Buddhist learning served as a bond between them. For example, without any blood relationships among Nāgārjuna’s students, Śākyamitra, Nāgabodhi, Āryadeva, and Mātaṅga were his first spiritual sons, and Buddhapālita, Bhāvaviveka, and Aśvaghośa were close children.76 Also, we can notice how a student later became a teacher in the same campus and continued the legacy of his teacher both regarding tradition and knowledge. There was intimacy between the instructors and the students at Śrī Nālandā. Yijing observed, “I used to converse with these teachers so intimately that I was able to receive valuable instructions personally from them.”77 The tutorial system enabled them to take individual care of the students.78 It also enabled them to develop a sense of morality and a sense of sweeter values of life, which men live by. There were two types of students in Nālandā Mahāvihāra: antevāsikas and saddhivihārikas. The antevāsikas were in training to monks under the ācāryas, instructors/teachers in practice. The saddhivihārikas were the full monks trying to achieve salvation under the guidance of an upājjhāya, more or less the spiritual guide or preceptor. Here we can witness two types of relationships between two categories of teachers and students. But in both cases, the teachers provided supervision all day and night, and the students were dependent on the teachers. The students could contact the teachers any time for personal instruction and resolution of their doubts. Mutual reverence and communion of life to gradual progress in the discipline united both. There are five reasons for the saddhivihārika’s dependence on an upājjhāya to come to an end: the latter may have gone away, left the order, died, joined a schismatic faction, or given an order, namely of dismissal for bad behavior according to Buddhaghośa. The same reasons apply to the relations of antevāsikas and ācāryas.79 The relationship between antevāsikas and ācāryas and saddhivihārikas and upājjhāyas could also be described as close-knit, as in the gurukula system; in fact, “The teacher, ought to consider the pupil as a son; the student ought to consider the teacher as a father.”80 The teacher’s role was also to instruct him in the conduct of becoming a Buddhist monk and in basic Buddhist doctrine; the student owed to his teacher deferential behavior, attentive study, and small personal services, such as rising early to bring his



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teacher tooth-cleanser and mouth water, prepare his seat, give him rice milk then wash the cup, make his garments when the teacher went on his begging round, among other such chores.81 Thus, apart from their studies and religious duties, students served as personal attendant to their teachers. Each had to take care of the other in the case of illness.82 Yijing also observed, “The pupil rubs the teacher’s body, folds his clothes, or sometimes sweeps the apartment. He gives water to his teacher confirming no insects in it. In the case of pupil’s illness, his teacher himself nurses him, supplies all the medicine needed, and pays attention to him.”83 The duty of serving the sick monk lay primarily upon the immediate associates, his upājjhāyas, ācāryas, saddhivihārikas, antevāsikas, a fellow saddhivihārika or a fellow-antevāsika, whatever the case might be. That is to say, in the event of a malady, the teacher and his pupil first nurse each other. The Buddha, in his time, also stressed serving each other in the monastery because the monks had come to live in the monastery away from their families. The community life of monasteries probably encouraged a deeper, dependent, and cordial relationship between residents. Corporal punishment was not practiced in the Buddhist order against offending novices, according to the canonical texts in Pāli, but was freely inflicted in some Mahāyāna traditions.84 Their punishment consisted of restrictions that barred them from their favorite places in the monastery for minor offenses. In the case of severe offenses or outright crimes, a novice was to be expelled, but a ban could not be imposed on a novice without the consent of his upājjhāya.85 In sum, if a monk did not carry out his duties (i.e., study, meditation, and work) sincerely and held the views of a non-Buddhist, he could be expelled from the monastery. The abbot first tried to encourage him through assigning some tasks and later the final punishment would be to dismiss him for the common interest. There are few instances of ousting monks from Nālandā, but it seems Nāgārjuna expelled some, who had violated the precepts, in the beginning, to maintain discipline. The relationship between the disciple and his teacher did not transcend the order as a whole, to which they both owed a common allegiance as members.86 THE LIBRARIES A picture of the religious learning institution of the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā would remain incomplete if we did not mention its libraries. A library is a potential instrument to shape the student’s reasonable thinking individually. The monk’s devotion to dissemination and preservation of Buddhist knowledge might have led to the establishment of libraries in the campus.87 They wrote on Palmyra leaves at the beginning of the

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monastic life, and some of the earliest Palmyra leaf manuscripts have been discovered in India and outside.88 From the accounts of the Chinese travelers and the archaeological evidence, it seems that libraries had become an essential art of the monastic establishment.89 Faxian found many Buddhist manuscripts and made copies of them at Pāṭaliputra. Xuanzang found libraries in many monasteries of India like Jītavaṇa, Svetapura, Kāñchīpura, and Valabhī.90 The library of Jītavaṇa contained not only orthodox literature but also Vedic and other non-Buddhist work, and with treatises on the arts and sciences taught in India at the time.91 We have already seen that Xuanzang and Yijing studied for a considerable time at Nālandā and collected many hundreds of Sanskrit texts. How did they get the vast number of manuscripts? It shows that Nālandā possessed well-equipped libraries.92 Information on the libraries of Nālandā is given in the Tibetan accounts, but it is surprising that Xuanzang and Yijing did not mention details about the libraries of Nālandā. Was it because in their period the libraries were not as extensive as in the Tibetan period? It looks like Nālandā had three big libraries. We know from Tāranātha that the library was situated in a special area known by the poetical name of Dharmagaṇja (Mart of Religion) and comprised three huge buildings called Ratnasāgara (Ocean of Jewels), Ratnadadhī (Sea of Jewel), and Ratnaraṇjaka (Jewel-adorned). Ratnasāgara,93 which was a nine-story building and specialized in the collection of rare sacred works.94 After Xuanzang, the two Korean monks Tche-Hong and Hoeiye and another Chinese monk named Ke-ye came to Nālandā Monastery to study and to utilize its unique libraries, which were rich containers of the Buddhist texts.95 Unfortunately, archaeologists did not find any huge building described by Tāranātha or any building with books in the campus, so the existence of these buildings seems questionable. We cannot even say for sure the location of the area of Dharmagaṇja—whether inside or outside the campus—in the light of revealed archaeological pieces of evidence. The writing, copying, and translating of manuscripts were important parts of the study at Śrī Nālandā. The devout copying of sacred works was a part of their duty. In the sixth year of Mahipāla I, Kalyaṇmitra copied the Aṣṭa Sahaśrīka Prajñāpāramitā at Nālandā. In the fourth year of Rampāla’s reign and the fourth year of Govindapāla, the same was copied again.96 It was found that regular copyists were employed in the monastery for copying books. The expenses were borne out by those who required the copies. The endowments, which were presented to Nālandā by the king of Jāvā and Sumatra Bālaputradeva, also included provisions for copying of manuscripts with the maintenance of the monastery and expenditure of adding to its library.97 As a result, the wealth of its libraries grew by the copied works of numerous scholars of the Nālandā Monas-



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tery. Because, as Yijing mentions, after the expiry of Buddhist scholars at Nālandā, his collection of manuscripts was added to the library, and other properties, including non-Buddhist, works were disposed of.98 This information shows how, gradually, through the peaceful acquisition of the deceased’s valuable collections, the Nālandā Monastic library ultimately became a grand storehouse of priceless manuscripts.99 In the account of Xuanzang, we find that manuscripts were arranged on stone shelves dug out on the walls. Shelf guides for the documents were preserved for a long time and saved from dust and fire. Usually, the teachers who used to teach a particular subject were the chiefs of that special subject collection of the library and guided their students suitably.100 The archaeological excavations have revealed stone shelves in the monastic rooms. The value of the institutional libraries lays not so much in the number of books possessed by them, but rather in the mass of different varieties of research and reference material available. It is evident from Xuanzang’s records that although the Nālandā monastic library held so many manuscripts, the nature of this collection was mostly Buddhist philosophy, logic, and religion. Yijing, while referring to the arrangement after the death of a monk, also states that non-Buddhist books are to be sold.101 We do not have an idea about the nature of manuscripts inside the library, but it might have mostly contained Tripiṭaka, a large number of Jātaka, traditional commentaries, semi-canonical commentaries, and subcommentaries, as indicated from the existing monastic libraries in Laos and Thailand.102 Also, it was not well managed, as we do not have any reference to any specialized staff who could search books for the students and maintain the library. If the chief of the particular subject shelf was somewhere outside or deceased, then this problem became worse. NOTES 1.  D. K. Barua, Vihāras in Ancient India: A Survey of Buddhist Monasteries (Calcutta: Indian Publications, 1969), 2 2.  Walpola Rahula, History of Buddhism in Ceylon: The Anuradhapura Period 3rd century BC- 10th century AD (Colombo: M. D. Gunasena, 1966), 115 3.  Cullavagga, VI.4.8.3.10. 4. E. J. Rapson, Ancient India from Earliest Time to the first century AD (Cambridge: The University Press, 1914), 55–63 5.  T. W. Rhys Davids, Buddhist India (Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1957), 107–17 6.  The quest for supreme knowledge (anuttarajñāna) is apparent from the very beginning of Mahāyāna inscriptions, which is not for one but for all. The transfer of merit to all beings for donations in Mahāyāna inscriptions is explicitly stated to be a single specific purpose, the simplest form of this being “what here is the merit may that be for the obtaining of supreme knowledge by all beings”;

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Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy and Texts of Monastic Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), 39   7.  I. B. Horner, trans., The Book of the Discipline, vol. 4 (Luzac: London, 1951), 185–89.  8. Schopen, Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks, 73–80  9. R. N. Sharma and R. K. Sharma, eds., History of Education in India (New Delhi: Atlanta Publishers & Distributors, 2004), 41 10. James Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, vol. 1 (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1967), 174 11.  Ruby Kumari, “The Style and Scope of Studies at Nālandā,” in Nālandā and Buddhism, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: The Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2002), 71 12.  Angraj Chaudhary, “Causes of the Enduring Greatness of the Nālandā Mahāvihāra,” in Heritage of Nālandā and its Continuity, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2000), 42 13.  H. D. Sankalia, The University of Nālandā (Indian Historical Institute Series. Delhi: Oriental, 1972), 274 14. Chaudhary, “Causes of the Enduring Greatness,” 33 15.  S. Beal, trans., Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, 2 vols. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co. Ltd., 1906), vol. 2, 165 16.  Losang Norbu Tsonawa, trans., Indian Buddhist Pandits from “the Jewel Garland of Buddhist History” (New Delhi: Library of Tibetan works & Archives, 1985), 6, 54, and 61 17.  T. Watters, trans., On Yuan-Chwang’s Travels in India (A.D. 629–695). 2 vols., second edition (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1961), vol. 2, 165; and Beal, Si-YuKi, vol. 2, 170–71 18. S. K. Das, The Education System of the Ancient Hindus (New Delhi: Gyan Publication, 1996), 175 19.  S. Beal, trans., The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by Hwui Li, 2 vols., first edition (London: Trench Trübner Com., 1888), vol. 1, 112 20.  For details see chapter 2 21. Watters, Yuan-Chwang, vol. 2, 165; and Beal, Si-Yu-Ki, vol. 2, 162 22. Johannes Bronkhorst, “Why Is There Philosophy in India?” (Gonda Lecture Six at Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, 1999); Johannes Bronkhorst, Buddhist Teaching in India (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2009), 109–14; Johannes Bronkhorst, “Does India Think Differently?” in Denkt Asien anders? Reflexionen zu Buddhismus und Konfuzianismus in Indien, Tibet, China und Japan, eds. Birgit Kellner and S. Weigelin-Schwiedrzik (Vienna: Vienna University Press, 2009), 47–49 23.  Bruno Lo Turco, “Evaluation or Dialogue? A Brief Reflection on the Understanding of the Indian Tradition of Debate,” in Cultural, Historical and Textual Studies of South Asian Religions: Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia, ed. Squarcini Federico (London, GB: Anthem Press, 2011), 590 24. Vincent Eltschinger, “Debate, Salvation and Apologetics: On the Institutionalization of Dialectics in the Buddhist Monastic Environment,” in Devadattiyam: Johannes Bronkhorst Felicitation Volume, ed. Francois Voegeli et al. (Bern and New York: Peter Lang, 2012), 440



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25.  The Middle Period of Indian Buddhism, roughly the first half of the first millennium, can be characterized by a highly organized, sedentary, and monastic Buddhism with a complex administration governed by an equally complex legal system, where monks were bound in a tangled web of relationships to lay donors and their fellow monks, fully entrenched in the socioeconomic milieu of the contemporary society; for details see Gregory Schopen, Buddhist Monks and Business Matters: Still More Papers on Monastic Buddhism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), 96 26.  Eltschinger, “Debate, Salvation and Apologetics,” 431 27. Gregory Schopen, Figments and Fragments of Mahayana Buddhism in India: More Collected Papers (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 15 28.  Joseph Walser, Nāgārjuna in Context: Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 188–263 29.  Eltschinger, “Debate, Salvation and Apologetics,” 479–480 30. Vincent Eltschinger, “Apocalypticism, Heresy and Philosophy: Towards a Sociohistorically Grounded Account of Sixth-Century Indian Philosophy,” in Investigation of Religious Pluralism and the Concept of Tolerance in India, ed. Goshin Shaku (Tokyo: The Eastern Institute, 2010), 425–80 31.  R. K. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education: Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist, second edition (London: Macmillan, 1951), 506. 32. I am indebted to my colleague Professor Greg Schmidt Goering at the Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, for indicating the pedagogic methods for controlling the senses and even the use of the five senses as an educational tool. 33.  D. Devahuti, ed., The Unknown Hsuan-tsang (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 25 34. Beal, Life, vol. 1, 112 35. Sankalia, University of Nālandā, 171–73 36.  A native of Kāñcipuram, Dharmapāla, composed a commentary on the Mādhyāmika-Cauth-Sataka. For details see Kewal Krishnan Mittal, ed., A Tibetan Eye View of Indian Philosophy (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1990), 197; also, see Bimlendra Kumar, “Ācārya Dharmapāla of Nālandā,” in Heritage of Nālandā and its Continuity, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2000), 104–08. 37.  By birth Kāñci Brāhmaṇa, then Hīnayānist and at last Mahāyānist, Dignāga was a great logician and is said to have composed a hundred Śāstras in mainly the Nyāyadvāra, the Nyāyapravesa, and the Pramānasamuccaya. See Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 271–72 38.  Dharmakīrti was born in the South Indian town of Cudamani or Trimalaya to a Brahmin family and took ordination as a monk from Dharmapāla; for details see Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 46–52 39. A renowned professor of logic and Tantrā and disciple of Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla carried on his guru work throughout his life. For details see O. P. Pathak, “Some Famous Scholars of Nālandā University,” in Heritage of Nālandā and its Continuity, edited by R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2000), 101. 40.  According to famous legends Āryadeva, also known as Aśvaghośa, belonged to a royal family, was one of the favorite students of Nāgārjuna, and composed dozens of Buddhist texts such as Acts of the Buddha and Five Hundred

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Praises, which are studied extensively even today. See Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 9–13. 41. A philosopher, logician, abbot, and Tantric, Śāntarakṣita had written Taṭvasaṁgraha, which incorporated all of the Indian philosophy; for details see Pathak, “Some Famous Scholars of Nālandā,” 99–100. 42.  Vasubandhu, born in a Brahmin family and brother of Asaṅga, was ordained at Nālandā, composed the fundamental text Abhidharmakośa, and wrote auto-commentary. See Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 33–36. 43. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 2–3 44. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 30–33 45.  Sthiramati, a disciple of Vasubandhu, was the son of low-caste parents in Southern India. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 37–38 46. Beal, Life, 60 47.  Mahāvagga, I.28 and 29 48.  As we know, the Brāhmaṇical education system also graded its teachers as ācāryas and upādhyāya, where ācāryas ranked high 49.  Hartmut Scharfe, Education in Ancient India (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 133–38 50.  Dīpavaṃsa, IV.36. 51. Watters, Yuan-Chwang, vol. 1, 162 52. Beal, Si-Yu-Ki, vol. 2, 110 53. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 17 and 62 54.  He wrote a book based on Mahāyāna principles called the Extinguisher of Heresy containing sixty-six verses, and another volume on Yogācāra containing eight thousand verses, called the Ekānta Siddha; Sarat Chandra Das, Indian Pandits in the Land of Snow (Calcutta: The Baptist Mission Press, 1893), 40 55. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 23 56.  Paḍmasaṃbhava, a teacher of the Tantric school, was also a leading personality in the second propagation of the Buddhist doctrines in Bhutan. See A. Q. Ansari, “Padmasambhava: A Missionary of Nālandā,” in Heritage of Nālandā and its Continuity, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2000), 109–15 57.  Ven. Rastrapal Mahathera, “Nālandā: Its Historical Background,” in Heritage of Nālandā and Its Continuity, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2000), 78 58.  Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla are well known today as the two leading Indian masters who propagated Buddhism during the reign of Khri-srong-ldebtsan, but even today Paḍmasaṃbhava remains the folk hero for the common people; Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz, ‟The Buddhist Way into Tibet,” in Ann Heirman and Stephan Peter Bumbacher, eds., The Spread of Buddhism (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 317–25 59.  Bangwei Wang and Tansen Sen, comp., India and China: Interaction through Buddhism and Diplomacy: A Collection of Essays by Prabodh Chandra Bagchi (New Delhi: Anthem Press, 2011), 161–62 60.  Vjrabodhi along with Śubhākarasiṁha and Amoghavajra are considered to be three great teachers of Tantric Buddhism in China and founded the first school of Tantric Buddhism in that country. Wang and Sen, India and China, 50 61. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 36 62.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 146



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63.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 147 64. Watters, Yuan-Chwang, vol. 2, 168 65. Beal, Si-Yu-Ki, vol. 2, 171 66. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 10 67.  A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India: A Survey of the Culture of the Indian Sub-continent before the Coming of the Muslims (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1954), 166 68.  G. Roerich, ed. and trans., Biography of Dharmasvāmin (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1959), 90–95 69. Beal, Si-Yu-Ki, vol. 2, 171 70. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 26 71. Beal, Life, vol. 1, XXIX, XXX, and XXXVI 72.  Xuanzang translated the fundamental texts of the school and published them in Chinese in an exposition of the philosophy of Vijñānavāda, documented with copious illustrations from commentaries of nine different teachers of the school. See Beal, Life, vol. 1, 36 73. P. V. Bapat, ed., 2500 Years of Buddhism (Delhi: The Publication Division Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1959), 170 74.  Wang and Sen, India and China, 50 75.  He was known in Chinese either as Fa-t’ien (Dharmadeva) or as Fa-hien (Dharmabhadra) and stayed for twenty-five years in China; Wang and Sen, India and China, 75–77 76. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 8 77. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 64 78. Sankalia, University of Nālandā, 171–73 79. Scharfe, Education in Ancient India, 136–37. 80.  Mahāvagga, I.25.6 81.  Mahāvagga, I.25 and 8–23 82.  Mahāvagga, I.24–25 83. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 120 84.  J. Gonda, Changes and Continuity in Indian Religion (London: Mouton Press, 1965), 499, who refers mostly to Tibetan sources 85.  Mahāvagga, I.57 and 60. The offenses included when a monk destroys a life, takes what is not given, is unchaste, lies, consumes liquor, speaks ill to the Buddha, the doctrine, or the order, if he holds heretical views, or violates a nun 86.  When the teacher offended gravely against the order, the pupil was to get him duly punished by the law; Rachita Chaudhuri, Buddhist Education in Ancient India (Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 2008), 81 87. M. Ramarao, “Libraries in Ancient and Medieval India,” Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society 8 (1934): 203–32 88. A. K. Biswas, “Libraries in Buddhist Monasteries,” Indian Librarian 17 (1962): 104–28; the library of Nava Nalanda Mahavihara also contains some of the Palmyra manuscripts, which might have been written at Nālandā and come out during excavations 89.  For details of such shreds of evidence see Rekha Daswani, Buddhist Monastery and Monastic Life in Ancient India: From the Third Century BC to the Seventh Century AD (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2006), 209–12

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  90.  See M. B. Konnur, Transnational Library Relations: The Indo-American Experience (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1990), 1–2.   91.  S. N. Chakravorti, “Libraries in Ancient Times with Special Reference to India,” Indian Librarian 9 (1954) 49–57   92.  Mohammad Taher and Donald Gordon Davis Jr., eds., Librarianship and Library Sciences in India: An Outline of Historical Perspective (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1994), 31   93.  According to Tibetan sources, this building was burned down by an irate Tīrthikas mendicant in revenge for an insult by young monks; Satis Chandra Vidyabhusana, A History of Indian Logic: Ancient, Medieval and Modern Schools (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978), 147   94.  H. N. Sastri, Nālandā and Its Epigraphic Materials, Memoirs of Archeological Survey of India. No. 66 (Delhi: Manager of Publication, 1942), 7ff   95.  Abhendra Kumar Singh, “Rise of Nālandā: A Seat of Learning,” in Nālandā- Buddhism and the World, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2001), 34   96.  Pramode Lal Paul, The Early History of Bengal, vol. 2 (Calcutta: Indian Research Institute, 1939), 25  97. Epigraphia Indica, vol. 17, 310–27  98. Takakusu, I-Tsing, xvii   99.  Chakravorti, “Libraries in Ancient Times,” 54 100. Barua, Vihāras in Ancient India, 146 101. Takakusu, I-Tsing, xvii 102.  Jeffery Samuels quotes Charles Keyes’s survey of the monastic libraries in Laos and Thailand, which contain only a small portion of the total Tripiṭaka, some-semi-canonical commentaries, a large number of pseudo-Jātaka and other pseudo-canonical works, histories of shrines and other sacred histories, liturgical works, and modern commentaries; in “Toward a Action-Oriented Pedagogy: Buddhist Texts and Monastic Education in Contemporary Sri Lanka,” Journal of American Academy of Religion 72 (2004): 957.

F ive Śrī Nālandā and Buddhist Learning

The last chapter brought up a picture of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra as an institution devoted to Buddhist teaching and learning. Starting as popular traditional places of salvation, Buddhist monasteries like Śrī Nālandā played a growing role in the evolution of religion, religious knowledge, philosophy, and science. Probably, Nālandā was the first monastic learning organization of South Asia as the main center of learning for the Mahāsāṁghika School, intimately attached to the teachings of the Buddha, quite earlier than its Christian counterparts in Europe started teaching Buddhist life by the third Buddhist council, although archaeological pieces of evidence do not support that much antiquity. It is also consistent with the fact that students entered Nālandā as novices, monastics, śramaṇas, or upāsakas, and eventually became Theravādins who may or may not have upheld a complementary Mahāyāna philosophy and practice. Later, the literary famous first generation of abbots like Nāgārjuna, Āryadeva, and Candrakīrti established the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism at Nālandā. In due time, the monastery of Nālandā became more inclined towards mystic Mahāyāna, and its teachers assimilated and promoted Tantric Buddhism in its curriculum and activities. Once the Buddhist faith took shape on the campus, Śrī Nālandā played a significant role in the propagation of Buddhist learning and religion into Central, East, and South Asia. Here, we will focus on the study and training carried out at the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā related to the growth of Buddhist learning. In this way, the present chapter discusses the curriculum of Nālandā, exploring both religious and scientific contents. The religion of the Buddha was the base and inspiration of the study and training at Śrī Nālandā, and the changes in Indian Buddhism also transformed the curriculum of Nālandā, which we will also see. Monks have been the primary bearers of the intellectual tradition of the Nālandā system of education. The renouncers became monks out of love for learning and Buddhism, dedicated to the monastic life starting from the establishment of Śrī Nalendra. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra prominently 159

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being a residential place of Buddhist monks also indicates that the monks created and maintained the monastery of Nālandā and its life and traditions. The monks became the cynosure of all activities within the monastery. They learned the Buddhist literature and life from their ācāryas and upājjhāyas and later trained and taught monks, laity, and upāsakas. There was a long and venerable tradition of Paṇḍitas related to Nālandā, going back at least as far as Paṇḍit Nāgārjuna. A monk taught another monk in a graduated manner and passed on the legacy. They learned the Buddhist scriptures and became knowledgeable. Over time, they might have devised a curriculum based on the tradition of learning, which was necessary to know in the proper manner. The school curricula, especially, became a need for an institution of studies like Nālandā, suitable for its survival and popularity. Unfortunately, we do not have all the details of this basic curriculum, but the scholars who studied at Nālandā provide us with some information about the practice of research and learning. We have enough scope to doubt that few monks followed it correctly. It seems the new admittees to Nālandā had to go through a fixed process of training, but the ordained monks enjoyed much flexibility in their studying, research, and writing. Sometimes, they formulated new materials for the curriculum but did not go beyond the standard and moral of the institution. Probably, a step towards more universal education compared to the earlier periods started with monasticism in India, and the Buddhist Academy of Śrī Nālandā preserved, developed, and diffused almost all classical Indian arts and sciences more or less. Nālandā served the secular and lay communities, as well as monastics, in introductory and comprehensive levels of Buddhist religion and philosophy with the common branches of knowledge. The Buddhist way of living was the sole motive of the education at Nālandā, reflected in the incorporation of meditation, yoga practice, and teaching. The institution of Nālandā symbolized a unique Buddhist learning environment, in which people studied three disciplines of Buddhist studies simultaneously: wisdom, meditation, and ethics. They also received tutoring and mentoring in the Buddhist practice of cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral self-correction. The interpersonal structure of Nālandā pedagogy enabled each participant to get individualized instruction and training in Buddhism, Buddhist literature, and overall personal development to achieve salvation. The institutional structure and curriculum of the Mahāyāna institution of Nālandā presupposed a comprehensive framework more aligned with Buddhist hermeneutics and logic. Towards the achievement of universal education and individualized instruction, Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra promoted studies and training in vernacular dialects like Pāli in the beginning. The Buddha also practiced



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the Dhamma through popular speech and stressed the same within the monastery so that everyone could understand. The language and literature of the Hīnayāna School developed from a standard dialect of Pāli, but Mahāyāna Buddhism later adopted Sanskrit again for its studies. It facilitated the spread of Buddhism to distant parts of the country and among the masses but might have restricted the common from the deeper access of Nālandā’s learning. The incoming crowd of residents at Nālandā witnessed the popular means of instruction in vernacular. If the whole academic life of a person was not taught in the vernacular, then at least we can say that the parts of training and instruction, in the beginning, were, until one memorized some materials in Prākṛt and Sanskrit. Later, he would have started to learn Sanskrit and also would have begun to read narrative texts. The Chinese residents also confirm the increasing use of Sanskrit in the studies at Nālandā, as they also had to learn Sanskrit. Sanskrit was supplanted and superseded as a medium of education at the monastery of Nālandā. The Buddhists were coming from different parts of the country and from South Asia to the monastery of Nālandā, so their languages differed. It could have encouraged the monastic associates for the wider practice of Sanskrit, which was the language of the contemporary South Asian intellectual world. The shift from Pāli to Sanskrit as the medium of instruction seems related to the rise of the socalled epistemological Buddhist schools and the intense competition to prove the supremacy of a particular school to the outsiders towards the end of the fifth century.1 Prior to this Middle Period of Indian Buddhism, the overwhelming majority of the Buddhist polemical rhetoric seems to address fellow Buddhists in the form of Abhidharmic disputations, which could have happened in the vernacular dialects. The curriculum of Nālandā was supposed to be an inclusive one and provided education in a human context. People and their lives were the core of the curriculum. As far as religious learning is concerned, the Mahāyāna Academy instructed its residents in almost all religious literature and practices starting from Theravāda to later Tantrayāna and Vajrayāna, and not leaving behind the Vedas and Brāhmaṇical manuscripts with the Pañcavidyā adhered to the liberty of religious teaching up to an extent. The letters sent to Xuanzang in China by Indian monks of the monastery of Mahābodhī Jñānaprabha and Prajñādeva also refer to the curriculum of Nālandā. Jñānaprabha writes to Xuanzang, “Tripiṭaka master, you have illumined the great vehicle (Mahāyāna), and the small vehicle (Hīnayāna); and also the four Vedas belonging to the outer (heretical) works, and the teachings which are known as ‘Knowledge of five wisdoms (Pañcavidyā, namely Śabda, Hetu, Adhyātma, Cikitsā and Śilpa)’ are by no means unknown to you. You are the leader best among the students of the great teacher and wise master Śīlabhadra.”2 Śrī Nālandā taught in

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Theravāda, Hīnayāna, and Mahāyāna in particular and symbolically represented the whole of the eighteen sects in the terms of their own sets of scriptures and usage. Theoretically, it looks like an attempt to include all literary and philosophical schools of the contemporary Buddhism in the curriculum. Interestingly, the other dominant religion of Brahmins also got some space in this curriculum, at least its main Vedic texts. Under the name of a common founder, representatives of opposite and incompatible theories taught side by side in a remarkable manner, as there was no Buddhist creed to which professors or students had to subscribe as a condition for admission, beyond the solemn recognition of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṁgha.3 The considerable residency at Nālandā of two important Chinese travelers, Xuanzang and Yijing, who belonged to Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna, respectively, can also confirm it. Both followed the different philosophical sects of Buddhism but chose the same monastery for studies, where all practices of Buddhism were the focus of activities. Śrī Nālandā incorporated both content-driven curriculum of text-based lectures for Buddhist knowledge and an equally intricate process-driven system for training in Buddhism. This process-driven system included traditions of scholarly tutelage, ethical mentoring, contemplative selfdevelopment, and collective self-correction through group discussion. This compound pedagogical strategy helps us to value the unique context of the Mahāyāna academy. It also shows how the curricular content and the pedagogic process together fostered an institutional culture of selfcorrective ideas and procedure of self-correction, which complements the logic and method of self-correction central to all Buddhist learning.4 The missionary enthusiasm of Nālandā lies in its common monastic life and the monk’s moral ideal to first improve himself and then work for the service of religion and society. TRAINING AND STUDIES AT ŚRĪ NĀLANDĀ It should, however, be noted that Śrī Nālandā was mainly in charge of higher teaching at the outset, as students were instructed in the mixed branches of learning. The Chinese travelers Xuanzang and Yijing indicated that knowledge of Buddhist literature, along with language proficiency, was an entrance requirement for admission to the monastery of Nālandā. These two Chinese scholars report that the secular students at Nālandā Mahāvihāra supported the idea that such Mahāyāna institutions provided higher education to build on elementary learning offered by various Buddhist and non-Buddhist local schools. In this way, Buddhist monasteries like Nālandā were dependent on the snātakas of gurukulas for the supply of students and believers, up to an extent. Later, it seems



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the supply did not meet the demand of monasteries, because Śūdras and many Vaiśyas were forbidden from gurukula education, thus coming illiterate to the mahāvihāras. Many wanted to join the vihāras in childhood, so the Buddhist monasteries also started providing basic training in language, literature, and calculation. Against this background, it seems the large monastery of Nālandā provided both higher and primary education. The stages of study and training at Śrī Nālandā were the responsibility of two groups of teachers: ācāryas and upājjhāyas, as mentioned earlier. The academic activities of Nālandā in the beginning level were more focused on training new entrants in the basics of Buddhism. The next stage of training was for the ordained monks under the guidance of upājjhāya to achieve salvation through more study. More or less, we can say, the first stage after admission to the Mahāyāna academy of Nālandā was related to training in the Buddhist ways of life with the primary education. In the next stage, if one chose a life of renunciation, then there was a lot of reading, teaching, writing, and explanations. The prime and sacred duty of monks was teaching. Hence all able and intellectual monks took to learning and teaching. It shows that residency at the Academy of Nālandā focused on both study and training. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, as an establishment of Buddhism, was devoted to both studying and training in Buddhist religion and philosophy. Sometimes, it seems the training aspect was more provocative. The training of novices and their attention to studying proved directly necessary for the survival and popularity of the monastery of Nālandā, and more indirectly important for Buddhism. But it was, comparatively, a less admired job on campus, and was less recognized in the curriculum. The ācāryas, responsible for the initial training of upāsakas and Brahmacārins, called antevāsikas, did the hardest part of the job (i.e., making a Buddhist). However, they received lesser facilities from the administration in reward and got less appreciation in the contemporary religious literature compared to upājjhāyas. The biographies of famous abbots, monk-students, and upājjhāyas of Nālandā missed the name of their first trainer or ācārya and their activities. The age and the nature of prior education at the time of entry into the monastery was also not well defined, on which the time and intensity of training depended. The first known abbot, Nāgārjuna, came to Nālandā at the age of seven, Candragomī took refuge at the age of seven, and Sthiramati came to Vasubandhu at the same age for education. It would be hard to generalize from these few examples the minimum practical age of refuge in the monastery of Nālandā, but it seems to be seven years. One becoming part of the monastery at this early age seems not to have had an elementary education. The monastery took responsibility for providing both common branches of learning and training in the Buddha’s path. Naturally, here the training and instruction

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became crucial and must have taken a few years more than that of the literate entrants. The brothers Asaṅga and Vasubandhu came to Nālandā in their adulthood after getting an initial education in routine branches of learning, writing, calculation, and the Vedas from their mother. Training for this group of entrants would have been comparatively simpler and faster-paced, and more focused on the Buddhist practices because they knew reading and writing. Apparently, it seems one could become part of the Academy of Nālandā at any point in life, and spend requisite time under the instruction of an ācārya depending on the earlier level of education and devotion. Both the cultured and the uneducated were coming to the campus to learn and to know about the Buddha. The laity and their family and friends seemed to be dependent upon the monasteries for their religious education. The monasteries were the independent centers of such education because the monks were experts in knowledge of the sacred lore. The order did not provide a systematic formal education to the laity similar to gurukulas, but at the same time, it could not afford to ignore them for their support and maintenance.5 Yijing also witnessed that the lay people were admitted for education and training at Nālandā, and were entrusted to the monks for regular instruction.6 Properly speaking, the original study at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra comprised five subjects until twenty-one years of age: Śabdavidyā (grammar and lexicography), Śilpasthānavidyā (arts), Cikitsāvidyā (medicine), Hetuvidyā (logic), and Adhyātmavidyā (philosophy).7 It is thus clear that the elements of both non-religious and religious knowledge, of philosophical and practical subjects, entered into the composition of elementary education at Nālandā. In general, the monastery in this way fulfilled the required primary education of the laity and the upāsakas. This initial study would have been an introduction to the Buddhist environment to instill reading, writing, calculation, and explanation skills. Arts and medicine were taught at this basic level and might have oriented students towards a healthy and cultured Buddhist life. They might have proceeded to the next level of training after getting the elementary education, which was focused more on Buddhist literature and rituals. Yijing observes that after joining the mahāvihāra, grammar was the first thing that was taught. At that time, there were five works: the Siddha composition for beginners, the Sūtra foundation for all grammatical science, the Dhātu consisting of one thousand verses, which notably treated morphological roots, the three khilas, and the Vṛtti-Sūtra.8 Students learned the book on the three khilas9 when they were ten years old and had to study it for three years, during which the student was required to master it thoroughly. After all of these, students had to study the Vṛtti-Sūtra, which was a commentary on Panini’s Sūtra.10 Here, a student got an introductory instruction not only in all the important and fundamental Buddhist literatures, like Sutta (prose



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sermons), Geyya (sermons in a mixture of prose and verse), grammar and commentaries, Gāthā, stanzas, Udāna (Pithy sayings), Jātakas, Abbhutadhamma (Reports of Miracles), and Vedalla (Teaching in the form of questions and answers), but also in other śāstras and Vidyās of Brāhmaṇical religion and of the contemporary importance. This part of ordinary instruction seems to have been composed of giving recitations, holding examinations, making exhortations, and explaining Dharma.11 We read of some monks specializing in reciting the Dharma, some in propounding the Suttanta, some in the Vinayas, and some specializing as preachers of Dhamma.12 A person considering becoming a monk was likely to study and memorize the liturgy and the Pāli literature, so as to already be familiar with it at the time of initiation. At this stage, we see the formation of different classes of students as per their interests in particular parts of the Pāli canon. These acquired specializations would have been beneficial for future monks, who would pursue them further. The residential life of students at the monastery of Śrī Nālandā also concentrated on another aspect of Buddhism (i.e., practice). The early training of Buddhist novices focused not only on Buddhist texts but also on behavior according to the Buddhist way and practices of Buddhist rituals. This training was part of the essential disciplined development of the Buddhist self and faith, which made the residents different from the non-believers. The newcomers, due to their interests in the monastic life and Buddhism, went through a process of self-correction and self-transformation by doing a lot of physical labor in the monastery and serving the ācāryas. It was related to converting them into a Buddhist. The novices were physically taught the content and meaning of particular words and actions associated with proper monastic and Buddhist behavior. They tried to develop a life-long behavior pattern like a monk by shaping the mind and body using specific measures and vocabulary. The difference between a layman and a non-believer, and a layman and a monk, was contextualized by a simple example: a non-believer wore clothes, but the same clothes worn by the monk, called robes, were treated as pious and ritualistic, and likewise, though to a comparatively lesser extent, by a layman. In addition to performing texts in ritual contexts, certain ritualized activities such as eating, walking, sleeping, worshiping, and sweeping formed an integral component of the training of newcomers to the Saṁgha. It provided them with a growing understanding of monastic Buddhist life. They were trained in daily activities such as eating, drinking, walking, talking, wearing robes, sleeping, bathing, cleaning, and so on. This part is more or less related to training in performative actions, based on action-oriented pedagogy,13 a system of learning that is centered on doing, performing, and speaking. The majority of young newcomers to the monastic community learned about monastic behavior and practices less

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through learning the content of particular texts and more through doing, performing, and speaking. At this point of training, the residents had become Buddhists in faith and action. The trained fellows knew what to do as per Buddhist belief in this world, which refers to the nature of things as they are and as disclosed accordingly in the Buddha’s teaching. The qualities for a favorable inclination towards Buddhism had been inculcated in them, such as respect for teachers, the Buddha, and scriptures. The followers got an estimate of their power and capacity to achieve the fixed goals in their Buddhist life. They had sufficient education and training to proceed with advanced studies under senior and more learned monks after their ordination, to cultivate deeper faith. Many residents, however, did not choose to pursue further studies as renouncers or monks. They entered into a householder life focused on austerity, recitation of religious texts, and involvement with lay activities or monastic organizations. In every generation, however, there were a handful of residents with a deep thirst for learning and salvation who accepted monkhood and maintained the intellectual tradition of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The studies of the Buddhist monks at Śrī Nālandā seemed more or less focused on the religious manuscripts. Like the Christian religious tradition, the ordained monks started the academic study of Buddhism with the original texts.14 The curriculum, which comprised mainly the Buddhist Pāli canon and the texts of residing scholars, seemed not fixed for monks. The works of senior upājjhāyas like Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Nāgārjuna, Dharmakīrti, Candragomī, and Śīlabhadra and other important contemporary manuscripts were used as textbooks by both Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna schools. The very sound of their names caused the scholars of their time no trepidation, whether they were Buddhist or Brāhmaṇa.15 The study of such original scriptures tells us more about those scriptures and their immediate socio-cultural setting than it does about the subsequent history of a cumulative religious tradition.16 Cort’s arguments fit in the context of the studies of monks of Nālandā Mahāvihāra: that the original scriptures reflected the immediate monastic and religious environment. The texts and commentaries written by monk scholars were also closely related to the growth of Buddhism in the campus, in particular, and outside in general. The favored academic freedom at Śrī Nālandā especially encouraged monks to continuously create texts (new knowledge) and write commentaries on experience and understanding. The curriculum instantly accepted new works in the system of learning to maintain the continuity of the tradition. Yijing mentioned the two hymns of 150 and 400 verses attributed to Matriceta that were added to the studies during his time. Another way in which Nālandā tried to convey its teachings to the intelligentsia was a composition of comprehensive works dealing with



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theology, philosophy, logic, grammar, and so forth. One such work that we have been fortunate enough to recover is Taṭvasaṁgraha. Concerned as we are with the study of Nālandā, this work is a useful pointer, suggesting that Nālandā was a learning institution in which all subjects, Buddhist as well as non-Buddhist, were taught. Another most striking feature of this encyclopedia is the reference even to the most contemporary views and their authors.17 It is suggestive of the fact that there was a continuous flow of students going in and out of the ‟Temple of Learning.” Its Paṇḍitas could keep in touch with even the latest developments in the realm of thought. It created a new impulse to refute the charges leveled against them, resulting in a further and deeper introspective study of their systems, intending to ultimately overcome the imperfections that might have, probably unconsciously, crept into their works. We can reconstruct the history of Buddhism up to an extent through the scriptures written at the religious complex of Nālandā, which represented the gradual growth and transformation of Buddhism in South Asia. The curriculum for Buddhist monks relied heavily on texts but intensively on the past and present Buddhist literature of all genres. Yijing mentions that the regular and traditional curriculum was specialized priestly studies in the monastery of Śrī Nālandā, which included the Vinaya texts, the Sūtras, and the Śāstras.18 The curriculum for ordained monks included what are termed as Suttanta, Dhamma, and Vinaya together with Suttas and Suttavibhaṅga. As brethren were reciting the Dhamma, those versed in the Suttanta recited the Suttanta together, the custodians of the Vinaya discussed the Vinaya, and the preachers of the Dhamma discoursed about the Dhamma. The term Suttavibhaṅga is used to indicate the Sutta of the Patimokkha.19 The basic textbooks were Tripiṭaka (i.e., Abhidhamma, Sutta, and Vinaya Piṭaka). The Dhamma being added in the Suttas seemed to be the focus of all academic activities. The use of the word Sutta was not confined to the texts of what was afterward known as the Sutta Piṭaka but covered the whole arena of the Buddhist literary world. In the oldest tradition, the discourses or conversations now called Suttas seemed not to have been called by that name but were referred to as Suttanta. The monastic education in India had been studying the Vinaya since the beginning, even in the Mahāyāna monasteries, which was observed by Faxian. However, it was by oral transmission only, which disappointed him.20 In the field of the Vinaya, the course of studies was composed of the five redactions of the Vinaya of the Hīnayāna School under the names of Dharamagupta, Mahīśāsaka, Kāśyapīya, Sarvāstivāda, and Mahāsāṁghika.21 Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra tried to assimilate all forms of Buddhism in its curriculum, which was true at least in the beginning of its academic career. The inclusive instruction in Indian Buddhism was the feature of the academic life of Nālandā. After ordination as monks at the monastery

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of Nālandā, Nāgārjuna studied Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, and Mantrayāna, and Vasubandhu studied Tripiṭaka of the Hīnayāna. The first generation of monks got instruction in both dominant sects of Buddhism, Hīnayāna, and Mahāyāna, and later mystic Buddhism became part of the curriculum. Nāgārjuna, through Prajñāpāramitā Śāstra and subsequently Śīlabhadra, solidly established Mahāyāna at the mega-monastery of Nālandā and then it became principal in the curriculum of Nālandā. Śīlabhadra, the successor of Dharmapāla to the Nālandā Chair, made three divisions of Buddhist development: the doctrine of existence related to Hīnayāna, Sila, and the middle path connected to Mahāyāna. Kimura tells us that with the help of these divisions, he deprecated the Hīnayānists and extolled the Mahāyānists at Nālandā.22 Xuanzang narrates that students in Nālandā Mahāvihāra studied the Great Vehicle (Mahāyāna Buddhism) and also the works belonging to the eighteen sects. They also studied even ordinary works, such as the Vedas and other books: Hetuvidyā, Śabdavidyā, Cikitsāvidyā, the works on Magic (Atharvaveda), and Śāṁkhya. Besides these, they thoroughly investigated miscellaneous works. That these subjects were taught at Nālandā is beyond doubt, because Xuanzang himself studied the Yogaśāstra, the Nyāya-Anusāsanaśāstra, the Śabdavidyā, and works on Mahāyāna such as the Kośa, Vibhasa, and others, at Nālandā from Śīlabhadra and others.23 It is hard to explore the comprehensiveness of Brāhmaṇical literature in the studies of monks. It seems monks studied the Vedas and other philosophical books to learn the basics of Brāhmaṇical religion to benefit Buddhism. Being primarily a religious institution, Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra made theology and philosophy compulsory for all students. The knowledge of theology meant a thorough grasp of all the works on Mahāyāna as well as an acquaintance with all the eighteen schools of Buddhism.24 Besides this, some scholars were well versed in Brāhmaṇical philosophy because of their Brāhmaṇical background. It also testifies to how almost all of the teachers of Nālandā were great philosophers of ancient India. However, we do not have a reference of any great scholar of vocational studies from the monastery of Nālandā. The overall soteriological origination of Nālandā was related to its philosophical dimensions and character of monks. Nālandā scholastics included in the curriculum philosophy of religion, language, logic, theory of knowledge, problems in metaphysics, including universals, personal identity, and idealism. The philosophical parts of the curriculum corresponded closely to the topics discussed in the works of Nālandā’s teachers. In the context of the philosophical, textual study, four subjects were particularly emphasized: logic and epistemology, the analytic philosophy is known as Mādhyāmika, the Buddhist meta-doctrine or Abhidhamma, and the topics and categories elaborated on in the class of texts called ‟Perfection of Wisdom.” The primary texts as-



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cribed for these themes were, respectively, Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa (Treasury of Abhidharma), Dharmakīrti’s Prmāṇavārttika (Commentary on Logic and Epistemology), Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra (Introduction to Mādhyāmika), and Maitreyanātha’s Abhisamayālaṁkāra (Ornament of Realization),25 with later additions of many commentaries and related books. Here, the Vinaya or monastic code seems to have less representation in the philosophical context, as Kapstein opined that we seldom find questions derived from the Vinaya occupying much space in Indian or Tibetan Buddhist philosophical writings.26 We know that Guṇaprabha, the foremost disciple of Vasubandhu, studied the whole Tripiṭaka and the Sūtras of Mahāyāna with him, specializing in Vinaya subjects and composing the Mūla Vinaya Sūtra (Basic Teachings of the Discipline Code).27 It seems that after the establishment of Nālandā, the Vinaya remained the focus of study, as observed by Xuanzang, but gradually the Vinaya became only a source of monastic law, as witnessed by Yijing, with a lesser part of the curriculum. The subject next to theology and philosophy, which went together with them, was logic. We will explore the contributions of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra in the fields of religion, philosophy, and logic in chapter 6. We mentioned the complex process of institutionalization and legitimation of hetuvidyā in the Buddhist monastic curriculum in the previous chapter. The monastery of Nālandā more or less mixed up logic with philosophy and religion and not only allowed and practiced but also expanded it after the institutionalization. Though they were not compulsory for students but rather needs, interests, circumstances, and environments of those times, debates and discussions were frequent and almost became essential parts of Nālandā’s curriculum towards the end of fifth century C.E. The Buddhist dialectical traditions would have faced many difficulties in introducing dialectics (vāda) and the science of argumentative justification (hetuvidyā) to the monastic curriculum, which was regarded as contradicting the very spirit of Buddhism as an ethical and disciplinary path towards salvation.28 The monks were trained and engaged to discuss and debate with sensitivity and complexity, which often resulted in the conversion of the opponent in Buddhism. We have to be cautious in deciding the aim of logic only for the conversion of huge masses of heretics as suggested by the Chinese and Tibetan accounts.29 It seems Buddhist logicians as institution-based literati specialized in Buddhist apologetics (i.e., more responsible for the Buddhist answer to outward criticism of a philosophical order).30 It is plausible to believe that logic as a part of curriculum and as a discipline more inclined towards the philosophical defense of Buddhism from insiders and outsiders and developed in this background. Monks were concerned with debate and/or were the custodians of the Buddhist dialectical traditions. The other ideal interlocutors

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in vāda were ascetics, Brahmins, and others who were experts in and fond of the Buddhist law and its meaning. Often, the debate happened against coreligionists and outsiders to defeat them, who were not actively devoted and interested in the discipline of hetuvidyā. The subject matter of dialectics was connected with purely Buddhist classifications to prove with proof of Abhidharmic scholasticism (i.e., the thesis, the example, the reason, similarity, dissimilarity, perceptible, inference, and authoritative scripture). It was not designed for competition, profit, and fame but only to point out the different characteristics of being right and wrong. Different schools of thought, like Buddhist, Jain, Śāṁkhya and others, had their systems of logic. The student learning at Nālandā had to go through all the systems, for he was expected to defend the Buddhist system against the others. This he could not do unless he knew the principles of other systems. Monks learned the debate practices at Nālandā through the formal textual exegeses of Vasubandhu, Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla, and other great logicians. The interactions and virtual debates with dialectical masters would have led scholars towards a perfect debater. With the advent of Dignāga, logic became more powerful as a discipline at Nālandā to protect the Buddhist laws from outsiders. The significance of the term Hetu for inference and the theory of reasoning was discussed for the first time by Dignāga, and the result of his study is the famous doctrine of the “Three Phases of Hetu,” which are enumerated in the text Pramāṇasamuccaya (Synthesis of All Reasoning). Dignāga aimed at the understanding of the true nature of things by refuting the unsatisfactory justifications for misconceptions by the outsiders. Yijing writes that Dharmakīrti made a further improvement in logic at Nālandā in the complete formulation of the trairūpya theory in his Seven Treatises of Logic. Dharmakīrti elaborated epistemology as a theoretical concern and necessary science to refute these misconceptions (especially pramāṇas; i.e., pratyakṣa and anumāna, two ways of knowledge) to ensure one’s success to achieve salvation. Later, the commentaries of Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla, and Candrakīrti’s refined dialectics in dialogue with followers of Dharmapāla and debates with language philosopher Candragomī resulted in the further development of logic at Nālandā as the central part of Buddhist religion, during the time of the Chinese scholars Xuanzang and Yijing. Kamalaśīla also linked dialectics to epistemology and lighted its polemical and apologetic purposes for refuting those who challenged Buddhist soteriology and reaffirming the truth of Buddhism. Dignāga limited the scope of his polemics to logico-epistemological issues, Dharmakīrti broadened it to all possible issues including ontology, linguistic theory, dialectics proper, and scriptural authority, covering the whole array of the non-Buddhist (and at times even Buddhist) systems: Mīmāṁṣā, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Śāṁkhya, Vyākaraṇa, Jainism, Śivaism, and



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Materialism.31 Dharmakīrti defended Buddhism as a salvation path and method by invalidating the arguments of non-Buddhists (i.e., Materialism32 and Mīmāṁṣā33) by his logic. These great dialectical teachers tried not only to cover all aspects of formal logic but also to develop independent Buddhist logic in relation to other systems with gradual improvement in the previous knowledge. We can get an idea of how comprehensive the discipline of logic would have been in the studies of Nālandā from the academic activities of masters. In this situation, it seems obvious that frequently Nālandian scholars defeated their opponents and sometimes throw open challenge for dispute to all learned men. For example, the teacher Dharmakīrti issued the proclamation: if there is somewhere a learned man, may he enter upon dispute (with me).34 Śrī Nālandā’s monks lived on the campus with the ultimate aim of enlightenment, the liberation from the circle of death and birth. The achievement of salvation depends upon the knowledge of Buddhism and leading a disciplined life like the Buddha and Bodhisattvas. For a Buddhist life, the ordained monks also seemed engaged in training with their studies. The severe training of monks relates to the aggregation of doctrine, rituals, and routine. Doing religious ceremonies was imperative to the process of becoming a pious and devoted monk. Every action was a ritual for monks. The two activities in particular that affected the thoughts were worshipping the Buddha (keeping the precepts) and cleaning the temple (thinking to be a monastic). It is hard to identify the monks’ training in worship and rituals and their engagement in the study separately. Apparently, this training was supplementary to study but also intimately related, as it provided practical contexts and a better understanding of the background to develop the ideas of enlightenment. Training and studying were simultaneous processes, which was also reflected by the archaeologically revealed architecture of the campus.35 In other words, monks are supposed to be either studying or meditating or doing both at the same time. Faxian also observed during his visit to India that the regular business of the monks was to perform acts of noble virtue, to recite Sūtras, and to sit wrapped in meditation.36 The upājjhāyas provided regular training of thought, speech, and action for almost ten years to monks to accord themselves with the ideals of the Bodhisattva. There were two parts of this training: spiritual and ethical education. The religious training involved the cultivation of human virtues to be a perfect Buddhist, like peace, self-consciousness, equanimity, compassion, and thoughtfulness, together with an awareness of the world as fleeting and empty. The ethical part of training focused on moral behavior of a Buddhist monk, with coverage of practical details of everyday life: how and what to eat, drink, and wear, what to think while falling asleep, passing in and out of the doors, mounting the stairs, going to the toilet, how to perform worship, how to treat fellow monks and laity,

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and so on. The monks had to be perfect in performing these daily activities as per the Buddhist way. In fact, being perfect in every action and one’s whole life should be the ideal in Buddhism. The goal of this training was to make a monk like a Bodhisattva in heart, speech, and action so that he was suitable for the achievement of nirvāṇa. He was also to serve as a role model for the new residents of the monastery of Nālandā. Scholars of South Asian Buddhist monastics have focused on how monks’ activities within the monastery were directed either towards salvation (cultivation of self through meditation and education) or the various kinds of pastoral activities in which monastics engage (the performance of rites, the practice of learning, delivery of sermons, etc.). Monks’ lives at Śrī Nālandā included many activities along with the study, meditation, and rituals that are not usually or necessarily seen as religious. These events were related to them being members of Saṁgha and the society. Monks were also social beings besides religious figures. Monks were engaged in the propagation of Buddhism and their knowledge about the Buddha’s religion outside the monastery. Monks were also responsible for the administration and maintenance of the monastery, which involved a lot of physical labor, which will be discussed in detail in chapter 6. Scholars have observed that the Vinaya prevented monks from engaging in any physical labor.37 It looks like physical labor was an important part of disciplining naughty novices.38 The abbot Candranātha appointed Candrakīrti, during his residency at Nālandā, as caretaker of monastic animals, when other monks complained that he did not study, meditate, or work.39 It seems Nālandā’s monks also provided some knowledge in grammar, literature, literary arts, medicine, astrology, and rituals to the interested specialists, such as astrologers, doctors, writers, and ritual masters of the contemporary society. The organization of a religious ceremony and the ritual services to the society in general, and to the upāsakas in particular, was often carried out by the monks. The professors of the monastery of Nālandā did not only teach and guide the students in philosophy but inspired them to live it. The difference between philosophy and religion is that the former is belief but the latter is behavior. When we live our life according to the philosophy we believe in, then only do we live a religious life. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra symbolized the ideal and happy blending of philosophy and religion, pariyatti (teaching) and patipatti (practice), which makes it surpass all the establishments set up in the past. Philosophy and logic, which are puzzling subjects, were taught for making one’s mind sharp, alert, and agile in the simplest possible ways through practice. In these fields, the contribution of the professors of Nālandā is great. But the principal stress was on teaching moral values to the students there. Nālandā’s extreme focus on philosophy was successful up to an extent because it was taught as a way



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of life, similar to Pierre Hadot’s vision of “philosophy as a way of life” founded upon the fundamental concept of “spiritual exercises.” Matthew Kapstein explored Buddhist philosophy as a way of life in the context of Tibetan Buddhism through the works of Śāntideva and others, getting practiced in the monastic education of Tibet.40 He concludes that we cannot have “philosophy as a way of life” without a pronounced element of faith. Faith is analyzed by Śāntideva as a belief with respect to what is so (the nature of things as they are), as disclosed accordingly in the Buddha’s teaching, the presence of (positively valued) qualities regarded as inspiring the Three Jewels of traditional Buddhism, and one’s personal teachers and aspiration for realized capacities for enlightenment.41 Śāntideva and others like Vasubandhu, Dharmakīrti, and Candrakīrti were upājjhāyas of Nālandā who not only formulated the above-mentioned Buddhist faith but also practiced, taught, and maintained it at the academic monastery of Nālandā. Nirvāṇa was the transcendental spiritual goal for Nālandā’s monks, pursued in the guidance of their teacher. More apparently, they tried to follow the image of their teachers in particular and of the Buddha, the sage, in general. Entertaining the idea that one is striving for a transcendental ideal might itself be a spiritual exercise, a practice that forms a part of the good for a human being.42 If it is true, then the permanent residents of Nālandā were always engaged in the above-mentioned spiritual exercise through the performance of activities like worship, rituals, teaching, learning, and writing. They practically led lives of philosophers. The saddhivihārikas and upājjhāyas linked philosophy with one’s spiritual aspirations and endeavors. For them, philosophy meant a way of life, a means to man’s highest accomplishment. SCIENTIFIC AND VOCATIONAL COMPONENTS Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra’s curriculum included some scientific components. It would be hard to find out the practice of hardcore sciences in the campus regarding mechanistic theories and quantitative measures of the Western physical sciences. Concerning rational and empirical methods, we can find some scientific components in the studies of Nālandā, as Nālandā was recognized in early Indian Buddhism for examining the natural world and human thought and relations. The monastery preferred qualitative traditions based on formal logic, math, and physics. The scholars of Nālandā treated Buddhist science as a multidisciplinary human science, totally based on human experience, to formulate rational theories. The rudimentary science taught to students and monks was human-centric, to solve the general problems in their daily life. The Buddhist monasteries like Nālandā looked committed to liberal and progressive scientific education, reflected in their

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focus on human survival in the world through non-violent and religious progress. It opened scientific practices for everyone to contribute to the advancement of humanity. It is said that the Buddha’s teaching is comprehensive because it demonstrates proficiency in every field of knowledge, but the offshoots of Mahāyāna like Vajrayāna and Kālacakratantrayāna were more scientific in nature since they promoted secular education.43 The teachers of the mega-monastery of Nālandā, like the Buddha, critiqued the Vedic notion of divine authority and scriptural revelation and developed their critical concepts of valid authority and traditional teaching. Joseph Loizzo and others have taken the Buddhist term vidyā as science, as its methods are aligned with modern science in the sense that authority and tradition are considered to be of human origin, to reproduce the results of the Buddha’s personal experimentation and mastery of mind and body.44 Nālandā’s stress on the human authority of knowledge and learning using experience is primarily a scientific approach to education. Logical critiques of divinity and divine power led the monks to think about scientific ways of enlightenment. Religion and science were intermixed at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The promoted and practiced critical inquiry resulted in the advancement of Buddhism, or the religion and philosophy of Buddhists, but it would be hard to treat all vidyās as a pure science. The works of Nālandā’s monks on Buddhist philosophy and logic would be treated as the primary scientific canon, based on the interpretive paradigm of truth and method, up to an extent. The works of Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, Buddhaghośa, Vasubandhu, Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, and others are fundamental scientific canons on the subject dealt. The Mahāyāna critics of their realistic theories and formal logical methods, from the relativism of Nāgārjuna’s Centrist philosophy to the deconstructive psychology of Asaṅga’s Vijñānavāda, developed at Nālandā and forged a new scientific consensus in India based on empirical, provisional truth and method. A realistic version of Buddhist logic brought Buddhist social sciences at par with modern science. Indian linguistics and meditation were not restricted to Indian religious elites but rather were universalized into intellectual disciplines that supported progressive scientific and spiritual traditions.45 The extensive practice of meditation and yoga at Nālandā Mahāvihāra, along with studying, almost made them a compulsory part of education and life. The meditation continued from the Brāhmaṇical system came into the monastery of Nālandā and was institutionalized and popularized as a discipline in the campus. In the end days of Nālandā, meditation and yoga became the core of the curriculum related to the achievement of magical and supernatural powers by monks. Not only all the residents of the academy but also outsiders started taking interest and practicing meditation. The Chinese travelers also studied yoga at Nālandā. It proves that meditation was not



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only a culture-bound ritual but also a scientific discipline developed to control the mind and body. The anatomy and function of the mind and body were essential components of Yogaśāstra, traced from the time of the Buddha. The sermon of the Buddha on the cultivation of mindfulness of the Pāli canon contains the high-level description of the human organism in the context of meditation.46 Buddhist meditation has an effect on the brain or stress related to an objective study, and practice led to various researches in qualitative sciences. The present medical system might not apply the same theories and methods, but it seems to be very much dependent on Buddhist meditation for desired effects. Sankalia supposes47 from the records of Xuanzang’s biography, as well as of Yijing, that there was an astronomical observatory at Nālandā, and that astronomy formed part of the students’ curriculum. Huyi Li, for instance, says, “The beacons seem to be lost in the vapors (of the morning) and the upper rooms tower above the clouds.” This might be read alongside the following: “From the windows, one may see how the winds and clouds (produce new forms) and the soaring eaves, the conjunctions of the sun and the moon may be observed.”48 His supposition is also based on another fact that Nālandā had a clepsydra, or a water clock, which according to Yijing gave correct time for all Magadha.49 These words seem similar to the poetic description of the beauty of the monastery of Nālandā because the buildings had many stories with sky windows. The water watch also did not have any relation to astronomy, except telling time according to the shadow of the sun to monks and, by the bell sound, to nearby people. There is also a reference to the study of medicine at Śrī Nālandā, as the Chinese travelers Xuanzang and Yijing mentioned medicine as part of the curriculum, though without details.50 Xuanzang recorded that monks also studied ordinary works on medicine with the Vedas, logic, and grammar.51 Yijing mentions that he studied medicine there, but later he left it because it was not so evocative. Schopen also indicates the monastic medical practice while quoting from the Vinaya Piṭaka, which is also verified by the Gilgit manuscript: if a lay follower became sick or suffered from a serious illness, monks could break the rain retreat.52 We can say that medicine as a discipline was recognized at the monastic institution of Nālandā, as the teacher Candragomī53 composed some short tracts on medicine and the like but later got engaged in the composition of Mahāyānistic treatises. Also, the evidence of Āyurvedic thoughts, such as the physiological notion of health problems, goes back to the Buddhist Pāli canon, the earliest portion of which possibly dates to the time shortly after the death of the Buddha. It seems that the generous support of Gupta kings to Nālandā probably also relates to the promotion of Āyurveda medicine, as the principal works on medicine were written during the Gupta era in India. Archaeologically, it also might be indirectly evidenced by the findings of twin ovens

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from Monastery 6. It is almost a standard feature of all the monasteries of Nālandā. The archeological excavations have revealed single or twin sets of ovens in the middle of the courtyard in many monasteries of Nālandā. The real purpose of these ovens is hard to define but might indicate the cooking of food, chemical experimentation, medicine preparation, or metal casting. They could have served the purpose of drug development since sometimes herbs need to get boiled or cooked to make a medication in Āyurveda. The Sanskrit medical data of the Carakasaṃhitā have long been closely associated with the Buddhist monasteries of India.54 Monasteries like Nālandā also became the home of medical theories and practices that developed into Āyurveda,55 as Buddhist monks reflected medical conceptions similar to those of Āyurveda already current at the time of the Buddha and his contemporary Caraka. The śramaṇa physicians emphasized direct observations, systematized the acquired data, and analyzed them in a rational way that led to the development of theories about the nature of health and the causes of disease.56 People coming from different parts of the country might have shared their Āyurvedic knowledge with the residents of Nālandā, which might have led to the gradual accumulation of medical knowledge and better innovation in daily health care. The studies in medicine at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra were in a progressive stage but might have only been an elementary knowledge to keep the monks healthy. Nālandā’s medical science focused on the daily needs of the residents, with solutions for minor health problems. Xuanzang said that the studies in medicine were ordinary in nature and Yijing also commented that it was not evocative. Thus, this shows that the practice and study of medicine were not severe like logic and philosophy. Atīśa, while going to Tibet, wanted to take a monk named Gya-tson with him, but he was laid up with fever at Śrī Nālandā at that time. Consequently, he had to be carried in a dooly to Vikramaśīlā.57 This event reflects two possibilities: first, either Gya-tson went to Nālandā for the treatment of fever but did not improve and became bed-ridden, or, second, he might have gone to Nālandā for a visit, got a fever, and was forced to stay in bed as his condition deteriorated. And he was brought back in a palanquin to Vikramaśīlā. After a couple of days, he became fit to travel to Tibet with Atīśa. In both cases, it is clear that the practice of medicine was not good at Nālandā. Otherwise, Gya-tson would have been cured there of a simple ailment like a fever. Nālandā always remained famous for its religion and philosophy, but at the same time, in Western India, the monastery of Valabhī became well-known for art, architecture, and medicine. The contemporary literature has referred that the North Indian people interested in the study of medicine used to travel far to Valabhī. The priority of Nālandā Mahāvihāra’s teachers was the cultivation of a spiritual and moral life, which was impossible without a healthy physical life. It was almost impos-



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Figure 5.1.  A Twin Set of Double Ovens in Monastery No. Six. Source: Pintu Kumar.

sible to undertake an arduous journey to Nibbana without being physically fit. Annihilation of cravings leads to the freedom from suffering, and it is a Himalayan task to put an end to them. Only a physically fit man can fulfill this enormous and uphill task. The science of medicine was perhaps taught with this end in view at Nālandā. The need of medical treatment for

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monks seems infrequent in the campus because of the disciplined life, in consideration of physical fitness. An early morning bath and tooth cleansing by tooth wood were obligatory before salutation, which rendered skin diseases and toothaches almost rare in the campus. The Mahāyāna belief in image worship and later its passionate adoption by Tantric Mahāyāna Buddhism encouraged the incorporation of arts and crafts into the curriculum of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The inscription of Yaśovarmadeva of the eighth century describes the teachers of Nālandā “as being proficient in the various Āgamas and Kalās, the fine arts and crafts of which the old Indian texts describe as many as sixtyfour kinds.”58 The archaeological findings at Nālandā have brought to light many stone and bronze images of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas, as well as some specimens from arched niches and mural paintings that we know were created according to the description given in the Mantras or Sadhanas. This aspect of Nālandā education thus gave rise to a new school of art called the Pāla or the Nālandā Art. According to Tāranātha, “In the time of king Dharmapāla, there lived in Varendra a skillful artist named Dhīmāna, whose son was Bitapālo: both of these produced many works in cast-metal as well as sculptures and paintings which resemble the

Figure 5.2.  A Small Portion of a Template at the Maha–viha–ra of Na–landa–. Source: Pintu Kumar.

Figure 5.3.  A Small Portion of a Template at the Maha–viha–ra of Na–landa–. Source: Pintu Kumar.

Figure 5.4.  A Small Portion of a Template at the Maha–viha–ra of Na–landa–. Source: Pintu Kumar.

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works of the Nāgas. The father and son gave rise to two distinct schools. In painting the followers of the father were called the Eastern School; those of Magadha were called followers of the Madhyadeśa School of painting.”59 It indicates that the father and son duo Dhīmāna and Bitapālo (sculptor and painter) were teachers of arts and crafts and the founders of this school at Nālandā. The art of metal and stone casting was perhaps a part of the curriculum of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. They reflect, on the one hand, new and ideational qualities of purity and simplicity of the fifth century, and on the contrary, the experimentations of the early sixth and seventh centuries attenuated and adulterated.60 The specimens of some stone sculptures recovered from the temples of Nālandā also exemplify this. Considering the vastness of the Nālandā ruins, giant stone statues, so common at Sāranātha and elsewhere, are remarkably small in number at the monastery of Nālandā. The Nālandā artists seem to have taken delight in modeling small pieces, which afforded ample scope for minute details and careful execution. Some of the Nālandā bronzes are carved in the round, but they were placed against a square back-slab rising to the shoulder of the deity. The artists who created the Nālandā works of art were of varying degree of skill and training. Not all of them produced that calm and thoughtful expression of the Gupta images of Sāranātha or even the stucco figures of the Bodhisattvas of the main temple at Nālandā.61 The Buddha is depicted in all his individual attitudes in Nālandā specimens. He may be standing or sitting in meditation under Bodhi tree. The hands show the favorite poses such as the earth-touching, meditation, gift, protection, preaching, augmenting. Usually, the hair is shown in schematic curls with a top-knot, regarded as one of the marks of the great man, and sometimes the Buddha is wearing a crown on his head.62 In one specimen, the Buddha wears matted hair, a characteristic of Śiva, the locks hanging on shoulders, and in another particular sample the Buddha stands on a circular lotus pedestal, one of the finest of the Nālandā bronzes.63 Attendants sometimes accompany the Buddha, but he is often depicted single. There are also sculptures depicting the scenes of his life. Among the celestial Bodhisattvas with or without the Buddha, mention is made of Padmapāṇi in variety, Avalokiteśvara,64 KhasarpaṇaKokeśvara, Samantabhadra, Vajrapāṇi,65 Mañjuśrī Arapachana, and Mañjuvara. There are some different types of Bodhisattvas also found at Nālandā such as a deity seated cross-legged holding a chain by the hands, and a god seated in lalitasana, the right hand in varadamudrā and the left holding a banner.66 It is kind of interesting that most Bodhisattvas presented in having more than one hand holding one thing in one hand might be because of the effect of Brāhmaṇical pantheons such as lotus (commonly), sword, book, rose, and vajra. Tantric gods and goddesses found in the campus of Nālandā include consort of Jambhala,67



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Trailokyavijaya,68 Yāmañtaka,69 Prajñāpāramitā (the goddess of learning), Tārā in varieties,70 Marīci, Vasundharā, and Aparājita. Among the found Brāhmaṇical deities with full emblems and forms, we can mention ŚivaPārvatī,71 Durgā, Mahiṣasura-mardīni,72 Sūrya, Revanta, Gaṇeśa, Śrāvastī, Gaṅgā and Balarāma.73 A red painted bronze Viṣṇu shows the usual four emblems (conch, disc, mace, and lotus) and a long garland known as the vanamalā; a kneeling female devotee sits on the right end of the pedestal.74 Yijing does not mention any art school of metal image casting at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, but other evidence indicates its existence. It is striking that the number of larger statues in stone at Nālandā is minuscule. The materials, consisting of black basalt, stone, and bronze, enabled the artist to work out fine details and give a lasting polish to his products. The small collection of bronze images produced by the Nālandā School of Art is, however, remarkable in that it gives enough scope for details and finish of execution.75 As we know, this particular art needed the knowledge of metallurgical science and metal casting for its success. Metal casting was a profession at Nālandā, as is also evident from the series of ovens discovered at the courtyards of some of the monasteries, especially Temple No. 13.76 The discovery of a four-chambered smelting furnace at Temple No. 13, having two flues in each chamber with pieces of metal and lots of ashes, woods, and husks, probably indicates its use as a furnace for metal smelting.77 The brass images of Aparājita and Trailokyavijaya were the outcome of the Tantric age of Nālandā. We have a fragmentary stone inscription of the time of Dharmapāladeva inscribed on a sculpture. From this inscription, we learn that the monument in question was the work of the craftsmen of Nālandā whose names were Kese, Savvo, Vokkaka, and Vijita.78 This, in other words, shows that besides being a famous school of art and design, Nālandā also had a School of Crafts, which was served by its accessory workshop as indicated in this inscription. Along with Nālandā’s rich sculptural heritage, there are a few archaeological shreds of evidence of beautiful paintings discovered at Nālandā,79 which suggests the study and practice of painting along with other arts during the period of the Pāla dynasty. Ghosh also found evidence of painting on stone bricks in Temple No. 14, but it has now perished. The recent discovery of the remains of the Buddhist temple at Sarai Mound with a polychrome painting all around its central hall and a stone panel with lotuses measuring eight meters in length might serve as a valid, important archaeological source. Buddhist in character, the board was found in front of a massive pedestal and depicts deities like Padmapāṇi, Bodhisattva, and Jambhala,80 along with male and female worshipers in different forms of adoration. The entire sanctum hall is coated with lime plaster to provide a background to mural painting. White, red, black, yellow, and blue pigments constituted the background of the picture; statistically speaking, the

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painting belongs to the tenth–eleventh century.81 The upper portion of the sanctum wall has a few blurred faces of human figures in red ochre color. It also yielded a few floral and geometrical designs in red, yellow, and blue color. The scroll design of the rear-half and the black walls of the temple is probably a fascinating feature of the painting, which is very similar to the scroll-pattern “carved at the bottom of the famous Dhāmekha Stūpa at Sāranātha.”82 Animal and plant motifs were familiar with the Nālandā artists. The noteworthy aspect of Nālandā murals is that many of the bigsized stucco lotuses are adorned with the seat of the central deity in semicircular forms. The other standard feature of Nālandā painting, as in other Buddhist paintings, is the skillful depiction of a standing elephant looking north to south and a horse in a galloping pose, which was associated with the Buddha’s life. The paper paintings were also done in large scale at Nālandā, which is quite evident from the illustrated manuscripts of the Prajñāpāramitā, and the other religious texts found in the libraries of Nepal and Tibet, which contain beautiful delineations of the Goddess in color and lines. Moreover, the existence of the Madhyadeśa School of Painting as referred to by Tāranātha further confirms this connection. These manuscripts were also illustrated with the images of the Buddhist deities. This Pāla style of painting as seen in the illustrated painted papers of Nālandā and elsewhere is popularly known as the Eastern Buddhist School of Painting. It soon migrated to Nepal and Tibet and molded their artistic traditions and techniques. The streams of arts and crafts of Nālandā flowed throughout Magadha, and over time successfully developed and assumed a new character. They gradually spread to countries like Java, Sumatra, Cambodia, and China in the east and Nepal and Tibet in the north. About Java, an exhaustive study of the bronze images found at Nālandā and Java by Kempers has established beyond doubt the influence of Nālandā art on its culture. The Buddhist writings before the literature of Mahāyāna refer to the creative arts, craftsmanship, scribing, metal casting, and similar studies as the low fields of knowledge meant for lay people. The advancement of Mahāyāna at Nālandā promoted general education for the entire Buddhist community. It was because, as per Wallace’s logic, Mahāyāna recognized the Buddhist lay life as a viable way of life in the pursuit of spiritual awakening, and the ideal of perfect enlightenment, like Bodhisattvas, was characterized by omniscience.83 The Mahāyāna academy promoted the vocational studies in arts and crafts of stone sculpturing, metal casting, scribing, and painting, which all seemed to be needed additions to the curriculum. It could have been an attraction for laity and non-believers. The increased importance of images and the decoration of stūpas in the campus led to training and education in professional courses. One may be surprised to note the spiritual need and orientation of these artistic



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works at Nālandā, as most of the archeological evidence of sculptures and paintings comes from organic remains of the temple. The demand for the creative works of teachers and students of vocational studies seems concentrated within the campus, either in the crafting and casting of images or the decoration of temples and manuscripts. Thus, the study, training, and practice in arts seem not like a professional training for mundane and societal purpose. We cannot say for sure to what extent the artists of Nālandā provided their service outside. The arts were not a field that required a professional to come in from the outside since the teachers and students inside the monastery learned how to do it themselves. The contemporary centers of Buddhist arts like Sāranātha, Sāñcī, Ajantā, and Bāgh came out with more precise, accurate, and beautiful works and monuments. Also, archaeologist Nath commented while examining the mural paintings of Nālandā that the stylistic trend and the pattern of Nālandā murals of the late Pāla School of Painting are more or less similar to the paintings at Ajantā and Bāgh. However, the painters of Nālandā do not seem to be acquainted with the anatomy, decorative pattern, floral and geometrical designs, ornamentation, and the use of different types of pigments as noticed at Ajantā and Bāgh.84 From the previous pages, it is evident that Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra provided study and training in Buddhist religion and philosophy, social sciences, sciences, arts, and crafts. The courses of study at Nālandā were widened and sufficiently exhaustive, so it was practically impossible for the students to take up all enumerated subjects simultaneously. There were some subjects that almost all the students were required to study, such as grammar, language, and theology. Buddhist theology or religiophilosophical knowledge was the most popular and the base of all these studies. Logic was mixed with philosophy and religion. In general, the monastery confined its studies and teachings within the limits of the Buddhist canon and philosophy. The Buddhist Academy debated between versions of the curriculum based on the methods of Buddhist realism, logic, idealism, and centrism. No doubt, Nālandā Mahāvihāra, besides preaching Buddhist religion and philosophy far and wide, even contributed considerably towards its advancement, which we will discuss in chapter 7. It is noticed that the curriculum in Nālandā Mahāvihāra more or less excluded technical sciences. If the study of astronomy, metal casting, painting, and medicine were carried out at Nālandā, then it was very basic and limited to its practical importance for ritual purposes and to keep the monks healthy. It was, therefore, a deviation from Takṣaśīlā, where the curriculum was more vivid. But there is nothing strange in this when we bear in mind that the monks did not care about food, lodging, and clothing, which were supplied to them for free. In fact, the monks hardly had any secular care, and their whole endeavor was given to intellectual

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and spiritual improvement. Moreover, there is no sufficient evidence that law, mathematics, and astronomy were cultivated in these monasteries entirely. Probably law was already regarded too much as an exclusive possession of Brahmins to make any intrusion by others impossible, while Buddhism would not have more need of astronomy than Brāhmaṇism had for ascertaining auspicious times for sacrifices and other ceremonials.85 CHANGES IN CURRICULUM Śrī Nālandā initiated its study with the focus on the sermons and life of the Buddha. In similar words, the monastery of Nālandā started when Buddhism was in full swing in India and focused on the study of and training in the religion and philosophy of the Buddha. In the beginning, the curriculum of Nālandā would have included the old Buddhism preached by the Buddha and its religious texts, similar to Hīnayāna Buddhism. The stress on the Buddha, Buddhist canon, and monasticism in the studies at Nālandā in Pāli has been discussed above. It dominated the curriculum of Nālandā after its establishment. It was not same for all of Nālandā’s history. We can easily observe changes in the curriculum of Nālandā. The transformations in Buddhism after the death of the Buddha on the Indian mainland led to alterations in the curriculum of Nālandā. Sometimes even Nālandā became the progenitor of the process of development and represented the new schools of Buddhism through its focused curriculum and practices. The modifications in the curriculum of Nālandā closely corresponded with the growth of ancient Buddhism in India, and vice versa, like the emergence of various schools of Buddhism, which also led to alternations in the curriculum of Nālandā. It enables us to trace a gradual development of Buddhism in South Asia. The additions and deletions in the curriculum at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra reflected an exciting process of comprehensiveness in the generation of new knowledge in the Nālandā system of learning. In general, the curriculum tried to incorporate all dominant sects of Buddhism (i.e., Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, and Tantrayāna) and other minor ideas. The new ideas of Buddhism such as Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna that promulgated themselves at Nālandā were already present but hidden, respectively, within Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna in the form of similar ideas. Later, they came to the forefront with a favorable intellectual environment and exegesis. It might be true that one particular form of Buddhism dominated the curriculum at a time at Śrī Nālandā, but we can also find out the inclusiveness among different sects at the same time. With time, the ancient form of Buddhism, Hīnayāna, went through a revival at Nālandā after a series of constant textual and practical creations. Mahāyāna Buddhism devel-



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oped out of the Hīnayāna tradition after the couple of hundred years of the Buddha’s Mahāparinirvāṇa, which focuses on liberating all mortals from suffering. Nālandā adopted the strategy of inclusiveness shared by Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna pedagogy in hermeneutic strategies of gradualism, expressed in the doctrine of liberation and the prohibition against rejecting any Buddhist faction. Nāgārjuna and his successors and disciples promoted Mahāyāna at Nālandā through linked and highlighted similarities with Hīnayāna. The fourfold gradualism expressed in Nāgārjuna’s Jewel Garland included three levels of teaching consistent with Hīnayāna practice and only one consistent with the Mahāyāna. Candrakīrti, as well, linked the Mahāyāna Academy back down to its Hīnayāna foundations by emphasizing the general nature and curative intent of all Buddhist teaching. In this process, Hīnayāna Buddhism slowly downgraded and the Mahāyāna School upgraded in the studies of Nālandā in due time. The therapeutic truth and method of the Hīnayāna tradition served as a base for the emergence of Mahāyāna at Nālandā, based on Nāgārjuna’s Mādhyāmika philosophy. Slowly, the monastery of Nālandā turned into a Mahāyāna Academy with a focus on centrist methods in the curriculum. Śrī Nālandā, as a Mahāyāna scholastic, focused on the Vinaya and four noble truths, relating to the therapeutic aim of freedom of the mind and action, in its curriculum. The focus on curriculum was similar to Hīnayāna practices that led to the active communication between Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna. The Mādhyāmika theory of Nāgārjuna served as a dialogical language therapy and tried to incorporate and understand all sects of Buddhism at Nālandā. The Mahāyāna academy extended the Hīnayāna learning into the mainstream of Indian science and civilization through its curriculum related to science, ethics, and meditation. To clarify this, Loizzo mapped the centrist canon of Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti onto three core disciplines fundamental to all Buddhist learning. Nāgārjuna’s wisdom (Madhyamakākārika) and Candrakīrti’s Lucid Exposition (Prasannapada) elaborate a relativistic theory of knowledge to apply to the discipline of intelligence, while the Jewel Garland (Ratnāvalī) and Introduction (Madhyamakāvatāra) define an altruistic style of social agency to align technical expertise with the subject of ethics.86 Mahāyāna Buddhism began to undergo changes slowly in India, the land of its birth from the seventh century A.D. It underwent development during the three succeeding centuries. Mudrās, Mantras, Maṇḍalas, Dhāraṇīs (memorized prayers), Yoga, Samadhi, and other Tantric rituals were introduced into Mahāyāna. The Tantric rituals became predominant and assumed increasing importance therein. As a consequence, a new type of Mahāyāna Buddhism came into being. This kind of Mahāyānism may be called the Tantric Mahāyāna Buddhism. It did away with all the earlier practices and introduced the cult of many gods and goddesses. The

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form of worship was also mystic and involved some yoga, use of strange gestures and formulas, contemplations on the spiritual value of sound, and so forth. This transformed Mahāyāna gave rise to Mantrayāna, from which three other branches were issued out: Vajrayāna, Kālacakrayāna, and Sahajayāna. The Mādhyāmika and the Yogācāra systems of thought provided the philosophical background of these sects.87 There are references in Tibetan works that Nālandā turned into a center of Tantric studies. It appears that Tantra and Mantra became perhaps popular subjects of study and practice with the students, as well as professors, of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. Tantravidyā had its origin among the various religions, especially in the reflective practices prevalent among Brāhmaṇas and Buddhists. It was already there in Mahāyāna Buddhism in the form of Mudrās, Mantras, Maṇḍalas, Dhāraṇīs, Yoga, and Samadhi. Actually, in the later Pāla period, the ancient seat of the Nālandā Monastery developed as the religious institution of a Tantric cult that dominantly occupied its curriculum. Monks got engaged in magical invocations and exorcisms. The study of Tantric knowledge also opened up a new field of Fine Arts and Crafts, because it had a strong belief in the worship of images. The Kālacakrayāna tradition was also related to Mahāyāna ideas. The entire Kālacakratantra can be divided into two main parts, one dealing with diverse disciplines about the theoretical knowledge of the world and the other one about meditation. It indicates that one is unable to get the firm footing in Buddhist teachings and practice by study and analysis alone, without the practice of meditation, or with meditation alone, without study.88 The changes in the curriculum of Śrī Nālandā seem frequent, but the core content remained overall the same for all time, reflecting the philosophy of Indian education. The philosophy of education in ancient India recognized and stressed three primary values.89 Of these, the first and foremost was the quest for the liberation of the individual from the bondage of evil. The second was one of tolerance and forbearance that arose out of the recognition that ultimately all individuals are manifestations of God. The third and the most characteristic was the principle of disinterested devotion (niskama bhakti). It arose directly from the motivation for freedom from limitations and the regard for individuality. These philosophies were beautifully represented in the studies at the monastery of Nālandā. Overall, these philosophies focused on the self-correction of an individual, which relates to the education of ethics. Loizzo stressed that Nālandā Mahāvihāra achieved it in the unique focus on a curriculum and pedagogy of self-correction through enhanced levels of objectivity. The scholars of Nālandā like Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti, and Dharmakīrti constantly promoted the objective knowledge, and its acquisition in studying and writing, as a self-corrective method of contemplation. They confirmed the Buddha’s idea that appropriate objectivity does ensure that human



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knowledge and action yield personal freedom and social happiness since the objectivity of human knowledge and expertise is no greater than the objectivity of those who employ them. The best way to advance objectivity is to maximize the natural, social, and cultural processes of self-correction by which individuals and groups become more objective over time.90 The methods and contents of the study and training practiced by Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra seem to be not completely lost after the end of its academic life. It survived in some forms and practices in Asian countries like China, Japan, Tibet, and Nepal. The foreign travelers to Nālandā and the teachers and scholars who went out of Nālandā served as the means of transportation of the curriculum. The Chinese travelers like Xuanzang studied at Nālandā, and later in his country not only introduced the textual curriculum of Nālandā but also started the Buddhist schools of Mahāyāna and Tantrayāna. Japanese Buddhism also got affected and copied many traditions of Nālandā through Xuanzang. The teachers and scholars of Nālandā went to Tibet and Nepal and introduced and practiced Buddhism based on their previous study, curriculum, and texts.91 Scholars of Nālandā such as Śāntarakṣita and Śāntideva imported Buddhism in Tibet in the late ninth century. Tibetans reassigned the scholarly and practical traditions of academia, including systematically translating its vast library of classical texts and commentaries. The Tibetans preserved the Nālandā curriculum as it was at its height, with its integrated use of formal logical methods for basic arts and sciences, and qualitative methods for advanced disciplines like hermeneutics, self-correction, and behavioral psychology.92 The monastic order formed among the Tibetan disciples of the Indian masters followed the curriculum of Nālandā, focused on the ideals of the Buddhist life based on the Udānavarga (Collection of Aphorisms) and Jātakamālā (Garlands of Birth-Tales). The maximum part of the curriculum of the Tibetan monastic order, the Kadam, attributed to the eighth-century master of Nālandā, Śāntideva, was primarily concerned with practical guidance on the Mahāyāna path, particularly in its ethical dimensions. These were based on the Śikṣāsamuccaya (Compendium of Lessons) and Bodhicaryāvatāra (Introduction to Enlightened Conduct), and the same path from a pre-eminently doctrinal/theoretical perspective based on the Mahāyānasūtrālaṁkāra (Ornaments of the Mahāyāna Sūtras) and Bodhisattvabhūmiḥ (Bodhisattva Stage). Later, corresponding to this curriculum and relating with particular clarity to the works of Śāntideva on the practice of the Mahāyāna path, is a substantial genre that developed in the early Kadam order called lojong, an expression that is often translated as mind-training.93 The Mahāyāna Buddhism of Nālandā became a keystone of curriculum shared by all four orders of Tibetan Buddhism, from the establishment of the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery of bSamye in the ninth century.

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NOTES   1.  Vincent Eltschinger, “Debate, Salvation and Apologetics: On the Institutionalization of Dialectics in the Buddhist Monastic Environment,” in Devadattiyam: Johannes Bronkhorst Felicitation Volume, eds. Francois Voegeli, Vincent Eltschinger, Danielle Feller, Maria Piera Candotti, Boddan Diaconescu, and Malhar Kulkarni (Bern and New York: Peter Lang, 2012), 431.   2.  D. Devahuti, ed., The Unknown Hsuan-tsang (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 24–25.   3.  Carpenter, “An Ancient Buddhist University,” 187–88.   4.  Joe Loizzo, “Renewing the Nālandā Legacy: Science, Religion, and Objectivity in Buddhism and the West,” Religion East and West 6 (2006): 111–12.  5. Nisha Singh, The Origin and Development of Buddhist Monastic Education in India (Delhi: Indo-Asian Publishing House, 1997), 145–46.  6. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 106.   7.  Quoted in R. K. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education: Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist, 2nd ed (London: Macmillan, 1951), 538.  8. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 177.  9. Khila means a wasteland, so called because this part of grammar may be likened to the way in which a farmer prepared his field for corn. It consisted of Aṣṭadhātu, of one thousand ślokas, Maṇda of the same number of ślokas, and Unādi, which also consisted of the same number of ślokas. 10. Samaddar, Glories of Magadha, 142. 11.  Cullavagga, VIII.7. 12. It also indicates the grading of students according to progress in their study as they were interested and showed advancement in meditation, teaching Dhamma, practicing the Vinaya, and repeating Suttanta, respectively treated in decreasing importance; Mahāvagga, IX.15.4. 13.  Samuels coined this term with the help of Ann M. Blackburn drawing on fieldwork conducted in Śrī Lankan monastic training; see Jeffrey Samuels, “Toward an Action-Oriented Pedagogy: Buddhist Texts and Monastic Education in Contemporary Sri Lanka,” Journal of American Academy of Religion 72 (2004): 955–71. 14.  Schopen has pointed out that the assumption of the study of a religious tradition with its original texts betrays an unexamined Protestant bias; Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy and Texts of Monastic Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), 1–22. 15.  J. Takakusu, “A Study of Paramartha’s Life of Vasu-Bandhu and the Date of Vasu-Bandhu,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1905): 36. 16. John E. Cort, ‟The Intellectual Formation of a Jain Monk: A Śvetāmbara Monastic Curriculum,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 29 (2001): 327–49. 17.  H. D. Sankalia, The University of Nālandā. Indian Historical Institute Series (Delhi: Oriental, 1972), 95. 18. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 181. 19. Rachita Chaudhuri, Buddhist Education in Ancient India (Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 2008), 87.



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20. Singh, Origin and Development, 176. 21.  T. Watters, trans., On Yuan-Chwang’s Travels in India (A.D. 629–695), 2 vols., second edition (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1961), vol. 1, 226. 22.  Ryukan Kimura, The Original and Developed Doctrines of Indian Buddhism in Charts (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1920), 189. 23.  S. Beal, trans., Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, 2 vols. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co. Ltd., 1906), vol. 2, 121. 24. Sankalia, University of Nālandā, 79. 25.  As per tradition, Maiteryanātha was the divine teacher of Asaṅga, but it seems Asaṅga wrote down his texts at Veṇuvana, Magadha, including the treatise mentioned; Losang Norbu Tsonawa, trans., Indian Buddhist Pandits from “the Jewel Garland of Buddhist History” (New Delhi: Library of Tibetan works & Archives, 1985), 26–29. 26. Matthew T. Kapstein, “Stoics and Bodhisattvas: Spiritual Exercise and Faith in Two Philosophical Traditions,” in Philosophy as a Way of Life: Ancient and Moderns-Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot, ed. Michael Chase, Stephan R. L. Clark, and Michael Mcghee (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 101–02. 27. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 42. 28.  Eltschinger, “Debate, Salvation and Apologetics,” 456. 29. Johannes Bronkhorst, “Modes of Debates and Refutation of Adversaries in Classical and Medieval India: A Preliminary Investigation,” Antiquorum Philosophia 1 (2007): 269–80; Jose Ignacio Cabezon, “Buddhist Narratives of the Great Debates,” Argumentation 22 (2008): 71–92. 30.  Eltschinger, “Debate, Salvation and Apologetics,” 479. 31.  Eltschinger, “Debate, Salvation and Apologetics,” 478. 32.  Dharmakīrti demonstrated the possibility of rebirth against Materialism; John A. Taber, “Dharmakīrti against Physicalism,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 31 (2003): 479–502. 33.  Dharmakīrti demonstrated against the Mīmāṁṣā the possibility, for human beings engaged in religious practice, to develop mental qualities such as compassion and insight to their maximum degree of intensity; Eli Franco, Dharmakīrti on Compassion and Rebirth (Vienna: Arbeitskreis fur tibetische und buddhistische Studien Universitat Wien, 1997), 6–8. 34. Obermiller, Buddhism by Bu-ston, 153. 35.  See chapter 2. 36.  J. Legge, trans., A Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399–414) in Search of the Buddhist Book of Discipline, second edition (Delhi: Oriental Publishers, 1972), 44. 37.  Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere, eds., Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Śrī Lanka (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 254; Melford Spiro, Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and Its Burmese Vicissitudes (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 306. 38.  Thomas Borchert in a case study of the Theravāda monastic community of Sipsongpannā in Southwest China highlighted the different varieties of the physical labor of monks related to the monastery and the society. For details of his logic see Thomas Borchert, ‟Monastic Labor: Thinking about the Works of Monks in Contemporary Theravāda Communities,’ Journal of American Academy of Religion 79 (2011): 162–92.

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39. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 17. 40.  Kapstein, “Stoics and Bodhisattvas,” 99–115. I am grateful to my colleague Shankar Nair at the University of Virginia for recommending this work to me. 41.  Kapstein, “Stoics and Bodhisattvas,” 109–13. 42. Jonardon Ganeri, “Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from the Buddha to Tagore,” in Philosophy as a Way of Life: Ancient and Moderns-Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot, eds. Michael Chase, Stephan R. L. Clark, and Michael Mcghee (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 129–30. 43.  Wallace showed throughout her book that the Kālacakra tradition supported the view of the Buddha’s omniscience as an inclusive form of learning, and it accordingly integrates the diverse branches of esoteric knowledge into its esoteric theories and practices; Vesna A. Wallace, The Inner Kālacakratantra: A Buddhist View of the Individual (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 44–45. 44.  Joseph J. Loizzo and Leslie J. Blackhall, “Traditional Alternatives as Complementary Sciences: The Challenge of Indo-Tibetan Medicine,” Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 4 (1998): 311–19; and Wallace, Inner Kālacakratantra. 45.  Loizzo, “Renewing the Nālandā Legacy,” 106 46.  Bhikkhu Nānamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans., The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995), 147ff. 47. Sankalia, University of Nālandā, 98. 48. Beal, Life, vol. 1, 111. 49. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 114–46. 50.  Pintu Kumar, “Studies in Medicine at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra: An Introduction,” Online International Interdisciplinary Research Journal 6 (2016): 94–101. 51. Beal, Si-Yu-Ki, vol. 2, 121. 52. Schopen, Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks, 73. 53. Obermiller, Buddhism by Bu-ston, 132–33. 54.  Kenneth G. Zysk, Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 46–47. 55.  Johannes Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 56–60. 56. Zysk, Asceticism and Healing, 29. 57.  For details of the incident see Das, Indian Pandits, 66. 58.  Mookerji, “University of Nalanda,” 158. 59.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 260. 60.  Sheila L. Weiner, “From Gupta to Pala Sculpture,” Artibus Asiae 25 (1962): 167–77. 61.  A. Ghosh, A Guide to Nālandā (Delhi: Manager of Publication, 1950),34–35. 62. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 24. 63. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 24–25. 64. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 37; poses with female companion Sakti and on each side of deity representing Bhrikuti and Tārā and a crouching animal praying for mercy. 65. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 26; in one image a female figure sits at the side of the god, representing the respective Sakti. 66. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 27.



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67. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 30; probably it is representing a fertility goddess. 68. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 28; a Buddhist god trampling on the Brāhmaṇical gods Śiva and Pārvatī lying prostrate. 69. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 40; he is depicted with six heads, six arms, and a garland of human skulls. 70. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 28–29; she is the most favorite female deity of Buddhists, as the number of such depictions aresecond only to that of the Buddha, and she usually holds a lotus stalk in her left hand. 71. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 32; No. 4–63 is a stone representation of ŚivaPārvatī with respective vehicles and symbols, seated in the amorous attitude. 72. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 44; No. 1–722 is four-handed Durgā with a lion vehicle and a phallus on the top. Mahiṣasura-mardīni or Durgā killing the demons is rather poorly represented in No. 1–594. 73.  In No. 1–443, we find Balarāma with four hands carrying a conch, disc, club, and canopy over the head. An inscription on the back says that the image was erected in the reign of Devapāla. 74. Ghosh, Guide to Nālandā, 32. 75. John Bernet Kempers, Bronzes of Nalanda and Hindu Javanese Art (Leiden: Brill, 1933), 3ff. 76.  B. N. Mishra, Nālandā (Sources and Background), 3 vols. (Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 1998), vol. 3, 332. 77.  For details see chapter 2. 78. Upendra Thakur, Buddhist Cities in Early India: Buddha-Gayā, Rājagṛha, Nālandā (Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1995), 107. 79.  For details see chapter 2. 80.  Jambhala, a Buddhist deity of wealth, is commonly regarded as the counterpart of Kubera, the God of wealth in Hinduism. He is depicted as being seated and pot-bellied like Kubera. 81.  B. Nath, Nalanda Murals (New Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1983), 63–64. 82. Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 110–11. 83. Wallace, Inner Kālacakratantra, 44. 84. Nath, Nalanda Murals, 41–55. 85. S. K. Das, The Education System of the Ancient Hindus (New Delhi: Gyan Publication, 1996), 169–70. 86.  Loizzo, “Renewing the Nālandā Legacy,” 111. 87.  Bali Ram Singh, “The Tāntric Mahāyāna,” in Nalanda and Buddhism, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2002), 169–72. 88. Wallace, Inner Kālacakratantra, 45. 89.  Humayun Kabir, “Continuity of Traditions in Indian Education Thoughts,” Philosophy of East and West 6 (1956): 13–15. 90.  Loizzo, “Renewing the Nālandā Legacy,” 116 91.  See chapter 4. 92.  Loizzo, “Renewing the Nālandā Legacy,” 107. 93.  Kapstein, “Stoics and Bodhisattvas,” 102–03.

S ix Śrī Nālandā’s Monastic Organization and Religion The last chapter focused on the curriculum practiced at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, matching to the features of a religious learning institution. Buddhism as a religion was the motivational factor in studies and training took place at the monastery of Nālandā. The teachers and students of Nālandā without any laziness devoted to studies in the Buddha’s religion, philosophy, and logic with some minor training in arts, crafts, and sciences. Besides academic involvement, the other part of the religious campus life of teachers and scholars was connected to the management of the monastery, reflected through many menial labors and institutional services. The organization of Nālandā Mahāvihāra gave enough scope to monks in its management team, who tried to follow the path shown by the Buddha for a maintained and uninterrupted daily life on campus. In this way, the administration of Śrī Nālandā by Buddhists indirectly reflected its nature as the religious body of Buddhism. In this chapter, we will reconstruct the other part of internal Buddhist monastic organization of Nālandā Mahāvihāra with a focus on the role of its monks and scholars. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, as well as being a religious learning institution, would be treated as an example of a strong administrative structure in South Asia. In other words, Nālandā as a religious organization maintained itself efficiently for more than eight hundred years since its known archaeological existence. The efficient and professional management of its organization seems real when Xuanzang says that there was no revolt against the rule for the last seven hundred years or so.1 The available shreds of evidence until now do not show any complaint by the residents of Nālandā against its monastic organization and administration. The monastery seems too monastic in the adherence of daily life that sometimes scholars got exhausted and moved out for fresh air and short break. The success of an institution, especially a religious one, depends to an extent upon the contentment of its participants, where Nālandā proved itself. The monastery progressed with strict enforcement of the monastic discipline by its monk administrators including the abbot, gatekeepers, and others. In the end days, the balance of 193

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training and studies became dangerous due to the increased rate of magic and rituals and it was hard for the monks to control the whole edifice, resulting in the desertification of Nālandā. Śrī Nālandā represented a peculiar type of modest centralization of religious education at the time of decentralized learning in India. Compared to the disorganized, scattered gurukulas in the semi-forest areas of India, monasteries like Nālandā reflected a connected system of Buddhist education. The large institution of Nālandā developed an administrative structure to start its centralized monastic school. The monastery of Nālandā was complete in itself regarding the management of its religious and education activities. There was no central authority to regulate Indian monasteries and enforce uniformity; each was a law unto itself guided only by the precepts of the Buddha as it had received them and as it interpreted them. Occasionally, we see a network or hierarchy between monasteries, at least in the region of Bihar-Bengal proposed by Dutt.2 Still, a central religious or education authority to complete the centralization of religious education in India was lacking. All mahāvihāras of ancient Magadha were interconnected and interdependent in the sphere of organization, academia, and political affiliations. The free flow of information and scholars between these monasteries provided an example of the developed institutional system, which further stimulated the free process of the diffusion of religious and non-religious knowledge. Buddhist ideology with the same objective, these academic institutions automatically came near to each other, and occasionally created formal ties. The top three mahāvihāras, Nālandā, Vikramaśīlā, and Odantapurī, had an exchange of teachers and administrators between themselves. One Vipulaśrīmitra, a resident of Somapura, has left an inscription at Nālandā recording his construction in honor of the martyrdom of the monk Karunaśrīmitra who had been burnt to death by the Bengal army in saving his monastery of Somapura, as well as the erection of a monastery at Nālandā to gain greater response and achieve the public appreciation.3 An inscription from Nālandā states that a monk named Vīradeva started on his travels and came to Nālandā Mahāvihāra. From there he went to Vajrāsana (at Gayā), and after spending some time there, he again returned to Yasovarmmapura Mahāvihāra (Ghosrāwan). He stayed at the monastery of Yasovarmmapura and was permanently commissioned by King Devapāla to look after Nālandā as paripālana.4 The scholars also joined other monasteries to enrich their knowledge, after the completion of their study in one monastery. The ninety-fourth Siddha Ratnākaraśānti, also known as Śānti-pa and Ratnākaraśānti-pa, one of the Dwārapaṇḍitas of Vikramaśīlā, was ordained in the Sarvāstivāda school of Odantapurī.5 Even Atīśa or Dīpāṁkara Śrījñāna, the high priest of Vikramaśīlā, took the sacred vow in his nineteenth year from Śila Rakṣitā, the Mahāsāṁghika of



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Odantapurī Mahāvihāra.6 Many scholars like Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla are associated with both Nālandā and Odantapurī. Atīśa was associated with Odantapurī, Nālandā, and Vikramaśīlā. Ratnākaraśānti was ordained in Odantapurī and became a Dwārapaṇḍita of Vikramaśīlā and then went to Somapura vihāra in Bengal. Abhayākaragupta was a scholar at Vajrāsana, Nālandā, and finally at Vikramaśīlā.7 It seems that, as the first largest and organized monastery, Nālandā worked as coordinator of this monastic education system in the beginning. We can see Nālandā exercised a primary type of central institutional authority being situated at the top of monastic hierarchy. The Gupta and the Pāla rulers were chief patrons of these contemporary monasteries. The same royal patronages also worked as a medium of connections and organizational setup between them. Joshi comments that Kings have exercised some power over the institutions they maintained or that were under their dominion.8 Lama Tāranātha observed that the head of Vikramaśīlā had some control over Nālandā.9 The Pāla ruler Dharmapāla established Vikramaśīlā and Somapura Mahāvihāra.10 Obviously, they would have focused more on Vikramaśīlā, and later it emerged as an influential monastery with kingly support. In this way, we can say that in the end days of Nālandā, Vikramaśīlā would have acted as a central monastery to exercise some extent of authority over other monasteries. It points to the high control, which the Pāla kings exercised over the monasteries within their state. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra’s structure and organization reflected its monastic nature based on Buddhist literature. Being a Buddhist monastery, the management of the compound was an overwhelmingly religious concern ideologically implementing the Vinaya. The religious authority tried to control every aspect of the life of Nālandā. For example, not only was the image cult a monastic concern, it was also a monastically initiated worship. Started with a focus on the original teachings of the Buddha and later on limited studies in Hīnayāna Buddhism, Śrī Nālandā popularized and patronized Mahāyāna Buddhism for a long time, resulting in a monkdominated movement devoted to the conservation of the monastic establishment and culture. The organization of the monastery also reflected the extreme participation of monks in all affairs. We can trace the involvement of monks in almost every monastic activity from image worship to management within the campus. It is hard to determine the involvement of secular bodies, non-believers, and lay people in the administration of the monastery, though it seems apparent that they gave some contribution through their service. Later, the Mahāyāna Academy turned into a center of esoteric Buddhism, which resulted in a little less participation by monks in the administration of the monastery. Monks became more focused on rituals and magical acts, and the organization became more feudalized, reflecting the management of donated lands, estates, and villages. The

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close relationship and impact of changes in South Asian Buddhism on the overall organization of the monastery of Nālandā were evident from its religious orientation. The inscribed word (i.e., bhikṣusaṁghasya) on the many seals that were discovered indicates that the monks and the Buddha’s religion were two cores of the monastic organization and religion of Nālandā, which acted as a base for the whole life of the monastery. The active roles of monks and Buddhism in the daily businesses of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra presented an elegant form of religious administration. The rules mentioned in the Buddhist scriptures, especially the Vinaya Piṭaka, were the source of its function, but obviously, there would have been some changes in this regulation due to the consideration of practical and immediate needs, which occurred within the time. The Buddha had laid down those rules a long time back, which now needed modification as per recent changes in Buddhism and the monks’ lives. Greater complexities in the management of the monastery arose from the interface between the religious laws and the secular laws. Nālandā was part of the societies around it and the state in larger terms. The legislation of the state and the ethics of society sometimes went opposite to the codes of the monastery and sometimes the monastic rules did not correspond to the state and the society. The interactions that occurred would have made the management of the monastery a more difficult job carried out by the administration. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra represented the tradition of the more or less autonomous religious bodies, which developed in ancient India over that time. The organizational structure of the monastery provided the framework of complex and dual administration and authority needed to oversee the religion and education of thousands of residents. The archeological evidence such as the large number of seals, tablets, and inscriptions recovered from the campus indicates not only an independent administrative existence but also a dual nature of management of Nālandā.11 The symbols of deer and the word caturddisāryya engraved on many seals were associated with its unique independent identification among the various religious and administrative entities of contemporary South Asia. The excavations of the Buddhist establishment at Nālandā also show its seal mentioning the name Śrī-Nālandā-Mahāvihāra on it, reflecting the whole complex directly as a single unit and indirectly as the central administrative agency. The central administration seems to have issued the maximum number of seals. The other engraved epithet caturddis-ārya-bhikṣu-saṁghasya also verifies its massive complex with small monasteries. Interestingly, we have come across separate seals of the monasteries of Nālandā with their own but different names mostly ascribed to its donor and builder.12 The monasteries at Nālandā were subordinate institutions with their governing body known as Saṁgha. In other words, monasteries also have a special status in the administration



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of the campus being a part of it. These monasteries also enjoyed freedom in the management of their affairs under the supervision of the chief monastery. We have to view them as parts of a larger organization and in their relationship to general collective life, which developed its code of discipline and regulations, which were binding upon all. In this way, we can witness two types and levels of administration at the mega-monastery of Nālandā (i.e., the central government and the subsidiary policy). The central government would have been responsible for the religion and study within the whole campus and the management of external connections. It is hard to demarcate the line of powers and function between the central authority and the individual monastic body in the context of available sources. Since Nālandā was a foundation of the various educational monasteries, the efficiency of its organization depended upon the central principles of administration, which aimed at three distinct objects (i.e., the independence and efficiency of each constituent group of pupils bound to an individual teacher, the adjustment of relations between the different constituent groups, and the framing and implementation of laws governing the establishment as a whole and binding upon all its members, the teacher and the taught alike).13 The dual nature of government would have led to the efficient management of the monastic affairs, and it could have turned the monastery into a sophisticated institute. The abbot headed the central administration of Śrī Nālandā. It would have been hard for a single person to manage the large monastery alone. It seems there were several committees to help him with the administration. It looks like two main councils, one academic and the other administrative, assisted the abbot.14 The tasks of the academic council of monks would have been enormous, as they were responsible for a disciplined and maintained study and training in the campus related to admissions, curriculum, teachers, and students. The administrative council of monks looked after all other issues beyond education and religion in the campus related to the financial administration and the management of monasteries. Management of donations, procurement of daily supplies, construction and repairs of humble abodes, distribution of food, clothes, medicines, allotment of rooms and assignment of monastic duties fell within the purview of the administrative council. It seems the monasteries of Nālandā would have followed the same structure for the management of its daily affairs. Let us start by exploring the complicated organization of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, focusing on its background and structure. Nālandā Mahāvihāra functioned through a set of rules mentioned in the Buddhist scriptures such as Vinaya Piṭaka—for observance by a Buddhist monk or a novice—which constituted the basis of a monk’s life in the monasteries and were mainly observed in the educational institutions also. There were elaborate rules for begging, eating, and clothing for the Bhikkhus.

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In addition to the rules for the regulation of daily life, there were procedures for the maintenance of discipline, which the novices had to observe. Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna Buddhism at Nālandā shared the Vinaya for the upkeep and control of the life of monks within a monastery. In this way, the monastic rules mentioned in the Vinaya in the context of Nālandā will be the focus of this chapter. THE ORGANIZATION Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra served as a religious, scholastic institution in South Asia incorporating lots of religious and educational activities. Also, the mahāvihāra developed its organizational setup to impart both religious and didactic duties. In other words, it was the need of the monastery to elaborate its organizational structure with expansions regarding both newly built monasteries and admitted residents. Now the organization of mahāvihāra accommodated not only believers in Buddhism but also nonBuddhist students. The number of entrants to the mahāvihāra was increasing day by day because its door was open to all. Nālandā started as a small residential educational institution providing free lodging and boarding to each resident. The organization of Nālandā looks to be more or less based on rules mentioned in Pāli Vinaya Piṭaka, which regulated its members and their behavior, and widely managed the daily activities of the monasteries in the manner of other earlier and contemporary monasteries of India. Recently South Asian scholars15 started challenging the role of the Vinaya within the monastery, particularly in curriculum and training, but we can believe it had profound significance, at least in the beginning phase of the management and organization of Buddhist monasteries. There are two aspects of the growth of the organizational setup of Śrī Nālandā. One technical part is related to its practice based on the Vinaya and other practical areas generated out of the current needs and situation of the monastery. It is rightly said that religion is an instrument of authority, which validates social change and provides institutional foci that are capable of adapting to the pressures of social differentiation as well as an affording sanction for the requisite socio-political and administrative innovations.16 A large amount of wealth was flowing into monasteries through the grants of land and money from merchants and lay disciples. At the same time, the Jātakas denounced the monks indulging in trade and other occupations of amassing wealth. However, some monks planted vegetables and herbs in the corner of the park and earned money by selling these in the market. Many times, monks received enormous wealth as gifts or grants. For example, Ānanda once received a present of a thousand robes. The Vinaya Piṭaka states that the use of gold and silver was not



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allowed to the Śākyapuṭṭiya Śramaṇas. They were allowed neither to accept it nor to take charge of it. About a hundred years after the death of the Buddha, the monks of Vaiśālī had begun to accept and even to solicit cash gifts. It caused a scandal among other monks who convened a council at Vaiśālī and condemned the new usage, stating that monks were to accept nothing except food or small articles for immediate personal use. The need to resolve this dichotomy between theory and practice had attracted the attention of commentators on the Vinaya by the time of Buddhaghośa. Buddhaghośa’s statement reveals a liberal attitude in his approach to the problem: it behooves the Bhikkhu Saṁgha not to administer, accept or consent to the acceptance of any immovable property like a field, landholding, irrigation reservoir, or a canal.17 Apart from the above theoretical concerns, there were other equally important practical considerations, which made it essential for Nālandā to develop a structure of its monastic organization. It would have been a paramount task for Nālandā to manage a large number of residents and their demands in an excellent religious environment. The newcomers from different regions and orientations would have generated lots of immediate needs to settle down in a Buddhist monastic situation. Often, the different behaviors that occurred did not match with the set rules and regulations of the monastery. Also, the ongoing academic and religious activities within the campus encouraged the need for administration. These practical requirements compelled the monastic authority to go against the practice of the Vinaya and introduce some changes in the management through new rules and regulations. Monasteries like Nālandā adopted or got indulged in many exercises, which were not suggested in the Pāli Vinaya. In its later days, Nālandā seems to have engaged in agriculture, trade, and monetized exchange, which was necessary for the regular functions of the monastery.18 The mahāvihāra had to purchase many goods for the daily needs of its students and scholars such as clothes, food, utensils, and so forth. It seems likely that cash transactions were also required for the purchase of raw materials, for the repair of buildings, and labors. The cash income that the monastery needed for its expenses derived from the sale of produce from monastic estates and from investments like money deposited in guilds that brought in regular income with its interest.19 Apart from these economic considerations, the daily life, student-tostudent relations, teacher-to-teacher relations, and teacher-to-student relations within Nālandā Mahāvihāra also demanded organizational regulations. The daily life of the mahāvihāra was shadowed with a balanced combination of study and veneration. The balance had to be maintained for the promotion of a disciplined and sound learning environment. The mahāvihāra became a shelter for the varied group of people who were

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categorized mainly as teachers and students. The peaceful and cordial relationship between its residents was essential to maintain the disciplined life of mahāvihāra. The collaborative relationship among teachers had to be encouraged for an advanced teaching and learning process. The most important aspect was the relationship between teacher and student within and outside of the mahāvihāra, on which all educational life depended. The management of these elaborately equipped and densely populated establishments with monk scholars naturally called for a set of rules and various officials with well-worked differentiations of functions. The affairs of the monastery of Nālandā were administered by a representative body of monks, which looks to be modeled on the political pattern of the republican states of ancient India. The various committees of monks took care of the matters of the monastery from the annual assignment of rooms to the trail of punishment of offense on the self-governing principles; members were appointed democratically by incorporating a consensus. The recognition of the democratic principles as the cause of discipline among students is best promoted by boldly leaving it in their hands by modern pedagogic ideals.20 The Buddha never thought of himself as managing a fraternity that was dependent on him. On the other hand, he enjoined the Bhikkhus to depend on themselves and the Dhamma and not on anything or anyone else as their refuge. While tracing the reason for such a remark of the Buddha, Dutt wrote, “Probably as a member of the Śākya clan in the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal, which favored democratic constitutions, the Buddha became imbued with democratic ideas. He wanted to see his mahāvihāras grow on common lines and formed the rules accordingly.”21 In the case of differences of opinion, even among the members of Saṁgha, the settlement was usually made by employing the majority of votes—voting being done with the aid of salākā (marked sticks) of the members.22 In this way, we can say with the support of many scholars23 that the functions of the monastery were done in a traditional method.24 We also know further that the introduction of the Natticatutthakamma made in the Saṁgha was another instance of democratic ideals.25 The system of joint deliberation, the postulation of equality of all members in decision making on matters of mutual interest, the rule of the majority, and the rejection of personal dictation are also democratic features of the organization of Buddhist monasteries like Nālandā. But democracy is a political concept that did not emerge until society had developed a political organization. Mahāvihāra does not embody a notion of democracy; it only reproduces into monastic life and polity the principal features of the tribal council, which in pre-political tribal society was the instrument of government.26 There were some features of embedded behavior we can find in the structure, but it presented an example of group or community administration, and that too of a privileged class (i.e., ordained monks).



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The daily affairs of Buddhist monasteries (i.e., saṁghakammas) as described in the Vinaya Piṭaka are of different kinds, which can be brought under two categories: non-disputatious and disputatious.27 The nondisputatious acts are about the regular community life and ordinary business of a mahāvihāra for which the consent of all members could be presumed (e.g., settlement of boundaries of a vihāra; assignment of any part of the monastic establishment to some particular utility, such as storage, refectory, kitchen etc.; appointment of various functionaries to run the institution; ordination of a monk; settlement of succession to a deceased monk’s personal belongings; the holding of the fortnightly uposatha service; rehabilitation of a monk who has atoned for an offence committed; arrangement of the pavāraṇā ceremony after the rain retreat; distribution of robes to monks after the Vassāvāsa period). Other disputatious acts involved disputes in which no consensus could be presumed. Under this category would come all matters of discipline arising out of breaches of regulation and amounting to the transgression of the Vinaya and issues of four kinds arising out of a formal dispute, viz. (a) an argument on a point of Dhamma or Vinaya or on the nature of an offence; (b) a discussion regarding the state of a Bhikkhu’s opinions, morals, character, conduct, or manner of life; (c) a dispute relating to the kind of category of offence alleged against a Bhikkhu; and (d) a dispute relating to the validity of an act. A council of monks decided saṁghakamma, or every aspect related to the organization of monastery, in a democratic manner, which was attended by all senior and junior residents with a regular system of procedure. All decisions needed the unanimous consent of the assembled monks. The quorum for such a meeting was laid down. It required the presence of at least ten members who were qualified elders.28 In border areas, however, where there were few monks and hence there was difficulty getting together a meeting of the order in which ten monks were present, the Buddha reduced the quorum to five members including the chairman.29 In saṁghakamma as mentioned in the first category—one that involved no matter of discipline and no dispute—the procedure was simple. A monk placed the issue for decision before the council in the form of intimation (Ñatti), thus: Let this (the matter communicated) be done. In the saṁghakamma of the second category—one that involved disciplinary action or the settlement of a dispute—the whole procedure, beginning with Ñatti was subject to certain preliminary proceedings. The usual procedure could be started only after the preliminaries had been gone through. Evidently, the object of these was to clarify the issue and arrive at a definitive form in which the proposal for taking action was placed before the assembly.30 The sense of the meeting was obtained by a vote of resolution arrived at in either of the two following ways: (1) by a summary decision at which

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the resolution before the house would be given at only one reading, or (2) a decision by third reading. The distinction between the two kinds of acts is not found specified in the Vinaya Piṭaka itself, but it is found only in the commentary. Perhaps the real criterion was the degree of gravity or importance of the matter proposed. When the issue was not disputatious, the assembly remained silent, which was the token that the proposition was passed as a Resolution of Saṁgha. But the intimation to the meeting of the proposal and its formal declaration, once or three times as required, must be followed in order and any violation of this decree rendered the Resolution invalid.31 The method of voting was simple either in the matter of disputation or in the lack of consensus. The assenting members kept silent, and the dissenters spoke out. In the case of divided opinions, a small sub-committee elected on the spot and possessed of unique qualifications referred the question to arbitration.32 If the question was not settled thus, it was put to the vote by voting slips (salākā) of different colors to indicate different opinions and thus the vote of the majority was ascertained.33 The implementation of the Vinaya codes in the monastery of Nālandā indirectly refers to a complex set of rules and regulations. These guidelines seem to be a long-term production of interactions between Buddhism and other religions of South Asia and the Buddha’s conscious efforts to develop the discipline. The institutional rules of Buddhist monasteries were modeled upon those of numerous other monastic orders professing other faiths and also of Brāhmaṇism itself, the common source from which all sects arose.34 These rules do not belong to the same stratum: they were accepted gradually in the process of organization of mahāvihāra’s life, thus an earlier practice and a later one altering and modifying it. There is little doubt about these rules having come into existence as the monk community slowly gravitated from its wandering state to settled coenobitic society, and new needs arose for corresponding changes in the conditions of monk life. Each rule has derived ex-post facto—each separately promulgated by the Buddha in the form of pronouncement on certain facts as they arose on some particular occasion.35 The inclusion of rules prohibiting some behavior should not lead us to presume that such things never took place nor necessarily the contrary, that rules indicate the actual existence of particular problems.36 In its later development as a corporate body, it was the unitary character of each mahāvihāras that was taken as the fundamental principle of its constitution. The organization of the Nālandā educational system consisted of the young Bhikkhus living under the guardianship of a fabulous teacher, the upājjhāya, who was responsible for their health and studies, manners and morals, and their spiritual progress. These groups and schools did not always exist as an isolated and independent unit, but they federated themselves into a larger group called mahāvihāra.



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THE MANAGEMENT The monastic community, the Saṁgha, was a community, which naturally requires that it possess a similar organization.37 Every organization needs administration; no society can function without administration of some form or other. We shall now describe prominent members related to the management of the life of Nālandā Mahāvihāra as a seat of education and religion, that collective life in which the individual life of each educational group was merged. The excavated monastic seals showed that the monastery of Nālandā functioned as a self-governed and independent body with enough funds and staff at its disposal to carry on the work to which it dedicated itself. Nālandā developed its system of management with rules and regulations according to its particular view and definition of the educational and religious life. Regular administrative officials implemented the principles governing the common life of Nālandā and covered all residents irrespective of their status. The management of this elaborately equipped mahāvihāra, where so many seekers of knowledge lived together, naturally called for numerous and varied staff officials with a well worked-out differentiation of functions. These office bearers were appointed from amongst the monks themselves either on a regular or temporary basis by the general declaration of Ñatti to conduct the business of the mahāvihāra.38 The appointments were then formally offered to them by a resolution of the Saṁgha. The office bearers were to be impartial, not malicious, and able to distinguish between what was proper and what was improper. The highest officer of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, ‟the treasurer of good law” or chief executive officer or abbot, was an eminent scholar and the most superior one in knowledge and age. The chief monk or abbot was not appointed from the above or nominated by his predecessors but held office by the suffrage of all monks in the monastic parish. We come across a successive line of these scholar-administrators from Nāgārjuna39 onwards, who were competent and devoted to the progress of the Mahāyāna Academy. During Xuanzang’s visit to Nālandā, its abbot was Śīlabhadra (also pilgrim’s teacher), who was a well-read scholar and a great exponent of Vijñānavāda or Yogaśāstra. Śīlabhadra was doubtless one of the ablest teacher-administrator-philosophers of Nālandā Monastery. From the description of Xuanzang, we can identify some of the administrative functions of these abbots. The highest administrator had to teach and guide the monks in the achievement of salvation with the management of the mahāvihāra’s affairs.40 We know that Śīlabhadra taught Yogaśāstra to Xuanzang and a Brāhmaṇa of East India41 and Jayasena. He combined the qualities of educator, philosopher, and administrator. Despite his executive head, he met with his students regularly until late in the evening.

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This patriarch of Nālandā had to enforce discipline and laid stress on morality, the main Buddhist precept. Xuanzang records that besides the abbot, there were three other research officers in Nālandā: the Karmadāna, the sub-director of the monastery to exercise a general superintendence over all monastic works; the Sthavira, the presiding priest; and gatekeepers.42 The Karmadāna of the monastery of Nālandā conducted whole affairs and regulated the timetable, the hours of the meal, and other daily programs. When Xuanzang entered Nālandā, the Karmadāna was directed by the abbot to sound the gong and proclaim the arrival of the distinguished guest and to arrange for his requirements.43 In the time of Xuanzang, Buddhabhadra was probably the Karmadāna of Nālandā. Yijing also records officers called Vihārapālas as the keepers or the custodian of the gate, who also announced the affairs of the Saṁgha and lay servants.44 They also controlled the admission to the monastery.45 It looks like both Karmadāna and Vihārapāla were the same in the context of Nālandā. The literature of the monastic regulations, the Vinaya, contains the details about administration and services. The Vinaya texts mention and list five qualifications for those undertaking administrative responsibilities. The individual in question must be one who would not act in a misguided way through desire, anger, delusion or fear and who would know some concrete fact vital to his function, this list item differing according to the administrative role in question.46 The other important Saṁgha staff at Nālandā included the following officers mentioned in the Pāli Vinaya, who seem to have been involved in the monastic administration and supervisory functions: (1) The apportioned or distributor of lodging places: The apportioner would first count the monks, then count the sleeping places available and then allot them to the monks accordingly.47 When the supply was greater than demand, the distribution was to be done by the apartments. Resident monks were often worried by constantly having to provide sleeping accommodation for traveling scholars who came in from country places.48 Scholars belonging to the same division or having frequent subjects of the study were usually given lodging places in the same quarter.49 In this way, the preachers of Suttanta lived together in a room to discuss with each other like the reciters of the Vinaya and the Dharma. Novices wanting in merit were of course given inferior lodging places.50 Yijing observed that there was an assembly of priests who assigned rooms every year at Nālandā.51 (2) The regulator or apportioner of rations: The duty of the apportioner52 of food was to make heaps of food, fastening tickets or marks upon them. This office bearer was appointed when there was either dearth or plenty of food for its proper distribution. He was evidently in charge of the ration and could be dismissed and re-elected according



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to the need. There were minor office bearers like the Cīvabhājaka53 (distributor of congee), Yāgubhājaka54 (distributor of yāgu, a kind of rice pulp), Phalabhājaka (distributor of fruits), and Khajjabhājaka55 (distributor of dry food) to assist him. (3) The receiver of robes (Cīvarapaṭiggahāpaka): He was appointed to receive the clothes, which were offered by lay people to the monks generally at the end of the Vassāvāsa. It seems that this post was temporary. Office bearers like Cīvara-nidahaka (robe-depositor), Cīvarabhājaka (robe distributor), Senāsana-paññāpaka (chamber-lain), Sāṭiyagāhāpaka (distributor of undergarments), Kaṭhina viṭṭhāraka (distributor of Kaṭhina), Pattagāhā-paka (distributor of alms-bowls), Āsanapaññāpaka (the regulator of seats) and Appamattaka-vissjjaka (disposer of trifles), whose business was to distribute among the monks’ needles, scissors, girdles, butter, honey, and so on, were also appointed by the mahāvihāra family. (4) Superintending office Bbarers: Among such kinds of office bearers mention may be made of Ārāmikas or those who kept the grounds of the Ārāmas in order, Ārāmika-pesaka (i.e., superintendent of Ārāmikas to look after their work), and Sāmaṇerapesaka (i.e., director of sāmaṇeras to keep them to their duties).56 (5) Other office bearers: Office bearers of this category included: Kappiyakā-raka (receiver of gifts from laymen), Bhaṇḍāgārika57 (storekeeper), Bhājanavārika (keeper of vessels), Upadhīvara (steward), Rupiyacchadaka58 (disposer of bullion), Salākāgāhāpaka (receiver of the stick), Reciter of the Patimokkha, Chief Reciter in the Uposatha Assembly, Exhorter of the Bhikkhunīs, Pānīyavārika (office-bearer in-charge of drinks), Parisandavārika (office-bearer in-charge of groves), Mundasayanāsanavārika (incharge of lodging temporarily not-in-use) and the like.59 These offices clearly indicate a complex system of administration at Nālandā Mahāvihāra, and monks had to engage in various kinds of practical administrative work instead of being always engaged in purely religious exercises. The administrators were concerned with the material conditions of the monastic existence, the supplies of the monastery, and handled financial affairs, including managing donations of valuables.60 There was lots of construction work at Nālandā since the beginning. We have archeological pieces of evidence of many levels in the existing structures. Monks were often deputed to serve as building overseers to take charge of building operations on behalf of a lay donor constructing a vihāra for the purpose of Saṁgha,61 so that the building might be by the rules of the Buddhist order as to size, form, and object of the various apartments of vihāra. Adding to this, another reason for attraction would have been a chance to handle cash—as Schopen and Silk62 both indicated additional financial tasks as well. Such overseers were called Navakammika,63 who were wealthy and rather powerful individuals who supervised construc.

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tion, whether it be repair or new construction, but did not necessarily ever actually dirty their hands with physical labor.64 A sealing recovered from Nālandā confirms the availability of navakarmika, which has been read as Śrī-Nālandā-Mūlanavakarmmavārika-bhikṣūṇāṁ.65 Navakarma-vārika looks equivalent to navakarmika. Also, an inscription of the eleventh or twelfth century from Nālandā records various navakarma carried out by the monk Vipulaśrīmitra in a monastery of the Buddha.66 The temporary appointment maximum up to twelve years was formally done by a Resolution of the Order for a period according to the character of the construction concerned.67 The monks who superintended building works were of course provided with requisite clothes, food, lodging, and medicines at the cost of the donor of the building. He also paid wages to laborers and artisans in cash. Schopen interestingly pointed out that instead of being exclusively devoted to recitation and meditation, monks also did some construction work as the Buddha also said. Monks often took the place of day laborers and engaged in manual construction work such as lifting, laying, and making of bricks, designing the layout of a vihāra, carpentering, painting, and other related work.68 Schopen did not indicate the payment of wages to monks; it seems like they were not paid to be a member of the order. Texts often show the scarcity of nonmonastic workforce for the construction of vihāra; in that case, monks would have been a readily available big asset as day laborers that are also free. The many buildings at Nālandā owe the debts of the monks and the non-monastic workers. Besides supervising and doing construction and repair of the vihāras, Bhikkhus were required to prepare their robes and keep them in favorable condition with the help of all necessary weaving appliances.69 Contrast this with an honorable and longterm specialized title of navakarmika, and it seems the monastery ran their functions through temporary, rotating, and random nature of officers recruited from monks fit for assignment reflected by the titles cāraka/vārika.70 The general day-to-day affairs of the mega-monastery of Nālandā would not have been possible with only the above-mentioned few officers, and it seems the monastery maintained a large number of menial staff and servants. The composition of menial staff could have come from laymen, non-believers, monks, and overall the residents of the monastery and the nearby population. There were probably two types: mānavas and brahmacārins.71 All-important officers of Nālandā were given several assistants including the abbot with the highest number of servants. Xuanzang had two men and Yijing was also given personal servants to wait on him. Yijing refers to them as pure men and upāsakas and provides more information about their work.72 These helpers take the chair, utensils, and other necessary items when the monk goes anywhere. They takes out the remnants of the meals eaten by priests who order their servants to carry it



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to the monastery. These retainers were employed to cultivate the gardens and beat the drum, ring the bell, and do all other unimportant affairs. However, these officials could not make any decisions regarding the management of the monastery, which rested with the committee of elder monks. All powers concerning the sacred and secular affairs of the monastic establishment were vested with the assembly of monks, who were the symbol of the entire monastic Buddhist community. The council could make endowment and charities with the permission of the order. The Nālandā Stone Inscription of Mālāda refers to the authority and management of the order of monks. Here, we have not gone into detail of every administrative staff of Nālandā, as there would have existed much more besides that mentioned above. Several seals of officials or offices have also been unearthed at Nālandā; Sastri presents the names of offices recorded in these seals as73 adhikaraṇa, viṣaya-adhikaraṇa, kumaramaty-adhikaraṇa, nay-adhikaraṇa, dharma-adhikaraṇa, viṣaya-mahanatla, halta-mahanatla, and raja-vaiśya. Sastri suggests the meaning of these terms such as adhikaraṇa as the court and Grama, haya, viṣaya, maṇḍala, and bhukti as the divisions of territories in increasing order. Sastri also mentions that there are only three seals where the high state officials are named such as Pasupatisiṁha, Devasiṁha, and Sāgara.74 They are all marked by the quite realistic figure of a lion sitting on his haunches and facing the proper right. No information is supplied as to the king concerned. Apart from these, several seals of private individuals have been dug out at Nālandā. Some of them bear one name only, while others give more than one, showing thereby that the person named on them conjointly issued them. No serious studies have come out where the exact import or definition of these terms is given, so their real significance and connection with the monastery remain unknown. It needs separate research. MAHĀVIHĀRA AND STATE The concept of society in the political philosophy of ancient India was that of an aggregate, which was composed of units in diverse kinds—learned bodies, village communities, religious corporations, and so on. Each was regarded as subject to its conventional system of law called Samaya (conventional law) in ancient Indian jurisprudence.75 It was the king’s constitutional duty to see that none of these units of society suffered from internal or external disruption and that the established system of customary law of each was not transgressed.76 Among these societal units, the Buddhist monasteries became an association group functioning under a system of law of its own. The duty of the ruler of these unitary bodies

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was to prevent disruption in the organization and to uphold its tradition laws.77 Emperor Aśoka, implementing this constitutional principle, issued edicts for the unfrocking of schism-mongers in the Buddhist Saṁgha78 straight from the basis of the Vinaya rule: ‟a schism-monger, if he has not been ordained, should not be ordained; if ordained, he is to be expelled.” If these political theories of tradition stemmed from the actual practice of kingship, there can be no doubt that a king would feel bound to extend protection to the Buddhist Saṁgha and prevent infringement of its Vinaya in ancient India. The numerous lithic and copperplate records from all parts of India confirm benefactions made by kings and emperors not Buddhist themselves for the maintenance of monks and the upkeep of monasteries. It is evident from the famous Second Rock Edict of the Emperor Aśoka that he made provisions for medical care, tree planting, and well digging and so on for the public. In this way, the monastic community also got special access to health care within their monastery.79 The mahāvihāra also helped establish channels of communication in newly colonized regions, and these channels could then be used by the state to enforce its authority.80 The relationship between mahāvihāra and the ruling authority was unique in nature. The monastery has a particular need of political patronage if it is to flourish,81 and in many centuries, political consolidation of ruling elite resulted in ecclesiastical centralization and rigidly institutionalized hierarchism of the Saṁgha.82 The king was the supreme authority in his kingdom and in this way, he was able to interfere in the business of mahāvihāra. He also had to take care that the mahāvihāra should not use excessive autonomy to become another state within the state challenging the sovereignty of the king. Sometimes the king would have intervened in the activities of mahāvihāra to maintain discipline. The administrative head of the monastery, the abbot was responsible for dealing with the king diplomatically. The abbot aimed to gain the kindness and support of the king by making him victorious in religious tournaments with his learned scholars. The need for cooperation was felt from both sides. The mahāvihāra sought assistance from the king to maintain and promote a peaceful educational life. The king accepted the mahāvihāras’ collaboration for approval of their authority. Mahāvihāras accepted the king’s suzerainty and acted independently. The king also preserved and promoted the institute of mahāvihāra. It seems Buddhist monasteries were not required to provide troops to the king, but they provided other labor services: ritual, education, culture, and so on. It was the abbot who acted as the link between Nālandā Mahāvihāra and the outside world. He alone had the right to send Nālandā’s scholars outside for various academic and religious purposes. It was the age of philosophical tournaments. The kings would bank upon Nālandā



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Monastery for help in getting out of the games as the victor. It was the abbot who supplied the king with the meritorious scholars of Nālandā. With his permission, many of Nālandā’s monk students went outside of India to propagate Buddhism or to solve religious controversies. While treating the outside world—especially the king—the abbot of Nālandā Mahāvihāra also played the role of a diplomat. He had to deal with the kings differently. On the one hand, if he angered the king then he could destroy the monastery. On the contrary, the right nearness to kings would ensure their cooperation for the progress of the institute. In return, Nālandā Mahāvihāra could make the king victorious in religious discourse and sometimes could also offer valuable advice. Therefore, they either had to balance these concerns or succumb to the exertions of the kings or any appeasement to the kings. Śīlabhadra never gave way to the kings when their request looked to be opposed to his conviction. He turned down the King’s application for Kumāra (Bhāskaravarman) of Kāmarūpa to send him Xuanzang thrice.83 It was simply because he had already been committed to the placement of his service to Harṣa. Being in the dominion of Harṣa, he could not send the monks of Nālandā to Kāmarūpa again and again. The spread of Buddhism remained at the top of the agenda of every abbot of Nālandā. They desired that Buddhism should be taken to those regions where it had not reached earlier. It is revealed in ambiguous terms from Śīlabhadra’s advice to Xuanzang. When he avoided the request of King Kumāra, he sought Xuanzang in the terms that ‟you have become a disciple in order to benefit the world, this then is your just opportunity . . . , so when you arrive [in] that country only cause the heart of the king to open (to the truth) and then the people will be also converted.”84 In this way, it was the abbot who acted as the connection between mahāvihāra and the outside world. When the king Kumāra of Kāmarūpa wanted to invite Xuanzang he sought the sanction of Śīlabhadra and when Emperor Harṣa wished to hold philosophical debates he sought the views of Śīlabhadra. The abbot was responsible for the material benefits of the monastery and intellectual recognition of monks. The emperor Harṣa brought the brethren together for examination and discussion and gave rewards and punishments according to merit and demerit. The immoral monks were banished from Harṣa’s presence and his country. FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION It is indicated above that Nālandā Mahāvihāra might have enjoyed autonomy and freedom both in educational and religious activities. The mahāvihāra had to nurture some students, teachers, and administrative

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officials with free lodging, boarding, and other necessary goods. The rulers assigned to the educational institutions the material meant for their support, the gift of land, grants of money for buildings, and the necessary equipment but did not offer straight jackets to confine them.85 According to Yijing, the lands in possession of Nālandā Monastery contained more than two hundred villages, thus showing that from the time of the visit of Xuanzang the revenue of another one hundred villages were placed at the disposal of the monastery. These villages as attested by the pilgrim were bestowed by kings of many generations.86 Inscriptional pieces of evidence support this assertion of the Chinese pilgrim. Hiranand Sastri, who participated in Nālandā’s excavations, discovered an inscription that records the grant by King Devapāla of individual villages in the Rājagṛha and Gayā districts of Śrinagara, identified with the Patna division, for the upkeep of Nālandā Monastery, for the comfort of the monks coming there from the four quarters, for medical aid, for the writing of Dharamaratnas, and for similar purposes. The enormous financial needs of Nālandā were fulfilled by an abundant supply of donations. We can even say that the mahāvihāras were in possession of much wealth, more than their need.87 Yijing seems to have noticed a tendency towards hoarding in the monastery, which prompted him to strike a somewhat critical note: ‟It is unseemly for a monastery to have great wealth, granaries full of rotten corn, many servants, male and female, money and treasures hoarded in the treasury, without using any of these things, while all the members are suffering from poverty.”88 On the other hand, it also demanded better and efficient management of economic resources to fulfill the promises of mahāvihāra towards each resident. The ownership of properties related to monasteries was vested to the monastery itself, but the property was not absolute, for it could not alienate the properties nor even divide them among the members of the mahāvihāra.89 Funds and finances were also democratically managed though spending authority was invested in the executive’s hands.90 The range of financial administration and activities looks to have been broadly shared by both monks, and the monastic governing bodies, as the monks also inherited their ancestral property91 and the monastery was also getting lots of donations in cash and kind. We do not have any reference to revolt due to the scarcity of food and other necessities, which shows that the independent financial administration of Nālandā was efficient enough. The cash donations were used to purchase items like clothes, utensils, and equipment. It was useful for the payment of laborers working for the repair of mahāvihāra and the construction of the new monastery. The Mahāvihāra of Nālandā was in possession of more than two hundred villages. The villages under mahāvihāra day-to-day contributed ordinary rice, butter, and milk for daily necessities. The householders of those hundred



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villages undertook the contract for this, each of whom must have been the chief of villages. These village heads or village assemblies were in direct control under the monastic officer Karmadāna. The land grant made for the mahāvihāra, of course, meant an extra administrative burden on the organization because it had to make the farm profitable so that it could maintain itself out of these profits. To some extent, this affected the management and study of the monastery of Nālandā. About the management of land endowments to the monasteries, Yijing observes, “As cultivation by the priests themselves is prohibited by the great sage they suffer their tillable lands to be cultivated by others freely and partake only a portion of the products. Thus, they live their just life, avoiding worldly affairs and free from the faults of destroying lives by tilling and watering fields.”92 In this way, we can say that peasants cultivated the land under possession of mahāvihāra and in return they supplied some portion of production to mahāvihāra, but it also shows that the production suffered. An idea of the magnitude of problems of providing the necessities to thousands of residents at Nālandā can be gathered from the observations of the Chinese pilgrims. The resident Xuanzang mentioned that the monastery’s daily supply of food amounted to several hundred piculs of ordinary rice and several hundred catties in weight of butter and milk.93 The monastery of Nālandā had no alternative but to take an interest in promoting agriculture since it could not make daily purchases of the vast quantity of consumer goods required by its resident population.94 Researchers from within India95 and all over South Asia have pointed to the monastic participation in the activities of agriculture and trade for the maintenance of the establishment. Ray has presented the deep economic functions of monasteries in her studies of monastic complexes of Deccan,96 Sāñcī and Bhārhut,97 and Kanheri98 and argued that with increasing trade and commerce, the monasteries could have gotten directly involved in business. Fogelin, in his survey of the archeological landscape of the Thotlakonda monastery, has noted that a single monastery performed both religiously and economically and offered economic engagements with the mercantile community.99 In Maitreya Gujarat, the monastery of Valabhī exploited the old matrix of agriculture and maritime trade.100 The current pattern of Buddhist studies seems to have delved into the monastic involvement in agriculture and trade. We can say by these examples that Nālandā might have also participated in the agricultural sector and commerce, as its financial needs were enormous. Nālandā’s situation in the fertile agricultural zone and along the trade routes—the status of present archeological site amid highly fertile fields—lead us also to imagine that it might have played some role in commerce with agriculture for the maintenance of the establishment. It is hard to get an idea of the limit and the process of involvement in the agricultural sector and trade in the lack

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of evidence. Ray argues that Buddhist monasteries provided social status to the traders and other occupational groups and acted as repositories of information and necessary skills such as writing and medicine at the economic level.101 We can, therefore, imagine that Nālandā would have close social and economic ties with traders in recognition of them as not only an important social connection but also a good asset for the monastery. Nālandā might have also participated directly in trade through lending and investing the monastic money. Being an academic institution, Nālandā might have also provided information related to trade and investment to traders and prepared written contracts. We can think of a more diversified world of monastic activities in the management of the lands and villages of the monastery. The donated villages and lands were the main source of income and supplies for the monastery of Nālandā. Nālandā possessed more than two hundred villages, which seems suitable for its economic needs. The primary occupation of villagers was cultivation, where the role of Nālandā becomes necessary. Nālandā would have supported and managed the farming activities of villagers by providing necessary equipment, seeds, and animals. The management of irrigation would have also been a concern of Nālandā for its villages. The monks would have done some agronomy in respect of direct participation, which led to a closer relationship between villagers and Buddhism. When Nālandā turned into an institution of esoteric Buddhism, there was a decline in donations and patronages due to the monks’ further engagement in rituals and dogmas, which resulted in more focus on trade and agriculture with an active attempt to forge a closer alliance with royalty to have greater royal patronage. Davidson indicates more internalization of feudal values and ethos in the management of monastic landed estates due to this. There was a close resemblance between the monastic management of their landed estates, control and administration of branch monasteries by the mega-monasteries like Nālandā, and feudal rulers’ management of their landed estates and subordinate sāmantamaṇḍala that is the network of feudatories.102 Nālandā established branch institutions managed by monks and non-specialists to act as its extension in villages much like vassals served as their lord’s representative. The donated villages to Nālandā were not only related to financial administration of the monastery but also more than that. The land grant charters of India state the full submission of villages to the donee. In this way, the monastery of Nālandā owned its donated villages in all respects, and its administration was its accountability. Nālandā would have taken care of the material and spiritual welfare of its villagers through implementing law and order and Buddhism in the region through its officer Karmadāna. The monasteries had the responsibility for the maintenance of law and the settling of litigation not simply over their clergy, but over the



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villagers under their command, reflected from recovered Nālandā’s seals from village offices.103 In this way, Nālandā had an elaborate series of relations with its attached villages. Some thirteen seals have been found with the name of the Janapada to which they belonged. In the legend, the name of the village to which the seal belongs is given first either in the locative singular or compounded with the term Janapada which follows it.104 These recovered seals present the names of thirteen villages to which Janapadas they belonged such as Purika, Jakkurika, Varkiya, Brahmari, Udradvarasthana, Navako, Mamna Yika, Ghananjana, Kaligrama, Angami, Kantha, Chandalika, and Prishtha. It describes the Janapada as located in the monastery and would clearly show that the Janapada was an administrative office or corporate body for the maintenance of villages attached to the monastery, which was distinct to the monastery. Some villages have their seals probably administered their affairs through some assemblies which are connected to this Janapada. The village seals of Nālandā would further show that in some cases there were two corporate bodies one being subordinate to the other and some were held in a police station like Jakkurika. MAHĀVIHĀRA AND NEIGHBORHOOD It is evident from the above discussion that the Mahāvihāra of Śrī Nālandā’s relationship with its neighborhood was deeply rooted and an essential part of its organization and administration. Nālandā and its neighboring areas have served as the sacred place for Buddhists since the days of the Buddha till today. Its association with the life and activities of the Buddha and his disciples created this sacred space. It is assumed here that somewhere the peculiar geography of Nālandā worked in the background of the establishment of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The Buddhist texts105 often refer to the Buddha’s sojourn between Nālandā and Rājagṛha whose favorite place to stay was in the mango-grove owned by Pāvārika, the wealthy householder. Though Nālandā was not politically active to a great extend during this time, it was nonetheless religiously associated with Brāhmaṇism, Buddhism, and Jainism as a place of consolation and it was often visited by the Buddha, the Mahāvīra and Makkhali Gosāla, the founder of the Ājīvika sect. This points to Nālandā being an important religious center even during the days of the Buddha where a small number of his followers lived and spent their days. After the third Buddhist council106 was held at the time of the Mauryan king Aśoka under Moggaliputta Tissa, “some heretical monks went over to Nālandā where they formed themselves into a dissenting sect known as Mahāsāṁghika as against the orthodox Sthaviravāda School, which finds indirect echo in both Sāranātha and Sāñcī Pillar edicts. Nālandā, after the Mahāparinirvāṇa of the Buddha,

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developed as a seat of the Sarvāstivādin school or Mahāyāna, as the adjoin Odantapurī became the center of Vajrayāna and Sahajayāna.” Let us explore some important ‟sacred” villages in the neighborhood of Nālandā. Kolitagrāma The second dearest disciple of the Buddha, Moggallāna was known as Kolita named after his birth village.107 It seems that he was closely associated with the Buddhist culture of Nālandā. His native place Kolitagrāma was half a yojana108 away from Rājagṛha in the neighborhood of Nālandā.109 It was the place of his birth and death. Kolita has been identified with modern Jagdispur, which is about two miles South-West of Nālandā.110 Nālaka (Nā-lo) The first of the chief disciples of the Buddha, Upatissa Sāriputta was born at Nālaka village near Nālandā. When Faxian visited this place in the fifth century A.D., he identified the village as ‟Nā-lo,” where Sāriputta was born and attained nirvāṇa. He has placed the hamlet of Nā-lo at one yojana, or seven miles from the hill of isolated rock (according to Cunningham Giriyaka) and at the same distance from Rājagṛha, which seems to be correct.111 The death of Sāriputta was observed by the erection of a lofty tower, which Faxian had seen with his own eyes, but he speaks nothing of the existence of any vihāra. It may be of importance to mention here that a small hamlet Sāri Chak still exists near Baragāon, which reminds us of Sāriputta. Pāvārikambavana Sometimes it seems that Nālandā became a famous spot of Buddhism because of the location of Pāvārikambavana within the geography of Nālandā, which was a lovely halting spot for the Buddha. Whenever the Buddha went to Nālandā, he stayed at Pāvārikambavana. Pāvārika, a banker of Nālandā, had built many monasteries for the Buddha and his disciples here. According to the old accounts of the country, there was a tank to the South of Nālandā in the middle of Âmra grove.112 This shows that Pāvārikambavana was somewhere near Nālandā which maintained requisite privacy for the mendicants.113 Law identified the mango grove with the present village of Baragāon.114 Sastri suggested that the Pāvārikambavana was somewhere near Silāo, a village halfway between Nālandā and Rājagṛha.115



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Ghosrāwan It is situated at eight miles southeast of Nālandā. The stone inscription of king Devapāladeva116 found here refers to the Yasovarmapura Vihāra (now called Ghosrāwan) and Viradeva of Nagarahara, who was appointed by Devapāla as Governor of Nālandā.117 Broadly indicates that whoever visited the village in 1872 described the findings of numerous Buddhist and Hindu images.118 Uddanapura It is identified with modern Bihar Sharif, the headquarter of the district of Nālandā and is situated seven miles in the northeast of Baragāon.119 Bihar Sharif was first known as Behar that evidently is an account of the large number of the vihāras or monasteries that stood in and around. The famous Odantapurī Mahāvihāra120 was situated in and around Bihar Sharif, which inspired the construction of Sam-ye monastery in Tibet. Baragāon This village is close to the site of Nālandā in the northeast. Stewart mentions that Captain Markham Kittoe unequivocally identifies Nā-lo (where Sāriputta was born) with Baragāon/Nālandā with an archaeological description of the beautiful locality.121 The modern village of Kapatya, to the south of Baragāon, is the corrupt form of ancient Vatagrāma or Badagāma, the Prākṛt form of which actually occurs in some of the Jain works of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries alongside Nālandā as the earlier name of the place.122 This indicates that the memories of ancient Nālandā continued to be cherished, though faintly, as part of the tradition by the Jains at least until the seventeenth century.123 The village of Baragāon continues to be a sacred place for Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains till today. Rājagṛha Rājagṛha was the earliest capital of Magadha124 during the time of Buddha, which is now known as modern Rajgir and is situated near Nālandā. Rājagṛha was an important center of Buddhism since the beginning and the Buddha himself passed many years of his ‟ministration” at this place.125 The Buddha used to roam for alms in this city after enlightenment and the first brick of Buddhism was laid down in this city in terms of initial ordinations and donations.126 He lived in different localities of the city but his favorite resort was Gṛidhrakūṭa or the Vulture’s Peak.127

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Pāṭaliputra This is identified as modern Patna128 and is one of the oldest and famous cities of ancient India, which is situated south of Nālandā, and was also called by the names of Kusumpura, Pushpapura, Palibothra and Palin-fou. It was also the land of activities of the Buddha. During the visit of Faxian, Pāṭaliputra was a thriving city accommodating many Buddhist monasteries, but Xuanzang saw the declining phase of Buddhism during his visit. After the fall of Pāṭaliputra, the town of Bihar became the provincial capital of Bihar and Nālandā became an educational and religious center.129 The administration always aimed to maintain the neighborhood, which was also the lifeline of the monastery of Nālandā. Śrī Nālandā was built and managed with the support of the people around them. Also, the monasteries acted as pioneers and as centers for providing information on cropping patterns, distant markets, an organization of village settlement and trade.130 That is why the Buddha always insisted that they should be erected at places that were neither very near nor very far off from any village or town, to facilitate not only the monks’ daily round of begging but also their daily requirements without which they could not maintain themselves as they could not generate them after renouncing the world. The friendly neighborhood consisted of those people who believed in Buddhism but did not choose to belong to the monastery and be ruled by its discipline.131 The importance of supportive vicinity was already recognized in early Buddhism, which Nālandā exploited well throughout its history. Nālandā survived and prospered for many centuries, being situated in the agricultural zone even after the decline of trade and towns by becoming deeply imbedded in the agrarian structure of the region.132 Śrī Nālandā’s relationship to its community was intimately related to its donations and in return provided to donors as regarding legitimacy and social status. We have already discussed the patronage of various kings to Nālandā and in return legitimacy provided to them with other services. The other traditional support base of Nālandā included pilgrims,133 traders, merchants, artisans, farmers, women,134 monks, and villagers. Especially, the marginalized classes like Śūdras and untouchables were early support of the monastery. The attachments with the monastery of Nālandā provided them a different social status based on equality. The monastery helped them in the formation of a special social class as Buddhists. As the value of donations to the Saṁgha by the laity was increased, donors came to expect more in return, leading to the emergence of transfer of merit.135 The transfer of merit for the family and ancestors for donations to Nālandā Mahāvihāra worked as moral inspi-



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ration among affluent classes. Besides legitimizing a good social status, the monks of Nālandā provided ritual services to the laity and took care of religious needs. They occasionally organized religious rituals, public performances, and preaching ceremonies to interact with the laity. The relationship with nonbelievers and non-donors to Nālandā would be a challenging one for the administration. A cordial and peaceful relationship with them was essential for the continued survival of the monastery. Nālandā should have interfered in their religious beliefs. Nālandā always tried to convert non-believers to Buddhism, but never forcefully. The tradition of giving sermons outside or at the gate of Nālandā by the reputed upājjhāya could be seen as an initiative in this direction, which was specially meant for attracting nonbelievers. The changes in orientation of Buddhism inside the campus of Nālandā dominated and determined its relationship with its neighborhood. The strategies of monastic decorum and religious requirements were defined by the growth in Buddhism such as Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna and then Tantrāyāna, which indirectly also shaped the relationship of monks and monastery to its neighborhood. The degree of societal interactions differed with the different forms of Buddhism through the extent monks and monastery constrained themselves in their religious spaces. Nālandā’s transition to exclusive royal patronage in the Gupta period decreased monastic interactions with the laity as compared to an earlier period. This contact between the monks and the laity decreased to its lowest during and after the Pāla period, when Tantric Buddhism acquired dominance of the academic and religious life of the campus. Ray explains the probable economic reasons behind this in her study of Sāñcī and Bhārhut monasteries when she mentions that the simple redistributive and reciprocal relationship between the monasteries and the hinterlands altered with the monasteries constantly acquiring greater wealth and evolving into an independent socioeconomic institution; a parallel order in the society.136 The relationship between monks and their families, between the preceptors and the novices, between the bursars and the suppliers, and between the abbot and the feudal lord all changed due to the rise of esoteric Buddhism at Nālandā.137 In this period, the monastery attempted to maintain the relationship with the laity by the organization of rituals, ceremonies, and their public performances and lay participation in the same. Gombrich limits the Theravāda tradition to its texts composed by the monastics,138 but as Prasad139 argued, we cannot ignore the larger societal contexts, the role of the laity, and continuous interaction between the text and the context, an interaction leading to the constant metamorphosis of the Saṁgha. The administration considered the role of the laity in shaping the affairs of the monastery. The present and future policies and conducts of Nālandā Mahāvihāra largely depended on the relationship of the

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monastery with the neighboring world. Ling has noted that between the ordinary people and the Saṁgha, there existed one meaningful relationship, not of reciprocity exactly, but of complementariness.140 In this way, Nālandā’s relationship with the neighborhood included both reciprocity and complementariness. It shows that the common people and Nālandā were dependent on each other for their survival and a better life. Nālandā was reliant on the society for a continuous supply of its residents with the economic materials. It was probably the reason behind the location of Nālandā in richer agricultural areas and along trade routes where surplus was available to support the monks. We can expand this dependence up to the adjacent forests. Ray showed the interdependence between monastic Buddhism and forest Buddhism. The saints produced in the woods became part of the monastic life and unnecessary institutionalization; and scholasticism, on the other hand, compelled some of the monastics to the woods.141 Chakrabarti has commented that no attempt has been made to study Nālandā as an ancient settlement, of which the famous monastery was only a part.142 Archeologically, the deeply religious and material relationship between Nālandā and its locality has been proved through the recent village-to-village archaeological survey in a fifty-kilometer radius of the mahāvihāra.143 The many findings of the Buddha’s sculptures, seals, inscriptions, ceramics, antiquities, and architecture related to Nālandā clearly indicate the reciprocal and complementary nature of the relationship. There is a need for more archaeological excavations and connected analysis to understand the relationship of Nālandā Mahāvihāra with its immediate landscape. It would be an interesting topic for research in the future to provide insights into the functional relationship between the monastic complex of Nālandā and its immediate neighborhood. MAHĀYĀNA TO TANTRIC BUDDHISM Frequently pointed out throughout this book, including this chapter, has been the change in the Buddhist orientation within the campus of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The growth in Buddhism from origin to decline within the monastery of Nālandā from Theravāda to Mahāyāna and Tantrayāna reflected and was witnessed by every aspect of monastic life. The curriculum and organization of Nālandā incorporated and promoted these changes within Nālandā. The transformation from Mahāyāna to Tantrayāna deserves particular attention as it brought significant changes to the academic and religious life of the campus. Here, we will present a brief note on the rise of Tantric Buddhism at Nālandā and the role of Nālandā as a monastery. We will focus on the academic and religious activities of Nālandā, which were consciously and unconsciously linked



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to the promotion of Tantric Buddhism. The monastic approach to the changes in Buddhism will be the critical viewpoint of the analysis. According to the development of South Asian Buddhism, especially Tantric Buddhism, we have overall two traditions: monastic and ascetic.144 Davidson refers to monastic Tantric Buddhism as institutional esoterism because this variety of Buddhism arose in support of, and provided maintenance to, the monastic estate, allowing it to interact with the outside world.145 Regarding the historical study, monastic Tantric Buddhism is more visible archaeologically and in literature than the ascetic tradition. The reason for this is simple. The bearer of Tantric Buddhism lived in Indian Buddhist monasteries and tantras were preserved in monastic libraries, read by monastically based scholars and taught to novitiates as part of their education. In this way, we can say that Tantric Buddhism might have been born in one of the Buddhist monasteries of India, if not at Nālandā then at least it has contributed to its prosperity and expansion in India and all over South Asia, where it is still practiced today. We will also be more or less focused on the monastic Tantric Buddhism throughout this explanation. It would be reasonable to ask how Tantric ideas and practices were able to make their way into such an intellectual and strictly ethical Buddhist monastery as Nālandā. We should also ask from whence Tantric ideas and practices came. Was it inside the monasteries in ideal form from the beginning and got budded out when it found a suitable environment? From a critical study of the growth of Indian religiophilosophical ideas, it may be held that outside the area of Vedic culture, especially in eastern India, the local non-Vedic practices and deities survived, and with the growth of an anti-Vedic system in Buddhism, these suppressed deities of the masses came to the forefront once again, and they had to be protected and promoted, for practical reasons, by the Buddha. In this connection, we may refer to the Yakṣas, Rākṣas, and Nāgas, the pre-Vedic divinities, who were revived by the followers of Buddhism.146 The cult of the primitive Mother Goddess was also revived in the Buddhist pantheon for the same reason.147 The popularity of the cult of the female goddess and the sexual rites involved therein among various agricultural peoples of India could be explained regarding primitive Tantrism, which was neither Hindu nor Buddhist. It was a very ancient way of life, an undercurrent that influenced all forms of Indian religious systems in some way. The Buddhist Tārādevis, Sasanadevtās, yoginis, and so forth, all came from a primitive Tantric complex marked by the widespread cult of the female principal. It could be assumed that Tantric ideas and practices were within the monastery from its establishment, and it might have entered within the monastery with a day-by-day increasing number of new entrants. These continued to get accumulated as time passed because new followers who

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were previously accustomed to such practices could not give up their traditional habits despite their switch to Buddhism. It seems right, at the time of the intensification of popular Tantric Buddhism in the opening days of Buddhism, both regarding some followers and expansion in new areas. It was among these people that Tantric rites were secretly maintained in the form of secret conclaves (gūhyasamāja) within the Saṁgha, scriptures were composed, and these got sanctioned by the words of the Buddha.148 According to tradition, Nāgārjuna received many teachings on the esoteric Mantrayāna such as gūhyasamāja, all the tantric teachings and oral traditions and so forth from Sāraha at Nālandā after ordination. Even before the adoption of the monastery as a resting place in Buddhism, the inherent magical and supernatural powers in the Buddha are mentioned many times in Buddhist literature. The Buddha himself had often acted like a supra-human with magical powers before the followers for practical reasons. For example, there is a story in Vinaya Piṭaka where a dissident monk Devadatta was not satisfied with the order and unsuccessfully tried to kill the Buddha in anger through various methods: ‟He saw the Lord pacing up and down in the shade of Mount Vulture Peak, and having climbed it he hurled down a great stone. But two mountain peaks, meeting, crushed it and only a fragment fell; . . . A wild elephant in Rājagṛha, a manslayer, called Nalagiri rushed towards the Lord, his ears, and tail erect. But the Lord suffused him with loving-kindness of mind. He put down his trunk and stood before the Lord who stroked his forehead with his right hand and spoke some verses.”149 Also, the Mahāpadāna Sutta, which contains legends of the Buddha, is full of miracles. The Pāṭika Sutta describes the Buddha not only taking part in the competition of making miracles but also as boasting of his miraculous powers. However, it is observed that the Buddha was definitely against such practices, at least from a theoretical point of view. In the Brahmajāla-Sutta we have come across an interesting list of arts, which the Buddha condemned as itracchānavijjā, micchā and ājiva. He asked not only his disciples but also all real men not to encourage such things. The aspirant of arhathood attains some supernatural power called iddhi and the Buddha has repeatedly advised his followers not to utilize such powers. The Vinaya Piṭaka states that a monk doing this is guilty of a dukkaṭa offense. It seems the Buddha already incorporated rituals and magical powers in Buddhism since the beginning, and it came into Nālandā Mahāvihāra through monks and scholars, and it became provocative when they tried to follow this form of the Buddha. The Buddhist monastery of Nālandā started its religious, educational career with a group discussion on the Buddha’s vacanas and grew as an institution of Mahāyāna Buddhism, which already contains a lot of Tantric elements from the previous traditions. Taking the term ‟Mahāyāna”



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particularly, sometimes its meaning is not clear in comparison to other schools of Buddhism. The Chinese pilgrim Yijing gives a flexible statement in his traveling account that ‟those who worship the Bodhisattvas and read the Mahāyāna Sūtras are called Mahāyānists, while those who do not perform these are called the Hīnayānists.”150 This definition might be suitable to differentiate between Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna but also seems not clear to distinguish Mahāyāna from others, especially Tantrayāna. Both Mahāyāna and Tantrayāna followers believed in idol worship. The Mahāyāna was never a distinct organizational entity at Nālandā Mahāvihāra as the monks belonged to one or another of the Nikāyas or ordination lineages associated with it. It seems likely that many monasteries in India continued through most of the history of Indian Buddhism to have both Mahāyānists, non-Mahāyānists, and perhaps also others who would not have seen themselves as clearly within one of the two camps.151 The diverse nature of the monks’ composition at Nālandā led to the mutation within the ancient form of Buddhism, and the Buddhist monasteries functioned as a suitable place for it. In eastern India, Buddhism continued to flourish until the seventeenth century. The general outlook of Śrī Nālandā was maintained in keeping with the spirit of the Buddhist tradition. The Mahāyāna period gave a new dimension and Nālandā flourished forth into a full-fledged seat of learning. Thus, it passed through all three phases of Mahāyāna Buddhism (i.e., Mādhyāmika School, Yogācāra School, and Tantra School).152 We can see that one school of Buddhism or other dominated different periods of the academic and religious life of Nālandā, but it never goes beyond its Buddhist attachments. Nālandā Mahāvihāra came to the Pālas as a cultural legacy and got transformed into a ‟citadel of Tantric cult” in its last days. The seeds of transformation were visible from the days of Guptas. Buddhism practiced at Nālandā and other contemporary institutions in Bihar and Bengal was no longer the simple Hīnayāna, nor was it the Mahāyāna of the earliest days. In fact, it was strongly imbued with ideas of Tantricism, not far removed from Tantric Brāhmaṇism. Nālandā Mahāvihāra functioned as a lab for Tantric exercises with lots of idol worship and ambiguous rituals, and its monks provided a philosophical background to these practices through the formulation of texts on the subject. This schism within the Buddhist order was part of monastic life, and monasteries harnessed and witnessed it first-hand. The new magical Buddhism is often known as Tantrism, from the tantras, or scriptures of the sects. One of the local traditions of South and Southeast Asia, Tantric Buddhism believes in devotees’ assimilation of God in a literal sense through various means, rituals, and practices. The tantra literature describes the spells and formulas that have a more revelatory and less philosophical bent compared to the texts of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Most scholars place the ori-

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gins of Tantric Buddhism in India in the mid-first millennium C.E., with more widespread practice beginning as early as the seventh and eighth centuries C.E. We cannot reasonably put the rise of Tantrism in monastic Buddhism until the seventh century when Xuanzang reported that certain monastic communities were given to magical practices.153 By the ninth and tenth centuries, Tantric scholars were present at Nālandā and dominated in the monastic life. Tantric Buddhism was of two main branches, known as Right and Left Hand, as in Tantric Hinduism. The Right Hand became very influential in China and Japan, and has left little surviving literature in Sanskrit; it was distinguished by a devotion to male divinities. The Left Hand sects, to which the name Vajrayāna (Vehicle of Thunderbolt) was chiefly applied, postulated feminine counterparts or wives of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other divinities of the mythology of later Buddhism and devoted their chief attention to Tārās.154 The Mantrayāna is the precursor of Vajrayāna and its offshoots, Kālacakrayāna,155 and Sahajayāna156. Vajrayāna has no clear-cut definition in the Buddhist texts. It is described as the cult of the five Kulas, or families of the Bodhisattvas, each representing a distinct mental state of the aspirant. It is also defined as a path of transcendental perfect enlightenment to be achieved through different rites and ceremonies, mantras, and meditations. The new form of Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism or Vajrayāna Buddhism, developed alongside Mahāyāna Buddhism at the monastic environment of Nālandā, signifying the continued nature of change and development within Buddhism. We can say that some of these changes were conditioned on the progressively more distant relationship between the monk and the laity. There was no significant room for householders in the Buddhist way of salvation as it looks more monk-centered. The cause of the rise of Mahāyāna lay in the attempt to take Buddhism to the masses. Nālandā, as a Mahāyāna center, denied the human character of the Buddha projected in Hīnayāna; he is regarded here as a superhuman entity, a God, and eventually the highest god, and exercises control over a host of gods and goddesses. The concept of suffering by which early Buddhism was characterized is denied in Mahāyāna by denying the existence of the world itself. The idea of Arhathood (an ideal person) was negated and substituted by Bodhisattvahood (may be a god, a householder, a recluse, or even a non-human being), who is to help man to achieve salvation by good actions (pāramitās). Since it was impossible for ordinary householders to follow the most difficult eightfold path, Mahāyāna insisted on the cultivation of easy virtues like the popular emotion and Bhakti by making the Buddha the highest God and allowing his worship in images where Bodhisattvas157 acted as an intermediate group. It did not bring the desired result to reach the masses because the Mahāyāna became more or less a scholastic endeavor. To ensure maximum participation of



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the masses, Mahāyāna started promoting the set of popular elements of more idol worship, edification, devotion, rituals, and magic, which led to the increased movement towards Tantric Buddhism. Tantric (Vajrayāna) forms of Buddhism initially positioned themselves in larger part outside the world of the large monastic centers and of decent society but became progressively integrated with it.158 Davidson connects the rise of Buddhist institutional esoterism to the emerging situation of medieval India.159 The rise and development of Indian esoteric Buddhism were both a response to the challenging medieval environment and a strategy for religious affirmation in the face of unprecedented challenges to the Buddhist social horizon. It seems Nālandā Mahāvihāra, being a premier monastery of India, responded well to the emerging medieval situations. The decline in monastic patronage and participation both by kings and laymen, the decline in trade and commerce, the rise of feudalism, and the increasing encroachment of Muslims were some important factors considered seriously by the scholastic Mahāyāna organization of Nālandā. The result was increased interest in the rearrangement and internalization of the structure to associate with the systems of power relations, ritual authentication, supernatural powers, and gift giving. In this way, Mantrayāna became popular at Nālandā, which was simultaneously the most politically and socially involved in Buddhist forms and the variety of Buddhism most cultured to the medieval Indian landscape. Monks also treated the advancement of Muslims in India as a danger to the monastic life of Nālandā. The frightened monks took refuge in supernatural powers and rituals to avert the threat of war. For example, Candrakīrti stopped the advancing warriors three times through the ferocious roar of a carved stone lion by his supernatural powers.160 Socially, the increased Brāhmaṇical challenges compelled the monks of Nālandā to practice magical Buddhism. Institutional esoterism became a medium to prove the superiority of Buddhism in the field of rituals, magic, and tantras, which was the dominating feature of the contemporary society. The increased practice of tantras by Brahmins often encouraged Buddhist monks to do the same to defeat them in the debates. It began as an intellectual discussion, but by the medieval period, the frequent confrontations and debates with Brahmins would be followed by a display of magic. There were many events in the lives of monk-scholars of Nālandā when they had debates with Brahmins or non-Buddhists and demonstrated their power both scholastically and magically. For example, Śāntideva defeated Śankaradeva in a debate and then the non-Buddhist challenged his opponent to compete in a display of magic and proceeded to draw a huge Śiva maṇḍala in the air, which Śāntideva also did.161 Monks practiced more and more magical power to attract non-Buddhists to the order, and this also acted as a means of conversion. It seems the non-

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believers easily got attracted to Buddhism through the display of the supernatural powers of monks. Once some non-Buddhist philosophers were experiencing difficulties with their means of livelihood, Śāntideva produced food through a magical power and gradually led them to the practice of Buddhadharma.162 Similarly, a non-Buddhist named Kumara came to Nālandā to test Candrakīrti’s prophecy, and it led to the appearance of Indra before them.163 In this way, it looks like the tantric practices became related to the monks’ clairvoyance, and an actual monk had to prove his divinity through the demonstration of supernatural powers. We are concerned here with Vajrayāna Buddhism, which was imparted only to the initiated, who need not be a monk, but might be a layman. Here the monastery of Nālandā becomes necessary, where the followers learned the practices of tantra (magico-religious rites) under a spiritual master. Xuanzang was under threat of being made a sacrificial victim on the way to Nālandā. It indicates that Buddhism was massively attacked by tantra and the Vajrayāna tradition was born out of Mahāyāna reflected in the life of Nālandā. Mudrās, mantras, maṇḍalas, dhāraṇīs, yoga, samādhi, and other tantric practices were introduced into Mahāyāna and got institutionalized at Nālandā. It did away with the earlier practices and presented the cult of many gods and goddesses. It also appears in the Tibetan monk Tāranātha’s travelogue that Tantra was perhaps a very popular subject among the students as well as professors at Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The study of tantric knowledge opened up a new field of art and iconography. The findings at Nālandā have brought to light many images that were crafted according to the description given in mantras and mudrās.164 This aspect of Nālandā education gave rise to a new school of art called the Pāla or Nālandā art. Tāranātha recorded that Dhīmāna and Bitapālo, father and son, were the founders of this school. The Nālandā school produced many images in stone and metal inspired by the religious rituals and practices prevailing there. These pieces of art were related to Mahāyāna and its later developments such as Tantrayāna, Vajrayāna, and Kālacakrayāna, the beginning of which had already been noticed by both Xuanzang165 and Yijing. According to Xuanzang, the deities Tārā, Buddha, and Bodhisattva were worshiped at Nālandā. Yijing, however, mentions only two deities, Buddha and Hāriti.166 Many new deities and their images were brought into the Buddhist pantheon as a result of later spiritual development. We thus come across a variety of images of the Buddha, Mañjuśrī, Avalokiteśvara, and other Bodhisattvas; female deities like Hāriti, Tārā, Prajñāpāramitā, and Vasudharā; and lastly the images of Vajrapāṇi and Padmapāṇi. Tantrayāna brings in figures of new deities such as Trailokyavijaya, who is shown trampling over Maheśvara and Gauri, Marīci, the Buddhist goddess of dawn with three faces and eight arms, and his companions, called Vartallā, Vadale,



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Mañjuvara, and Vajrapāṇi, besides the Tantric images of Yāmañtaka, Vajrasttva, Aparājita, Mañjuvara, and Vajrapāṇi (noted above), who is a divine Bodhisattva carrying the image of his father Aksobhya in his tiara. Mañjuvara is a manifestation of the popular Mañjuśrī, and Yāmañtaka is a regular Kālacakrayāna deity ‟with its three faces, protruding tongue, canine teeth, big belly, a garland of severed human heads and riding on a buffalo.”167 Aparājita is represented as trampling upon Gaṇeśa and being served by Indra and Brahmā. Katiśrī is yet another female deity who is identified with Varadasāradā seated on a lotus. Commenting on these stone images, Yijing says, ‟These are marvelous sculptured images the beauty of which touches the limit in the art of ornamentation.” The image of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara found in Stūpa No. 12 is considered to be a masterpiece of art.168 The life of the resident monks at Nālandā also underwent some changes accordingly. Within the monastery of Nālandā, Buddhism became an increasingly scholastic endeavor cut off from the society. In opposition to the academic turn of monastic Buddhism, some members of the Saṁgha began leaving monasteries for the lives of wandering ascetics. We have monks of Nālandā like Candragomī, Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Śāntideva, and others, who left the monastery and became wandering ascetics. Many monks like Asaṅga and Dignāga left the monastery of Nālandā and took refuge in caves and forests to practice tantras and mantras and to achieve common magical, clairvoyance, and supernatural powers. In other words, monks tried to realize the accomplishment in a state of Samadhi in isolation. Indirectly, this reflected the growing dissatisfaction and degradation towards Mahāyāna literary activities and increasing adoption of Tantric practices and realization among the monks of Nālandā. There are some examples of the growing importance of Tantric Buddhism in the campus of Nālandā through the lives of monk teachers such as the life of Naropā.169 Naropā was a renowned scholar and abbot of Nālandā in the tenth century C.E. He became ashamed of himself when an old woman insulted and laughed at him by saying that his knowledge of dharma was merely intellectual, that had no true understanding of the path. He became an apprentice under her brother Tilopa and performed several transgressive acts to get a complete understanding of Buddhism. This evidence clearly shows a substantial change in the life of scholastic monks and the increased religious perception of superiority of Tantric Buddhism over Mahāyāna Buddhism. The monks started suggesting the subtle importance of practical experience with scholastic training in their Buddhist life. Through these acts, Mahāyāna proved itself a sterile intellectualism, but Tantric Buddhism became more efficacious. The revelatory rituals of Tantra often required transgression of social or monastic norms that looked more focused on the worldly.170

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Daily life at Nālandā became more ritualized with a focus on various deities. The life and structure of Nālandā became Tantric, then this environment helped in production of several literatures. The other change that concerns us is the multiplication of doctrinal writings and works of learning with the increased practice of mystic mantras at Nālandā. The Buddha’s message is reinterpreted and presented in the form of a philosophical system, and the authors make every effort to explain the abundant contradictions in the Sūtras. Being a scholastic institution of Buddhism, Nālandā was intellectually related to the growth and decline of Tantric Buddhism from its inception to its end. Nālandā witnessed the continuous formulations of the esoteric Buddhist literature still existing in South Asia in translations. One of the last highest Tantric Buddhist works produced in India, the Trantricist Sāraha’s Treasury of Couplets (Dohākosa) has roots in Nālandā. Rahul Sankritayan says that Sārahapāda probably lived in the late eighth century or early ninth century and was a student of Haribhadra, who was, in turn, a disciple of Śāntarakṣita, a noted Buddhist scholar from Nālandā. A class of Mahāyānic literature, which was composed between the fourth and eighth centuries A.D., is known as Dhāraṇī, which refers to the mantra, mudrā, maṇḍala, kriyā, caryā, and so forth, by which the Tantric cults are characterized. A good number of the Mahāyāna Sūtras, especially the shorter Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, are of the Dhāraṇī type. Of the extant Dhāraṇīs have purely Tantric contents, reference should be made to the Mahāmāyuri-Vidyā-rājñī, translated into Chinese by Śrīmitra (beginning of the fourth century A.D.), Kumārajīva (beginning of the fifth century A.D.), and Ekādasamukha, translated into Chinese by Yaśogupta (sixth century A.D.).171 Śāntideva has quoted a good number of dhāraṇīs in his Śikṣāsamuccaya. He has mentioned some deities who became prominent figures in the Vajrayāna. The Dharmasaṃgraha, attributed to Nāgārjuna, knows of the Dhyāṇī Buddhas and their female consorts and also of the eighteen lokapālas, six yoginīs, and eight Bodhisattvas. Likewise, most of the teachers of Nālandā, such as Asaṅga and Maitreyanātha, have also been connected with Tantric ideas and practices. Maitreyanātha wrote a work called Mahāyānottaratantra, a text in which the concept of the Sahajakāyā is present. Similarly, several other works translated in Chinese, which are Tantric in nature, are said to have been composed by the teachers of Nālandā. The teachers of Nālandā encouraged esoteric Buddhism both through life and work. Their lives became an example of the life focused on Tantra. The growth of certain ideas and practices of the existing Tantric Buddhism can be easily traced to the creations of Nālandā’s scholars. The central philosophy of Vajrayāna considers Śūnya, or vacuity, as the ultimate reality, and innumerable gods and goddess as its manifestations



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developed at Śrī Nālandā. The Śūnya takes the form of divinity by the germ-syllable uttered and exists only as a definite idea in the mind of the aspirant. The number of gods and goddesses increases when Śūnya manifests itself in different forms; since the inspiration of these manifestations is innumerable, the deities can also be countless. The universal concept of Śūnya is thus mutually equated with Bodhicitta, which has been defined as the mind bent on attaining perfect enlightenment. The weapons and emblems by which the deities of Vajrayāna are characterized are nothing but the weapons needed by the Bodhicitta to fight against the elements obstructing the path of knowledge. For instance, when the darkness of ignorance is to be dispelled the Bodhicitta becomes a sword; when the heart of the wicked is to be pierced, it becomes the goad; when a bad element is to be cut away, it becomes a knife and so on. The mudrās also serve the same purpose. I will conclude by expressing partial agreement with Christian Wedemeyer, who states that in India Tantric Buddhism had no independent institutional existence and it was dependent on the monasteries and nunneries of the eighteen schools.172 The extent of my agreement with Wedemeyer’s statement mentioned above is limited to the scope of Tantric Buddhism in the context of monasteries. It seems right, as we have seen above that Indian Tantric Buddhism was dependent on the monasteries, as the Tantric communities of both monks and laymen were affiliated with monasteries for knowledge, ritual, and patronage. In this way, especially in the end days of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, Tantric Buddhism got an independent institutional existence through academic and religious life on the campus. The Tibetan works refer to Nālandā as a center of Tantric studies and Kamalaśīla as a professor of Tantras. The epigraphical records also confirm that Nālandā was a renowned center of Tantric studies (e.g., the Nālandā copperplate inscription of the Pāla king Devapāladeva tells that Nālandā was the abode of Bhikkhus and Bodhisattvas well-versed in the Tantras).173 It seems contrary to popular belief that the study of Tantra was very popular with the students as well as the teachers of Nālandā. The rise of the Tantric Buddhist tradition in early India in general and at Nālandā Mahāvihāra in particular probably reflected the invisible competition between Brāhmaṇism and Buddhism. Śrī Nālandā became part of the race between Buddhism and Brāhmaṇism. Buddhism tried to become a popular religion like Brāhmaṇism by the adoption of many tantra practices. Apparently, this brought Buddhism closer to Brāhmaṇism, but it became too close, and so lost its independent self-identity in India. The newly developed form of esoteric Buddhism became culturally relevant in Tibet, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, China, and Japan through aristocratic and imperial patronage and is still in practice.

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NOTES   1.  S. Beal, trans., The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by Hwui Li, 2 vols., first edition (London: Trench Trübner Com., 1888), vol. 1, 112.  2. S. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India: Their History and their Contributions to Indian Culture (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962), 353.  3. Epigraphia Indica, vol. 21, 97–101; Ronald M. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2004), 110. Davidson indicated that monks of particular monasteries became associated with other monasteries either because of the same extensions of the Vinaya and curricular systems or because they were naturally situated in the same areas.  4. The term paripālana does not denote an administrative title but it looks more like a metaphorical head in terms of maintaining Dhamma at Nālandā; H. N. Sastri, Nālandā and Its Epigraphic Materials. Memoirs of Archeological Survey of India. No. 66. Delhi: Manager of Publication, 1942, 89–91.   5.  Satis Chandra Vidyabhusana, A History of Indian Logic: Ancient, Medieval and Modern Schools (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978), 140.   6.  Sarat Chandra Das, Indian Pandits in the Land of Snow (Calcutta: The Baptist Mission Press, 1893), 51.   7.  B. P. Sinha, “Higher Education in Ancient India,” in Studies in Educational Development, ed. Devendra Thakur and D. N. Thakur, vol. 3 (New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications, 1996), 23–24.   8.  Lal Mani Joshi, Studies in the Buddhist Culture of India: During the 7th and 8th Centuries A.D, second revised edition (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977), 74–75.  9. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries, 353. 10.  J. A. Page, Nālandā. Archeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1927–28 (New Delhi: Archeological Survey of India, 1931), 138–39. 11.  See chapter 2. 12.  It is interesting to note that each monastery has its seal, which points to the existence of at least ten Saṁghas in the campus; R. K. Mookerji, “The University of Nālandā,” Journal of the Bihar Research Society 30 (1944): 146–47. 13.  Suresh Chandra Ghosh, The History of Education in Ancient India c. 3000 BC to AD 1192 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2001), 66. 14.  Rekha Daswani, Buddhist Monasteries and Monastic Life in Ancient India: From the Third Century BC to the Seventh Century AD (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2006), 203. 15.  G. D. Wijayawardhana, “Literature in Buddhist Religious Life,” in Religiousness in Sri Lanka, ed. John Ross Carter (Colombo: Marga Institute, 1979), 67–78; Philip C. Almond, The British Discovery of Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Charles F. Keyes, “Merit Transference in the Kammic Theory of Popular Theravada Buddhism,” in Karma: An Anthropological Inquiry, eds. Charles F. Keyes and E. Valentine Daniel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 261–86; Steven Collins, “On the Very Idea of the Pali Canon,” Journal of the Pali Text Society 15 (1990): 89–126; Anne M. Blackburn, “Looking for the Vinaya: Monastic Discipline in the Practical Canons of the Theravāda,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 22 (1999): 281–311; Gregory Schopen,



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Bones, Stones and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy and Texts of Monastic Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997),. 16.  P. Wheatley, The Pivot of the Four Quarters: A Preliminary Enquiry into the Origins and the Character of the Chinese city (Edinburg: University Press, 1971), 321. 17.  H. P. Ray, Monastery and Guild: Commerce under the Sātavāhanas (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), 105. 18.  Schopen has quoted Vibhaṅga texts and proved that these books know or present or promote a Buddhist monk who accepts, handles, and disburses considerable or large sums of money; Gregory Schopen, Buddhist Nuns, Monks, and Other Worldly Matters: Recent Papers on Monastic Buddhism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014), 255–61. 19.  R. A. L. H. Gunawardana, Robe and Plough: Monasticism and Economic Interests in Early Medieval Sri Lanka (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1979), 321. 20.  R. K. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education: Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist, second edition (London: Macmillan, 1951), 570. 21.  N. Dutt, Mahayana Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977), 290. 22. Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 68. 23. K. P. Jayaswal, Hindu Polity (Bangalore: Bangalore Print and Publishing Company, 1967), 43; De Gokuldas, Democracy in Early Buddhist Saṁgha (Calcutta: Calcutta University, 1955), 5; Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 570; P. V. Bapat, ed., 2500 Years of Buddhism (Delhi: The Publication Division Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1959). 24. N. Dutt, Early Monastic Buddhism (Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1971), 320. 25. Gokuldas, Democracy in Early Buddhist Saṁgha, 28. 26. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries, 87. 27.  S. Dutt, The Buddha and Five After-Centuries (London: Luzac and Co., 1957), 113–14. 28.  Mahāvagga, I.31.2. 29.  Mahāvagga, V.13.11. 30. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries, 89–90. 31.  Mahāvagga, IX.3.9. 32. Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 65–66. 33.  Cullavagga, IV.14.26. 34. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 394. 35. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries, 75–76. 36.  The logic of the rules found in the monastic codes does occasionally seem to resemble a Talmudic argument. We sometimes cannot escape the impression that monks sat around saying to each other, “Hey what if that happened? What then?” Jonathan A. Silk, Managing Monks: Administrators and Administrative Roles in Indian Buddhist Monasticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 7. 37. Silk, Managing Monks, 12. 38.  D. K. Barua, Vihāras in Ancient India: A Survey of Buddhist Monasteries (Calcutta: Indian Publications, 1969), 39. 39.  Silk notes that it is only literary illusion that especially Nāgārjuna held an administrative post at Nālandā because the reference appears in a book composed

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in Tibet quoted by Bu right, but he seems to agree with other scholars like Vasubandhu, Dharmakīrti, Sthiramati, Śīlabhadra, and others that he held an administrative post at Nālandā; Silk, Managing Monks, 71–72. 40. Beal, Life, vol. 1, 121. 41. Beal, Life, vol. 1, 121. 42. Beal, Life, vol. 1, 108. 43. Beal, Life, vol. 1, XXXVII, 106, and 109; Takakusu, I-Tsing, 62, 145, and 153–54. 44. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 36–47; the lay servant serves as the personal servant of revered monks as he carries his food, chairs, utensils, flowers, and such. 45.  See chapter 4. 46.  Quoted in Silk, Managing Monks, 35. 47.  Cullavagga, VI.2.3. 48.  Cullavagga, VI.15.1. 49.  Cullavagga, IV.4.4. 50.  Cullavagga, IV.4.5. 51. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 86. 52.  Cullavagga, VI.21.1. 53.  Cullavagga, VI.21.2. 54.  Cullavagga, VI.21.2. 55.  Cullavagga, VI.21.2. 56.  Cullavagga, VI.21. 57.  Cullavagga, VI.21.2. 58.  D. N. Bhagvat, Early Buddhist Jurisprudence: Theravada Vinaya-laws (Poona: Oriental Book Agency, 1939), 154. 59. Barua, Vihāras in Ancient India, 41. 60. Silk, Managing Monks, 20. 61.  Cullavagga, VI.17. 62.  It should be the navakarmika monk who, with the permission of the senior monks, arranges for loans on behalf of the monastic community; Silk, Managing Monks, 84 and 144. 63. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education, 445. 64. Silk treats navakarmika as an administrative title and confirms its importance because of its very inclusion in inscriptions; Silk, Managing Monks, 97–98. 65. Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 37 66.  Epigraphia Indica, vol. 21, 97–101, re-edited by Richard Salomon, Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Other Indo-Aryan Languages (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 300–301. 67.  Cullavagga, VI.5.3. 68.  The sedentary Buddhist monasticism faced a dilemma and tension between monastic and non-monastic workforce for the construction of an ideal monastery; Schopen, Buddhist Nuns, Monks, and Other Worldly Matters, 262–67. 69.  Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 65 70.  Silk, Managing Monks, 125. 71.  Joshi, Studies in the Buddhist Culture, pp. 76–77. 72. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 36, 47, 61, 64, and 144–45. 73. Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 34–35.



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74. Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 36 75. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries, 80. 76. Dutt, Buddha and Five After-Centuries, 121–22. 77.  Yajñavalkya, II.185–92. 78.  There are three small pillar edicts on Schism: Allahabad, Sāñcī, and Sāranātha. See A. C. Sen, Asoka’s Edicts (Calcutta: Indian Publicity Society, 1956), 126–29. 79. Silk, Managing Monks, 8–9. 80. Ray, Monastery and Guild, 207. 81.  Richard F. Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism: A Social History of from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo (London: Routledge, 1988), 116. 82.  S. J. Tambiah, The World Conqueror and the World Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 189. 83. Beal, Life, vol. 1, 171. 84. D. Devahuti, Harsa: A Political Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 284–91. 85. Das, Education System of Ancient Hindus, 428–29. 86. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 65. We are not able to archeologically locate all those two hundred villages, which were in possession of Nālandā. It is hard to establish even one hundred villages. In this situation, we cannot say for sure actually how many villages belonged to Nālandā. 87.  Gombrich also noted the corruption within monasteries due to the accumulation of property by monks and the Saṁgha, which almost began in the lifetime of the Buddha; Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism, 93. 88. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 194. 89. Dutt, Early Monastic Buddhism, 320–21. 90.  Mookerji, “University of Nālandā,” 132. 91.  Schopen, through an analysis of votive inscriptions and coins found from monasteries, has tried to show that the monks not only inherited their ancestral property—Gregory Schopen, “Monastic Law Meets the Real World: A Monk’s Continuous Right to Inherit Family Property in Classical India,” History of Religion 35 (1995): 101–23—but were also one of the biggest donors of the Saṁgha; Gregory Schopen, “Deaths, Funerals and Division of Property in a Monastic Code,” in Buddhism in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995), 473–502. 92. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 62. 93. Beal, Life, vol. 2, 112. 94. Daswani, Buddhist Monasteries and Monastic, 203. 95.  Shaw and Sutcliffe have shown the role of monastery of Sāñcī in irrigation and wet rice agriculture; Julia Shaw and J. Sutcliffe, “Sanchi and its Archaeological Landscape: Buddhist Monasteries, Settlement and Irrigation Work in Central India,” Antiquity 74 (2000): 775–96; and Julia Shaw and J. Sutcliffe, “Ancient Irrigation Works in the Sanchi Area: An Archeological and Hydrological Investigation,” South Asian Studies 17 (2001): 55–75. Later she came out with a comparative study of the active role of monasteries in hydraulic management at Sāñcī, the Junagarh complex and dry zones of Śrī Lanka; Julia Shaw and J. Sutcliffe, “Water

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Management, Patronage Networks and Religious Change: New Evidence from the Sanchi Dam Complex and Counterparts in Gujarat and Śrī Lanka,” South Asian Studies 19 (2003): 73–104.  96. Ray, Monastery and Guild.   97.  H. P. Ray, “Bharhut and Sanchi: Nodal Points in Commercial Exchange,” in Archeology and History: Essays in Honour of A. Ghosh, eds. B. M. Pande and B. D. Chattopadhyaya (Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 1987).   98.  H. P. Ray, “Kanheri: The Archeology of an Early Buddhist Pilgrimage Site in Western India,” World Archeology, 26 (1994): 35–46.   99.  Lars Fogelin, “Sacred Architecture, Sacred Landscape: Early Buddhism in North Coastal Andhra Pradesh,” in Archeology as History in Early South Asia, eds. H. P. Ray and Carla M. Sinopoli (New Delhi: Aryan Book International, 2004), 377. 100.  Nandini Sinha, “Early Maitrekas, Landgrant Charters and Regional State Formation in Early Medieval Gujarat,” Studies in History 17 (2001): 151–63. 101.  H. P. Ray, The Winds of Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links in the Early South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), 122. 102. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism, 106. 103. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism, 110. 104. Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 32–33. 105.  The Dīgha Nikāya, vol. 1, 1; vol. 2, 81–83 and 211–12; V. Trenckner, ed., The Majjhima Nikāya, vol. 1, The Pali Text Society (London: Henry Frowde, 1888), 371–72 and 377; M. Leon Feer, ed., Saṃyutta Nikāya, pt. 2, The Pali Text Society (London: Henry Frowde, 1888), 113, and pt. 4 (London: Henry Frowde, 1894), 110, 311 and 322. 106.  Theravādins did not accept the legitimacy of an earlier council at Pāṭaliputra, used to mark the beginnings of the Mahāsāṁghika; Stephen C. Berkwitz, South Asian Buddhism: A Survey (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 44–45. 107.  T. Watters, trans., On Yuan-Chwang’s Travels in India (A.D. 629–695), vol. 2 (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1961), 164. 108.  The distance in miles of Indian measure is known as yojana, which is hard to define accurately. Cunningham inexplicably defines a yojana to the roughly seven English miles; for details see Alexander Cunningham, ‟Verification of the Itinerary of the Chinese Pilgrim Hwan Thsang through Afghanistan and India during the First Half of the Seventh Century of the Christian Era,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 17 (1848): 13–62; Mary L. Stewart defines yojana for Magadha according to Faxian’s account as four and a half miles, Nālandā Mahāvihāra: A Study of an Indian Pāla Period Buddhist Site and British Historical Archaeology, 1861–1938 (Oxford: Bar International Series 529, 1989), 96; Broadley from a comparison of the distances given in Bihar, the very center of the kingdom of Magadha, puts yojana equal to a distance of between five and six miles, A. M. Broadly, “The Buddhistic Remains of Bihār,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 41 (1872): 211–12. It seems that especially in the case of territories of Magadha yojana would be equal to a distance of between six and seven miles. 109.    S. Beal, trans., Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-yun Buddhist Pilgrimage from China to India (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.), reprint (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1993), 283.



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110. Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 1ff; B. N. Mishra, Nālandā (Sources and Background), vol. 1 (Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 1998), p. 170. 111.  Alexander Cunningham, Ancient Geography of India: The Buddhist Period Including the Campaigns of Alexander and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., 1871), 469. 112. Watters, Yuan-Chwang’s Travels, vol. 2, 164. 113. Misra, Nālandā, vol. 1, 112. 114.  B. C. Law, The Geography of Early Buddhism (Varanasi: Bhartiya Publication, 1973), 34. 115. Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 12. 116. The inscription was probably composed sometime between the middle of the ninth and tenth centuries A.D.; F. Kielhorn, “A Buddhist Stone-Inscription from Ghosrawa,” The Indian Antiquary: A Journal of Oriental Research 17 (1888): 309. 117. A. Cunningham, Tours in the Gangetic Provinces from Badaon to Bihar in 1875–76 and 1877–78, Archeological Survey of India Reports. No. XI. (Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1968), 171–73. 118.  All figures with one exception are purely Buddhistic. The idol of Durgā, carved in black basalt, is four feet high and three feet wide and is more modern than the Buddhist figures that surround it. To the left of this is a very beautiful statue of the Buddha four feet high. The figure is seated in the attitude of meditation on a cushion covered with elaborate ornamentation. Around the main figure are eight smaller ones, seated in different positions on small thrones; Broadly, “Buddhistic Remains,” 267–68. 119.  A. Cunningham, Four Reports Made During the Years 1862–63–64–65, Archeological Survey of India Reports. vol. 1. (Delhi: Indological, 1972), p. 36. 120.  Yijing has not talked about Odantapurī Mahāvihāra in his travelogue, which probably indicated its construction, not before 700 A.D. 121.  Kittoe says, “From Behar I went to Bargāon, this must have been a famous place, and I consider it to be Nā-lo of Faxian; there are splendid tanks some half a mile or more in length; there are mounds innumerable and broken idols also; some are half Vishnite half Buddhist, some are Jain and some of the Naga type”; Stewart, Nālandā Mahāvihāra, 89. 122. The Jain texts Pūrvadēśachaityaparipāṭi written by Paṇḍit Hamsasoma in 1508 A.D. and the Samētaśikharatīrthamālā composed by Paṇḍit Vijayasāgara in 1623 A.D. note that the locality of Nālandā where Mahāvīra spent fourteen rainy seasons was called Baḍagāma and not Nālandā; Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 4; this mistake was also present in the initial archeological surveys of the area done by the employees of the East India Company, later after the discovery of the original site of Nālandā Mahāvihāra during excavations, it was rectified. 123.  D. R. Patil, Antiquarians Remains of Bihar, Historical Research Series. vol. 4 (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1963), 305; Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 95. 124.  The king Bimbisāra of Magadha built his rāja-gṛha in the suburb of Girivraja, which soon developed into a city and became the capital of Magadha; D. C. Sircar, “Foundations of Early Indian Cities and Towns,” in Towns in PreModern India, ed. Vijay Kumar Thakur (Patna and New Delhi: Janaki Prakashan, 1994), 96.

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125.  S. Narayan, Sacred Complexes of Deoghar and Rajgir (New Delhi: Concept Publication Company, 1983), 93. 126.  For example, Bimbisāra and his court physician Jīvaka, respectively, presented the bamboo grove and mango garden to the Buddha and his community; Mohammad Hamid Kuraishi, Rajgir (New Delhi: Archeological Survey of India, 1975), 4–31. 127. The Buddha appreciated the city and its environment as “Delightful is Rājagṛha; delightful is Gṛidhrakūṭa; delightful is Gautama-nyagrodha; delightful is Charura-prapāta; delightful is the Saptaparṇī cave on the side of the Vaibhāra; delightful is Kālaśilā on the Ṛishigiri side; delightful is Sarpa-śauṇḍika-prāgbhāra in Śitavana; delightful is Tapodārāma; delightful is the Kalandaka lake in Veṇuvana; delightful is the mango-grove of Jīvaka; delightful is the Deer-park in Mardakukshi”’ The Dīgha Nikāya, vol. 2, 116–17. 128.  In the time of Ajātaśatru, to repel the attacks of the Vajjis, the minister of Magadha built a fortified palace at the meeting point of the Son and the Gaṅgā, called Pātaligrāma. Kind Udayan raised a new capital near it called Pāṭaliputra; Dinesh Prasad Saklani, Cities and Sites of Ancient and Medieval India (New Delhi: Winsar Books, 1999), 41. 129.  Manoranjan Ghosh, The Pataliputra (Patna: The Patna Law Press, 1919), 10. 130. Ray, Monastery and Guild, 207. 131. Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India, 66–67. 132.  For more details on Nālandā’s neighborhood and its geographical contributions see chapter 1. 133. Ray noted in her study of early historical monastic sites in the coastal Andhra that pilgrimage provided an alternative strategy of mobilization of resources for the monasteries in the absence of more towns; H. P. Ray, The Archeology of Sea Faring in Ancient South Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 264. 134.  As many as 173 personal sealings of Nālandā were listed by Sastri; of these only three identify women: Śrīmat-Siyādevī, Śrī-Ijjādevī, and Śrīdevī from a well-respected family. Among the largest class of other personal materials from Nālandā, the 109 unhistorical votive inscriptions, only one name is barely recognized as feminine; Sastri, Nālandā and Epigraphic, 58–112. 135.  Xinriu Liu, Ancient India and Ancient China: Trade and Religious Exchange, AD 1–600 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988), 107 136.  Ray, “Bharhut and Sanchi,” 621. 137.  Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism, 112. 138.  Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism, 87. 139.  Birendra Nath Prasad, ‟Major Trends and Perspective in Studies in the Functional Dimensions of Indian Monastic Buddhism in the Past One Hundred Years: A Historiographical Survey,” Buddhist Studies Review 25 (2008): 62. 140.  Trevor O. Ling, The Buddha: Buddhist Civilisation in India and Ceylon (London: Temple Smith, 1973), 133–5. 141.  Reginald A. Ray, Buddhist Saints in India: A Study of Buddhist Values and Orientations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 441–46. 142. D. K. Chakrabarti, Issues in East Indian Archaeology (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1998), 97.



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143.  See chapter 2. 144.  But Fogelin comments that overall Tantric Buddhism was neither monastic nor ascetic, neither worldly focused nor mundane focused—it was all of this and more; Fogelin, “Sacred Architecture, Sacred Landscape,” 206. 145. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism, 114. 146.  James Hastings, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 7 (New York: Scribner, 1908), 465. 147.  N. N. Bhattacharyya, History of the Śākta Religion (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1996), 38–47. 148.  N. N. Bhattacharyya, History of the Tantric Religion (New Delhi: Manohar, 1992), 185. 149.  Edward Conze et al., trans. and eds., Buddhist Texts through the Ages (Boston & Shaftesbury: Shambhala, 1990), 30–31. 150.  J. Silk, “What, If Anything, Is Mahāyāna Buddhism? Problems of Definitions and Classifications,” Numen 49 (2002): 360. 151.  Geofferey Samuel, The Origin of Yoga and Tantra: Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 212. 152. Thakur, Buddhist Cities, 98. 153.  There are only broken pieces of evidence for the cluster of religious practices known as tantra before the seventh century A.D. See Richard F. Gombrich, How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings (London: The Athlon Press, 1996), 155. 154.  W. M. Theodore de Bary, ed., The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), 113. 155. The word Kālacakra means the wheel of time, which later implies the process of keeping oneself above the influence of time or controlling time, which is possible by controlling the vital winds in the nerves through yoga. Kālacakrayāna developed in the tenth century in northern India and also became popular in Tibet and China, which introduced the demoniacal Buddhas and a system of yoga. 156.  The word Sahaja means ‟easy” and philosophically denotes the ultimate inner nature of beings and elements. Sahajayāna holds that the ultimate truth is natural and so it is the easiest, which can never be found through the prescribed codes of study, discipline, conduct, worship, and ritual. Human nature itself will lead the aspirant to realize the truth. 157. These Bodhisattvas turned into powerful deities in a later period, who could grant anything to the devotees such as Avalokiteśvara, Mañjuśrī, Vajrapāṇi, Samantabhadra, Ākāsagarbha, Mahāsthānaprapta, Bhaiṣajyarāja, and Maitreya. Of these Bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara and Mañjuśrī became the most popular whose duties, respectively, were to instruct the new adherents and to confer knowledge. 158. Samuel, Origin of Yoga and Tantra, 215. 159. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism, 113–18. 160. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 17. 161. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 64. 162. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 64. 163.  Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 18.

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164.  A tenth-century stone image of Cundā from Nālandā shows the goddess in vajrāsana, the main pair of hands resting on the crossed soles of the feet and holding a bowl. Similar images belonging to the ninth–tenth century are in the Nalanda and Patna Museum. Bhattacharyya, History of the Tantric Religion, 395. 165. Watters, Yuan-Chwang, vol. 2, 103–04. 166. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 37. 167.  Mookerji, “University of Nalanda,” 158 168.  Mookerji, “University of Nalanda,” 159. 169.  D. S. J. Lopez, The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to Its History and Teachings (San Francisco: Harper, 2001), 214–15. 170. Fogelin, Archaeological History, 208. 171. Bhattacharyya, History of Tantric, 222. 172.  Christian K. Wedemeyer, Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism: History, Semiology, and Transgression in the India Traditions (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 204. 173.  Epigraphia Indica, vol. 17, 325.

S even Life, Ritual, and Influences

We got an idea of the organization and management of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra in the previous chapter. It was an efficient system because of the active participation of monks and residents of Śrī Nālandā. We also discussed in detail the academic and religious practices, studies, and training of inhabitants of the monastery of Nālandā in chapter 5. The larger part of the life of Buddhists at Śrī Nālandā or other monasteries of South Asia mainly consisted of three features: practices, services, and cultural activities. Participation in studies, meditation, ceremonies, and administration was an essential part of everyday life within the campus. Buddhist literature of various genres has made the distinction between the devotion to practices like study, preaching, and meditation, and services and management, where sometimes the administrative responsibilities of monks were subordinated concerning inferior merit and karmic results.1 Besides these activities, worship, ritualistic involvement, routine, and cultural activities were further essential and visible parts of the existence of everyone within the Buddhist monastery of Nālandā. The picture of the residential life of upāsakas at Nālandā in particular and the whole monastery, in general, will not be complete without the mention of the cultural and routine life, which we will cover in this chapter. In the later part of this chapter, we will also see the influences of Nālandā Mahāvihāra on the academic, religious, and social life of South Asia. The study of life at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which was a combination of study, services, and veneration, reflects the nature of education imparted in this monastic institution. We can feel the cultural life of Nālandā led by its students and teachers via numerous images and architecture that have been discovered, and from travelogues alike, which mention academic life. Study at Nālandā did not consist of mere theological knowledge of the Buddhist religion and philosophy. The student was also required to perform religious rites and worship of images, which were read about in books. Yijing’s account of the rules and ceremonies established by the Buddha gives us an idea of the rituals performed by the scholars 237

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of Nālandā. With time, these sacred duties became institutionalized in the everyday life of monasteries, which was followed by every vihāra. We have already gone through the study and training of residents with their practices of recitation, meditation, and preaching. The other part of their life involved services to the establishment also related to menial labors, which we will see in this part. The daily lives of Buddhists differed more or less according to their residency in the different mahāvihāras of different Buddhist orientations because the routines, rules, and rituals of the particular sects varied accordingly. Of the monasteries devoted to the Hīnayāna sect, for example, Vikramaśīlā had a different traditional life compared to the Mahāyāna Academy of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which was entirely based on the beliefs and rituals of Hīnayāna. In this way, we can say that the conventional life of Buddhist monks and scholars changed by the development of Buddhist religion and philosophy, which was closely connected to the contemporary society and culture. The changes sometimes reflected the growing nearness to Brāhmaṇical religion. In the early days, the rites and ceremonies at Nālandā were mainly those that were taught by the Buddha: simple and full of devotion such as Caityavandanā. Later, with the division of Buddhism into Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna, monasteries became more complex, with elaborate rituals. With the rise of Tantrayāna Buddhism with its image worship and multifaceted ritual system, daily life at Nālandā reached a maximum level of complexity, and degradation started. Study and veneration were the most important features of the monastic life at Nālandā, which we have already indicated in the previous chapters.2 Here, we will focus more on the worship practiced within the monastery. Life at Nālandā was highly disciplined and moral, following the rules and philosophy of Mahāyāna Buddhism in particular and the universal rules of Buddhism in general. The novices and monks had to live a life of strict self-control.3 Yijing in his stay at Nālandā observed and complained that the Chinese Buddhist monks and nuns failed to live up to the discipline required of members of a monastic community as lived by the monks of Nālandā (my emphasis).4 They were required to keep the precepts: abstinence from destroying life, stealing, partiality, lying, intoxication, eating at forbidden times, dancing, singing, use of garlands and scents, high beds, and accepting gold and silver. The monastic programs were structured for the learning of appropriate forms because it was essential to the disciplined development of the self.5 The ceremonies and rituals started when one joined the monastery and continued until the end of the study. These traditions and rituals ensured social interactions with the larger community of the monastery and simultaneously brought some moments of controlled pleasure. The aim of these small ceremonies and rituals was to



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introduce the Buddhist faith to new entrants and then have them practice and train to become mature Buddhist monks and householders. First, the new monk was instructed with the four well-known fundamental prohibitions of Buddhism: do not steal, do not tell a lie, do not commit adultery, do not drink any intoxicating liquor.6 Then a series of rituals was performed further according to the progress in the study for ascribing higher grades such as uposatha, pabajjā, and upasaṃpadā, which were memorable moments in the student’s life.7 Besides these, the monks used to perform many purifying ceremonies after the rainy season with learning. LIFE AT THE CAMPUS The standard life of the residents of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra seems to have been one of contentment, comfort, and pleasure up to an extent. Although their life was colored with the Buddha’s religion, it looks more comfortable in comparison with the outer world. Nālandā provided all necessary facilities of life to its residents, and being the largest monastery and blessed with large funds supplied more and better facilities than other mahāvihāras of contemporary India. As the excavated ruins testify, the cells are more spacious, and the stone beds are broader; also, an extra cell is added for storage of books and personal belongings.8 The routine of the daily life of the monastery of Nālandā was mainly divided between two occupations: study (including meditation, recitation, and training) and religious rites. The day and night timetable was fixed by a water clock, which has been described by Yijing as a device consisting of a small perforated copper bowl floating in a large one that is filled with water, where time was noted by each impression of the lower bowl and announced by beatings of a drum in regular intervals. Xuanzang9 also records that the day was accordingly divided into four hours, where the afternoon and the forenoon each comprised two hours. The second time ends at noon, when eating is not allowed. The expiry of the first hour at night is announced by the beat of the drum by Karmadāna himself. Sunrise and sunset were announced by the beat of the drum at the outside of the gate of the monastery by the servants. The other important regulator was a central gong, which was controlled by the higher officials. The beat of the gong was supposed to be a call for all residents to report important and urgent issues of the monastery. Sometimes teachers also hit the gong to call all the Paṇḍitas together, as Candrakīrti did to inform of the arrival of Candragomī in the area and arrangement for his reception.10 Accordingly, the life of residents was regulated in which the time for a meal, sleeping, bathing, worshipping, and so on was fixed. The later afternoon and evening twilight was spent in worship of images, stūpas, and caityas.11

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The monks’ daily schedule was more or less predictable, not only because the routine was, within the broad limits, prescribed by the rule, but because it transpired within the physical boundaries of the monastery.12 The daily life at Nālandā Mahāvihāra seems more healthy and hygienic when we compare it to the contemporary Chinese monasteries, which is beautifully presented in the study of Indian and Chinese monastic bodily care by Ann Heirman and Mathieu Torck. The bodily care practices give us an insight into the daily routine of monks and the whole monastic life. Cleanliness and purity are not only linked to the monk’s body and mind but also are directly connected to the overall image of a monk before the outside world. Lay people always looked at the monastery and the monastics to achieve this ideal. Nālandā’s monks got up before the sunrise after listening to the sound of a bell ring. They finished up their daily bodily practices such as toilet and teeth cleaning to get ready for a bath. Yijing observed the everyday practice of monks to clean the teeth and the tongue by dantakāṣṭha, or tooth wood. This is a small wooden branch that the user chews. It is still a main daily practice in Indian villages related to oral care. Yijing advises the fashioning of it from the branches of oak, in a mountain village, and from the wood of mulberry, peach, locust, or willow on the arable land of the plains. The monks of Nālandā used a willow branch as tooth wood as we can see many willow trees in the vicinity of Nālandā today. A willow branch is still a preferable tooth wood in Indian villages because it has many Āyurvedic qualities related to dental care. Heirman counts the benefits of chewing tooth wood mentioned in the Vinaya and also reiterated by Yijing as one has no foul breath, one has no bitter taste in the mouth, one can distinguish between different tastes, one can eat and digest food, diseases linked to heat and cold disappear, phlegm and saliva goes, and it is good for eyes.13 She again reiterates like Yijing that the teeth and mouth act as a mirror of the personality so good teeth and breath indicate a healthy, worthy, and trustworthy person who is pure in body and mind.14 It seems there was a toilet facility on the campus of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, as Sastri discovered it from Monastery No. 1.15 The latrines were made out of the monastery using earthen pots inside. Yijing gives a detailed account to answer the call of nature, which also seems in practice at Nālandā.16 The life of student and teacher at Śrī Nālandā began with a bath in the early morning before sunrise. Yijing writes, “Every morning a ghanti or gong is sounded to remind the priests of the bathing hour. Sometimes a hundred, sometimes a thousand (priests) leave the monastery together and proceed in all directions towards many great pools of water near Nālandā, where all of them take a bath.”17 The archeological excavations and surveys of the site of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra and its surroundings have pointed out many ponds around the monastery, which might be



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used for bathing purposes. It appears from the records of Chinese residents of Nālandā that a morning bath was obligatory for all and that it could not be taken at any time one liked but only at the prescribed hour. It seems everyone was required to take a bath every day in all seasons— winter, summer, or rainy season. It may have been hard to take a bath in the cold weather of the winter. Heirman, while discussing the monastic bathing practice, comments that the mode of bathing is different in Indian and Chinese monasteries but the attitudes towards the practice are similar in the two countries, although some evolution is apparent. It had both physical and religious connotations and implications. Heirman also stresses the physical reasons behind the bath reflected from Indian monastic texts.18 Indian monastic texts tend to stress the importance of health, hygiene, cleanliness, decorum, and seniority and the danger of sexual attraction, which are almost absent from Chinese monastic discussions of bathing. The everyday bath was responsible for the clean and healthy body especially away from the smell of sweat, dirt, and skin infections due to summer heat and overeating. Yijing also recommends that to maintain clear eyesight and ward off the cold, one should use oil frequently during bathing, and a meal should be taken after a bath, when the body is clean and empty. Religiously, the everyday bath could have led to invisible piousness and pureness of mind and body required to carry out other sacred duties, as it is traditional practice in India even now to take a bath before every worship and ritual. The monks and students of Nālandā would have bathed every day with more religious nuances. It seems an ascetic attitude was also involved in bathing as pointed out by Heirman through quoting Yijing that the monks of Nālandā bathed every day, always while wearing a bathing skirt to cover their nakedness and, when leaving the water, the bather had to always shake his body so that no insects clung to the skirt and were thus removed from the pond.19 Here, both the innate nature of a monk’s shamefulness and non-violence regarding men and heavenly beings came into reference. Students prepared bathing essentials for their teacher’s bath every day. After the bath, they began their daily routine, which included a happy blending of veneration and study. They worshiped and prayed to the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas in temples situated on the campus of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. They used to run for their popular lectures, which was among one of the several running classes of one teacher after breakfast. Every day after the bath, one of the monks was assigned duty for Caityavandanā. Caityavandanā (the worship of stūpa) seems to have been an important ceremony in the daily life of residents of Nālandā Mahāvihāra from the beginning. In Nālandā, this worship was performed in a slightly different manner in comparison to Tāmraliptī because it is hard to assemble all residents in one place at the same time. At Nālandā, therefore,

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the worship was performed as Yijing says, “It is customary to send out one teacher to go around from place to place chanting hymns,20 being preceded by monastic-lay servants and children carrying with them incense and flowers. He goes from one hall to another, and in each, he chants hymns in praise of the Great Teacher, i.e. the Buddha, every time he sings three or five verses in a high tone and the sound are heard all around, and they performed the Threefold Salutation in this manner. At twilight, he would finish his duty.” Yijing also presents an account of worshipping a temple in a different way. He states with these words, “In addition to the above referred Caityavandanā there are some who, sitting alone, facing the shrine (Gandhakuṭi), praise the Buddha in their heart; there are others who, going to the temple (in a small party) kneel side by side with their bodies upright and putting their hands on the ground, touch it with their heads and thus perform the Threefold Salutation.”21 But Xuanzang says that kneeling was not the only way to pay respect or do worship, but so was saluting and reverence.22 It seems there were various ways of worshiping stūpas and images depending on the feelings and mental attitude of worshipers. Archaeological excavations at the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā have shown that all of the shrines, both monasteries in gandhakuṭi, in four corners, and in both sides of the gate, and stūpas in the center contained the Buddha images.23 Not only this, there was a small temple constructed with imgaes of the Buddha at the gate of every vihāra. Whenever a monk came out of his monastery, the first thing visible would be the stūpa and the image to which he could quickly perform rites and prayers. It was also beneficial in the sense that the monks could revere in the night also. The temples were also clearly visible from the hostel’s rooms, so they could also worship at any time from the room itself. Thus, while Yijing describes monks facing shrine halls or going to the temple, he is describing image worship particularly and stūpa in general. Unlike earlier periods in India, whence the role of the Buddha image for the Saṁgha must be inferred from their design and placement, Yijing’s account of his time in India provides a detailed description of image worship at Nālandā:24 “The Buddha’s image still exists, and we should venerate it as if he were in the world. Incense and flowers should often be offered to the image; by doing so, our mind may be purified. To bathe it regularly is good to clear away the evil influence of our deeds caused by idleness.”25 Gradually, the worship of sculptures became very popular at the monastery of Nālandā, the culmination of which we can see in the introduction of institutional esoterism. Nālandā Mahāvihāra was a religious cum academic institution, evident from the available beautiful balance of study and veneration. Sometimes there were occasions of a festival-like celebration in Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. Victory in a debate, installation of a new image, appointment of a new preceptor, construction of a new monastery, an



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ordination of monks, image procession, a formal reception of a reputed monk, granting titles to teachers and students, and so on could lead to happy moments in the campus life followed by many rituals.26 The image procession of Mañjuśrī going to Nālandā to cover up the formal reception of Candragomī being a layman, organized by monks, combined several chariots and people.27 The ceremony, Yijing says, was observed on a scale so grand that all the trays and plates were full of the cakes and rice remaining over, and melted butter and cream could have been partaken of to any extent.28 On the occasion of the setting up of holy images at Nālandā, all the guests had to sit with folded hands before the image and each had to meditate upon the objects of worship. Sometimes the host selected one priest to go before the image and worship and praise the Buddha in a loud voice.29 Yijing continues by describing an elaborate ceremony held in the courtyard of vihāras where images were cleaned with perfumed water and scented pastes.30 It seems the whole campus would have cleaned, decorated, lighted, and perfumed at the time of the galas as mentioned above. The establishment used to hire actors to play episodes in the life of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas. These would have been occasions of lots of food and enjoyment for all residents. As noticed by Yijing, the Buddhists believed that if the use of food and clothing were against proper rules, every step would involve some crime. The concept of the distinction between pure and impure food was also prominent at Nālandā.31 Heirman argued in her article that under the influence of Mahāyāna in the later fifth and sixth century, Nālandā was also a Mahāyāna Academy (my emphasis)—refusal to eat or drink forbidden foods like alcohol, meat, fish, and products with strong flavor not only remained a matter of monastic code but also became subject to increased moralization related to the idea of Bodhisattvahood and karma.32 The meals were getting prepared in the kitchen of the monastery and served by monks in a way that everything was supposed to be pure and clean. The residents of Nālandā would have taken rice, butter, and milk every day, which was supplied to the monastery by its villages. The rice and the dishes made of rice would have occupied a significant place in the daily food of Nālandā’s monks compared to wheat and barley as the production of rice was plentiful in Magadha observed by both Chinese travelers.33 There were many guidelines for having food and water together in the campus of Nālandā.34 We know that that the eating of solid food was not allowed after noon, but it was not applicable to visitor monks. The monks washed their hands and feet before meals and sat on separate small chairs according to their status, arranged at some intervals so that they did not touch each other. They placed their feet on the ground, and trays (on which food is served) were placed before him. The ground was strewn with cow dung, and fresh leaves were scattered over. To sit cross-legged side by side and

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to have meals with knees stretched out was not proper. At a reception or regular meals, no one could touch another or taste any fresh food until he had rinsed his mouth with pure water, and after each course, he had to repeat the ringing. The clean water was kept separately in earthenware or porcelain for drinking and water for cleansing purposes in an iron or copper jar. The dressing pattern at Nālandā Mahāvihāra was different for each community. It varied according to the status of individuals such as student, ācārya, upājjhāya, working-staff, laymen, and so on. For example, the costumes of monks, besides the three robes, consisted of a saṅkakṣikā (a side covering) and a nivāsana (it was put on crosswise around the lower parts of one’s body).35 We can note that both having food and wearing clothes indicated the existing hierarchy within the campus of Nālandā, which they observed carefully in their daily life. The central part of the everyday lives of the residents of Nālandā Mahāvihāra was comprised of study and veneration, including the practice of meditation, preaching, and recitation. The daily activities of monks included the performance of morning and evening prayers, cleaning their apartment, studying, and napping. The residents were engaged in services to the community and the establishment of Nālandā, which has been less widely discussed. The kinds of activities they were involved in were not the stereotypical activities of renunciants, and sometimes they were not considered as much as a religious and sacred duty, but they occupied a significant portion of their day. We already briefly indicated the residents’ engagement with the neighboring community of the mahāvihāra in the previous chapter. The management of landed estates to meet the costs of running the monastery was the primary source of direct engagement with the outside population. The novices and monks would have ventured into the occupied villages of Nālandā several times a week, especially when the crops were coming. It seems they would have also taken some farming activities with trade and commerce. Monks managed the administration of Nālandā, and the daily life of monks would have been occupied with much administrative and physical labor to the service of the establishment. Monks in general and novices in particular performed physical labor like sweeping, gardening, cleaning the toilets, moving bricks, cleaning the street outside the monastery, taking care of monastic animals, and repairing the monasteries and stūpas to keep the monastery and temples tidy. It seems the newcomers did most of the physical labor around the monastery, as they were constrained by fewer Vinaya rules, such as a rule against digging, and this labor was understood as part of their training, as Borchert36 observed in his survey of Chinese Theravāda monastery of Sipsongpannā. Scholars have not much discussed these activities of a monk’s day in contemporary Asian Buddhism, which Tambiah refers to as ‟odd jobs.”37 These physical, administrative, and



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social labors are widely practiced in Asian Buddhist monastic life today and would have also significantly captured the daily routine of monks at Nālandā, which we can imagine in the lack of pieces of evidence. The disciplined monastic life left some room for its lighter side, for games and sports, which have their appeal in human nature. A list of such permissible games and sports is given in the Cullavagga,38 which mentions even dancing with ladies, besides the following: “Games with eight or ten pieces; with tossing up; hopping over diagrams formed on the ground; removing substances from a heap without shaking the remainder; games of dice and trap ball; sketching rude figures; tossing balls; blowing trumpets; having matches at plowing with mimic ploughs; tumbling, forming mimic windmills; guessing at measures; chariot races; archery events; shooting marbles with fingers; imagining other people’s thoughts; imitating other people’s acts; riding elephants, horses; driving carriages; swordsmanship; wrestling; boxing with fists; and spreading robes out as a stage on which girls were invited to dance.” About the admissibility of gambling, we must recall its Vedic origins, showing that it has figured in all ages as an indoor game.39 It found its way even into the severe and serious atmosphere of Nālandā. Archaeological excavation has found there a gaming die and gaming dice in Monasteries Nos. 1A and 1 and at other Buddhist sites, proving that the monks gave in to such recreations.40 It is rather surprising that neither Xuanzang nor Yijing spoke of any of the Tantric images and their worship at Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. Yijing only refers to the images of the Buddha and Hāriti; Xuanzang, though he does mention Tārā, Avalokiteśvara, Hāriti, Buddha, and Bodhisattva, never speaks of any other image, such as Marīci, Jambhala, Mahākāla, Yāmañtaka, Vajrasttva, Aparājita, Mañjuśrī, Mañjuvara and Vajrapāṇi—all Tantric images—or of Viṣṇu, Śiva, Pārvatī, Sūrya, Gaṇeśa, and many others, which have been discovered at Nālandā and at many places in Magadha.41 Why do Xuanzang and Yijing not refer to any of the Tantric images and their forms of worship at Śrī Nālandā? The answer to this question lies, on the one hand, in development in the religion and academics at Nālandā, and on another hand in the growth of Buddhism. We can also visualize more and more growing complexity in the life at Nālandā Mahāvihāra with this. When Xuanzang and Yijing came to Nālandā Mahāvihāra, it was at the height of its growth, and its social and academic life was simple, spiritual, moral, and inspired by the Buddha. The Mahāyāna academia practiced worship of the Buddha and the Bodhisattva images but not of its Tantric incarnations. The life of Nālandā was not very complicated even with those above-mentioned religious activities. With time, the studies at Nālandā got more and more widespread and produced and patronized many sub-thoughts of Buddhism in the form of specializations. These sub-ideas grew gradually with their rituals

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and practices and made life at Nālandā more involved. Another side of this issue is related to the growth of Buddhism after the death of the Buddha. In the lapse of time, Buddhism got divided into many sects with an increasing degree of proximity with Brāhmaṇical religion regarding the proliferation of ritual. The higher rate of rituals in these later phases of Buddhism was the result of both internal changes in Buddhism and externally growing importance of Buddhism and Islam. In this way, it appears that Tantrayāna, though it had been introduced into Buddhism in the seventh century, did not become popular until the arrival of Xuanzang and Yijing at Śrī Nālandā. This was especially true of its later developments— Vajrayāna and Kālacakrayāna made their appearance only in about the tenth century A.D. at the monastery of Nālandā.42 The introduction and popularization of Tantrayāna at the Buddhist monastery of Nālandā transformed the simple and spiritual life full of elaborate rituals and practices with minute details. It started the worship of images of the Buddha and his different incarnations with various gods and goddesses in various Tantric gestures and postures. Not only this, but Tantricism also institutionalized magic, erotism, meditation, and lots of elaborate rituals into their religious life.43 Tāranātha, the last Tibetan student of Nālandā, had presented these details of the end days of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. RITUALS We may be led to generalize that South Asian Buddhist monasteries were the laboratories of rituals. It seems most of the rituals of Buddhism were started, practiced, and modified at monasteries to seize, control, and defend against the forces of evil and good. The mega-monastery of Nālandā proved an example of this. One of the principal causes of the emergence of Indian Buddhism was a reaction against the increased ritualism of Brāhmaṇism, but it seems untrue to judge Buddhism as a ritual-less religion. Throughout the history of Buddhism in South Asia, ritual practices have saturated all Buddhist traditions. Many of the rituals of the Brāhmaṇical system made their way into Buddhism in the beginning, in simple or complex forms, directly and indirectly. A profound observation of the history of the Buddhist tradition in South Asia reflects a gradual increase in the creation of rituals with development in the Buddha’s religion. Being a religious institution, Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra will prove itself as an excellent example of the growth in Buddhism, which we have already discussed in this book. Śrī Nālandā represents in itself a generation of changes in Buddhism starting broadly from Hīnayāna to Mahāyāna to Tantrayāna. We can see an increase in the degree of ritual application and the variety of ritual forms and styles of performance in



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the life of the monastery of Nālandā. In the last days of Nālandā, the ritual performances reached their height with the rise of offshoots of Tantrayāna. Why did the rituals have such an important place in the lives of Buddhist monasteries like the Mahāvihāra of Śrī Nālandā? There were daily, monthly, and annual rites associated with personal and community protection and merit making, including spirit-tying ceremonies, funerals, and the blessing and dedication of new buildings and temple buildings.44 The actions performing rituals were an inseparable part of the residents’ daily monastic life, and the activities varied according to one’s status within the monastery. It acted as a pedagogical tool in the training of a monastic aimed to develop the Buddhist faith. In turn, the rate of ritualization of monastic life created—in terms of Bell, Trainer, Rappaport, and others—a ritualized agent45 that was especially Buddhist in color. The ritualization restructured the bodies and minds of the performers, enabling them to absorb a particular idea and worldview through performing and participating in rituals. It was by worshipping the Buddha and playing other types of ritualized activities such as eating, sleeping, sweeping, bathing, wearing clothes, and so on that the residents began to understand the meaning and content of the monastic life. Every action and activity within the campus proved to be a ritual to suit the religious needs of the institution of Nālandā. The monk’s main ritual activity was the chanting for the success of a ritual including a variety of tasks such as collecting meritorious donations, preparation for ceremonies, an ordination of monks, admission to the monastery, image dedication, and so on. In the beginning days, Śrī Nālandā looked like a small monastery with a simple life regarding rituals. The life at the monastery was filled with prayers and worship for protection from the spiritual entities. The Buddha was not even established entirely as a god. The residents treated him as an enlightened person to guide them in protection from malevolent forces. It is true that we witness a considerable growth of ritual action with the emergence of the Mahāyāna at Nālandā. The earlier practice of prayers and rituals of many deities and spirits remained the same. Now, the Buddha became a god above all deities, gods, and spirits within a pantheon of Bodhisattvas. The pattern and frequency of ritual actions like prayer and worship increased in the campus and the stūpas, monasteries, and small temples dedicated to their images came up for venerations. The image worship acquired the dominant sphere of the cultural life within the campus. And with images came lots of offerings to acquire merits such as various kinds of gifts, incense, flowers, fruits, and other essentials related to worship. Even the construction and decoration of stūpas and monasteries became acts of devotion and ritual. Nālandā Mahāvihāra taught the building of stūpas and monasteries, painting murals, metal

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casting, sculpturing, and other activities as ritually constructed acts aimed at the accumulation of merit. The monastic teachers stressed the acceptance of Buddhist teaching and meditation as the effective means of protection from demons, and in this way, the studies within Nālandā turned into a ritualistic action. We already indicated earlier that the Mahāyāna Academy incorporated many mantras, mudrās, dhāraṇīs, and rituals, coming back from the age of Brahmins during the time of the popularity of Mahāyāna in the campus. The monastic Mahāyāna practitioners got engaged in the ritual practices of the recitation of mantras. Passages from Mahāyāna scriptures dealing with rites of taking refuge and expressing devotion to the Buddha and Bodhisattvas are closely related to the rites of purification from sins, accumulation of virtue, and protection from malevolent spirits, which in turn were invariably associated with dhāraṇīs, and taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṁgha.46 This led to the insurgency of many ritualistic activities on the campus of Nālandā with the recitation of dhāraṇīs such as circumambulating a shrine and images, worship of scriptures, placing a scripture in front of shrine and image, meditation, and so on. We can also witness that the elaboration of each ritual in the monastic environment such as the worship of books happened in many ways, such as placing a text in front of the shrine and image, praising the manuscript like an image by putting flower, incense, and vermilion nearby, burying the book within the stūpas, printing the some verses of the book on tablets, and so on.47 Many Mahāyāna texts speak of the importance of worshipping books, and Schopen48 and Kinnard49 pointed out that many of these texts elevate the worship of books and manuscripts as a superior form of cultic practice, above even the veneration of stūpas and images. About dhāraṇīs, Schopen has pointed that it is implicitly stated that depositing the dhāraṇī from a text in a stūpa generates more merit than is generated by depositing any of the four kinds of relics.50 The monastery of Nālandā rigorously practiced the ritual of manuscript worship in almost all kinds. As noticed by both Xuanzang and Yijing, short passages from Buddhist texts were often placed in small stūpas.51 Archeologically, we have recovered damaged Buddhist texts from ritually buried stūpas in the Gandhara region52 and many examples of dhāraṇīs including the Buddhist creed inscribed on clay seals placed inside the stūpas have been found at Nālandā.53 Circumambulating stūpas, monasteries, and images was also a common practice at Nālandā Mahāvihāra, accompanied with chanting dhāraṇīs. The monks circumambulated either once or thrice54 and while going around the stūpas or gandhakuṭi, they were required to take off their shoes and uncover their right shoulder.55 The archeological excavations of the site exposed many stūpas with pradakṣiṅāpatha around at almost all levels.56 It seems monks not only circled the stūpas and images but also the



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monasteries to acquire merits. The pabajjā and upasaṃpadā rituals were essential for everyone who desired membership in the Buddhist monastery, related to, respectively, partial and full incorporation into the monastic life. It is appropriate to believe that the pabajjā and upasaṃpadā ceremonies originated and developed simultaneously in an even earlier period than the formal establishment of the Buddhist Saṁgha, and got separated into two rituals in the later period to restrict the entry of undesirable elements into the order.57 Pabajjā means ‟the going forth from a prior state—from home to homelessness” and this initial conversion and entry into the monastery happened at the minimum age of seven with the permission of parents. One who had gone through pabajjā was called śramaṇa or sāmanera, mentioned in Indian inscriptions, supposed to be an aspirant for the state of monkhood. This ritual was very simple in the beginning, and an enthusiastic person approached the monastery appropriately tonsured with a suit of yellow robes and led to the initiation by calling to the three refuges three times: ‟I take refuge with the Buddha. I take refuge with the Dhamma. I take refuge with the Saṁgha.” With the growth of monastic life, the pabajjā ritual became elaborated in monasteries like Nālandā. Yijing reports that one had to select an ācārya for joining the order and the same ācārya in the presence of the upājjhāya would impart him ten śikṣāpadas, a cloak, a saṅkakṣikā, a nivāsana, a bowl, and a filter and he was called a sāmanera.58 The ritual of pabajjā, a ritualistic ordination into a Buddhist community, also resembles the Vedic upanayana ritual initiation. The upasaṃpadā ritual was symbolically the end of a period of novitiate, which made the sāmanera a regular member of the monastery as a full-fledged monk and a son of the Buddha and as well a brother in the Saṁgha community. The ceremony, attitude, method, and rites of asking instruction and announcing one’s intention were the same for those who proceeded to receive full ordination.59 Yijing says that in the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā60 the monks received the Upasaṃpadā title from the upājjhāya in the presence of the council of monks in the early morning on the first day of the long season (seventeenth of the sixth moon). The time, date, and season of ordination were recorded since it was one of the bases to prove seniority in the order. It was after this that the candidate was taught the character of offenses as embodied in the prātimokṣa and the manner of reciting the precepts. Other Buddhist rituals are the confessional prātimokṣa ritual, which is performed by Buddhist monks twice a month, and the funeral rites and customary rituals for the deceased. The recital of prātimokṣa seems to come at a comparatively later stage of monastic development61 than the uposatha ritual. The uposatha ritual—the recitation of śikṣāpadas for the purification of mind and body—was introduced by the Buddha in his order at the instance of Magadhan King Bimbisāra having connections

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with the Brāhmaṇical system.62 Later it emerged as a monastic ceremony for the laity as well as the monks, as mentioned by Xuanzang and Yijing. Xuanzang informs us of the three long and six fasting days of every month when monks took materials of worship and paid homage to the images of their respective Bodhisattvas.63 Yijing refers to the upavasatha day as a day of religious observance and celebration on a grand scale for the laity and the monks, and the laity observed the eight śilās during the four fast days64 and invited the monks for meals with the offering of lights, flowers, and incense.65 Related to prātimokṣa, the other confessional ritual was the pavāraṇā, aimed to self-purification, which was held at the end of the rainy season, where the prātimokṣa was a liturgical rite but the pavāraṇā occasion served as a type of court of law.66 Horner, comparing the two rituals, has observed that the recital of the prātimokṣa was to remove offenses by confessing them, during the nine dry months of the year, but the pavāraṇā was to remove the offenses that the monk had committed during the three wet months and would help them to aim at grasping discipline.67 The Kaṭhina ceremony, which followed the pavāraṇā closely, was the making and distribution of robes presented by the laity to the Saṁgha on the sixteenth day of the eighth moon.68 Besides the above-mentioned rites, there would have been other practices of many rituals related to maintaining discipline in the campus and controlling the naughty monks, which are also mentioned in the Piṭakas such as Nissayakammas, Pabbājaniyakamma, Paṭisāraṇiyakamma, Ukkhepaniyakamma, Paṭikkosanā, Nissāraṇā, Osāraṇā, and such. There were some rituals related to having food in the monastery mess together.69 As Yijing says, “The image of Hāriti is found either on the porch or in the corner of the dining hall of all monasteries depicting her as holding a baby in her arms, and around her knees three or five children. Every day an abundant offering of food is made before this image,” and the priest ate with the permission of the head priest.70 Śrī Nālandā transformed into an institution of Tantrayāna Buddhism almost visible during the Pāla period, and later got engaged in its promotion and development untill the end of its life. Scholars have witnessed South Asian esoteric Buddhism as being more ritualistic than the earlier forms of Buddhism, assimilating earlier rituals and adopting new ones. Wallace mentions such Tantric rituals in two categories of trans-sectarian and trans-cultural: first, those that are pan-regional and evade the classification of belonging to one religious group, and second those that are consciously adopted by Buddhist tradition from other Indian traditions on the basis that the rituals of the outsiders have proven to be efficacious.71 The second group of trans-cultural rituals can be found in Indian esoteric Buddhism, especially in the unexcelled yoga-tantra, which encourages Buddhist Tantric performers to perform certain esoteric Hindu rituals.



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The mantras, mudrās, samādhi, dhāraṇīs, and maṇḍalas got elaborated and became dominant in the practice of rituals. In fact, among the monastic elite of Nālandā, Tantric Buddhism increasingly centered on the practice of meditative visualization of a complex cosmogram called a maṇḍala, a meditation device. The number of deities also increased in the monastery of Nālandā, attested by discovered numerous images. The Buddha and Bodhisattvas remained the same, but its Tantric incarnations emerged with the inclusion of many Brāhmaṇical deities. The incorporation of gods in Buddhist life increased more with the rise of the Kālacakrayāna tradition in the last days of Nālandā and resulted in a proliferation of Tantric practices and ritual performances. Wallace mentions that the time of the Kālacakra tradition, the relatively late eleventh century, was a precarious time of increased pressure on the survival of Buddhism through Muslims (asuras) and Brahmins (demons) and in this situation all kinds of deities were approached for protection, as being fundamental to the same nature as the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas with wrathful and violent rites.72 The followers of the Mahāyāna movement sought assistance through prayer and worship, primarily from the celestial Bodhisattvas and Buddhas, but the Tantric Buddhist approached them and all deities not merely through prayer and devotion but also through possession by them and identification with them. The monastic campus of Nālandā became full of rituals, magic, power, identification, and possession with various deities to gain empowerment and protection. Now, the monk scholars adopted many Tantric practices and ritual performances to be like God through the generation of power within the monastery and sometimes went outside in isolation to achieve the extraordinary powers. These powers, or siddhis, according to the Buddhist Tantras, have been classified as good, medium, and low, and the superhuman powers won by the practice of mantras, meditation, or samādhi have been termed as mantraja, tapaja, and samādhija, respectively.73 Tantric rituals took many forms, ranging from the intentional transgression of social taboos to complex visualization of Buddhist principles. In the context of Nālandā, esoteric Buddhist monks practiced various acts to facilitate their transcendence with their peculiar monastic and Buddhist identity. Teachers and scholars of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, such as Śāntideva, Śāntarakṣita, Dharmakīrti, Dignāga, Vasubandhu, and others, were well versed in Tantric rituals. They learned and practiced Tantric rituals in the campus and outside. Monks tried to identify with and possess the deity through prayer, devotion, and rituals towards the goal of self-empowerment. According to tradition, Vasubandhu received the empowerment of the Victorious Mother Vajrapāṇi from her, together with the oral transmission of teaching from a Tantric master, and he received

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many of their mantras and experienced their presence, opening many doors of samādhi within his mind.74 Dignāga received empowerment from a Tantric master who is thought to have been an emanation of Heruka, and by practicing this in the monastery of Nālandā and an isolated cave, he perceived a vision of Mañjuśrī and from then on he received teaching from Mañjuśrī whenever he wished.75 Similarly, Dharmakīrti received an empowerment from the Mahasiddha Dingi. He practiced meditation intensively at Nālandā and later in the forest of Magadha and was shown the countenance of Heruka.76 The lives of monastic scholars of Nālandā are full of otherworldly activities, which show their superior status. Śāntideva directly received teaching from Mañjuśrī and realized the allimportant points of Tantra. He practiced his magical and supernatural power in the campus such as reaching at high things with one hand without taking any steps, ascending into the air higher and higher, and having an invisible body but audible voice.77 The Buddhist rites, practices, and life that were developed and practiced at Nālandā Mahāvihāra continue to be carried out as trans-sectarian practices in the present day, not only within the geographical boundary of South Asia but also in Buddhist countries across Southeast, East, and Central Asia. The basic rituals of Caityavandanā, circumambulation, pabajjā, upasaṃpadā, prātimokṣa, and others are still widely practiced among all Asian Buddhists in some form. We can also trace the daily life of Nālandā monastics in the practices of monasteries across Asia. In this way, we can say that not only the earlier and later forms of Buddhism but also the life and rituals developed at Nālandā Mahāvihāra did not become invisible but continued in the traditions of Asian Buddhism. We will need another research paper to trace the continuities of Nālandā’s tradition in contemporary South Asian Buddhism and its relation to the Brāhmaṇical ritual world. Influences of Nālandā Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra remained an institution of Buddhism and learning in South Asia for almost one thousand years, from its days of origin through its growth and decline. It was one of the top learning and research institutions in religious studies in South Asia for more than five centuries. Obviously, it had some widespread impacts on contemporary and future religious, societal, and educational development in its capacity being active for a long time. It was itself an achievement for the megamonastery of Nālandā to do service to Buddhism for almost one thousand years, when we see that most of the monasteries in ancient India did not survive for almost more than five hundred years. We can classify the influences of Nālandā in three categories, which were the results of its



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unique nature, organization, and function. The first and foremost input was in the sphere of Buddhist religion and philosophy. The other benefit was related to the field of education. Nālandā also made a lasting contribution in particular to contemporary society and in general to ancient Indian society. Let us start with Nālandā’s stimuli in the field of religious education, as we do not see any similar or higher quality of scholarly institution in medieval India after its degeneration. Related to this, we will also check on the Buddha’s religion and philosophy together, which were somewhat intertwined. As a learning center after Takṣaśīlā, although with a religious orientation, Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra’s indirect contributions to early Indian education are invincible. It was the highest point of the new era of institutional instructions with the assimilation, extension, and institutionalization of the essential features of the Vedic educational system. Once the Vedic higher education faded in the land of South Asia after the decline of Takṣaśīlā, the monastic apparatus of Nālandā added a new chapter in the religious education system and even took it to a higher level. In a broader perspective, this mahāvihāra teaching organization was the fully grown form of the gurukula informative arrangement. The early Indians began their education in these Vedic schools, which ended them in the monastic learning centers. The Nālandā educational apparatus had adopted many essential features of the gurukulas learning system, such as methods of instruction, teacher and student relationship, highly moral and spiritual life, study and veneration, and so on. These activities got expanded and institutionalized in this mahāvihāra educational system. For example, compared to the gurukulas tradition of having only one lecture at a time, almost more than fifty classes were organized at the monastery of Nālandā on different topics every day in which teachers used to deliver lectures. The organization and structure of the mega-monastery of Nālandā presented a peculiar but successful example of historic amalgamation of religion and education. It is often believed that when religion gets mixed with education, it turns sour, but Śrī Nālandā proved this not to be the case. In the age of intense religious completion, the monastery of Nālandā and its monastics diffused education and Buddhism with religious fervor without any evidence of animosity and violence. In this way, Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra took South Asian learning and training to a new height through its expansion, development, and transformation for its betterment. The monastery of Śrī Nālandā envisioned and promoted an idea of institutional education with its full-fledged structure at a time when India mostly relied on unorganized tutorial learning. The organization and functions of this monastic still serve as a model for various modern learning centers. It was close to the concept of ‟education for all” through providing training and education to almost everybody except

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women. While Indian society was indulged in the varṇa and caste-based education, Nālandā promoted mass religious education. Thinking through the time of Nālandā’s age, the monastery was more democratic in both its accessibility and functions. Undoubtedly, the Mahāyāna Academy provided education to more Indians compared to the preceding and contemporary learning centers, especially religious ones. Nālandā Mahāvihāra’s service to humanity is unique insofar as almost all the alumni that it trained were living examples of not only high learning but also of high morals and spiritual development that went a long way in enriching human life. It also showed the ennobling and sweetening effect that the education imparted there had on them. The practical relevance of education in the religious, social, and academic life was promoted by the mahāvihāra. We can see the success of the monastic learning in not only Indians but also foreigners who received education and training at Nālandā in the Buddha’s religion and philosophy and became good debaters to talk on all the then known philosophers with much accuracy.78 The Chinese and the Tibetans continued and used their studies at Nālandā in their regions when they introduced similar schools and translated many books. It is important to observe that Śrī Nālandā’s way of studying, teaching, and writing promoted South Asian education to be more scientific and systematic.79 The learning and teaching at Nālandā were religious in nature, but it was not conservative and motivated by blind faith. Scholars who knew their subject and topic entirely were reflected from their composed texts that were taught in classes. Their continuous writing on the same subject generated a vast and improved knowledge for newcomers. The sufficiently developed science of logic at Nālandā readily transformed the studies thereinto being scientific and proof based. The science of logic developed to separate the genuine from the fake in the realm of existence. Entities whose existence could not be proved by the laws of logic were repudiated. The science of logic developed in the course of refuting the opponents and establishing one’s points of view, which was an essential part of the academic activities of Nālandā. The studies through the science of reason affected the interpreter’s and reader’s understanding of the world. They were based on the background of former experiences, which were reinterpreted extended knowledge. In fact, Indian theoretical/rational debate has also been the object of epistemological and analytic investigation, an investigation whose presuppositions and tools are completely different from those of hermeneutics.80 Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra had rendered valuable services to the development of South Asian logic in general and Buddhist logic in particular through the practice and study of the form of correct arguments and inference patterns. It was the need of Nālandā Mahāvihāra’s academic life to develop and then use and expand the science of logic. Let us see



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how the science of logic evolved and flourished at Nālandā and how the monk-scholars of Nālandā nourished it. Every system of logic is primarily concerned with proving its points of view regarding ontology and epistemology, the two main divisions of metaphysics. Ontology deals with the nature and number of ultimate reality and epistemology deals with the source and validity of knowledge. The discipline of logic developed from the tradition of vādavidyā, a discipline dealing with the categories of debate over various religious, philosophical, moral, and doctrinal issues. Buddhism had badly needed the science of logic for establishing and popularizing its emerging order theoretically and analyzing its good values in comparison to other religious and philosophical systems. After the death of the Buddha, when the mahāvihāras transformed into learning centers, these monasteries started the systematic discovery of truth in the Buddha’s preaching. Logic as a means of exploring the truth was not held in high esteem, but the monks of Nālandā started practicing it in the frequent debates with opponents with self-legitimation through various means. Of the two categories of philosophers—one who realized the truth by achieving what is called the concentration of mind and developing prajñā and the other who struggled to know the truth by argument or logic—the Buddha belonged to the former. He had realized the truth and as such his authority was so commanding that whatever he said or preached it was accepted without testing it on the touchstone of logic. The Buddha, as a matter of fact, never asked anybody to believe what he said blindly. In fact, he wanted everybody to follow the path he had trodden, but people did accept what he said for quite some time. It is indeed difficult to pass on to others one’s experiences, and it is more so when those experiences are related to the highest truth. The inadequacy of language to describe the fact is apparent. The Buddha, therefore, while preaching to others adopted a method that consisted of comparison, symbols, tales, and an occasional trace of induction by a mere enumeration of cases, but there were some questions that he thought could never be proved by logic, which he called indeterminate. With the passage of time, as also with the realization of the fact that a genuine nature of things is difficult to understand, people thought it their duty to prove the doctrine of the Buddha logically at the level of intellect. Not only the proponents but also the opponents needed intellectual basis to understand, refute, and prove the different theories regarding the nature of reality. The desire and the necessity to test the validity of a theory at an intellectual level compelled them to be definite, clear, and precise and this led them to develop what is called the science of logic. Besides this, there were other systems of logic, which constantly kept on making intellectual onslaughts on the Buddhists and compelled them to create intelligent weapons and sharpen them.81

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These factors led to the origin and growth of Buddhist logic in which Nālandā Mahāvihāra played a vital role. Buddhist logic has not come out of anything like a sky flower nor has it developed in isolation. A variety of philosophic opinions seem to have existed during the formation of the different phases of Buddhist philosophy. According to Stcherbatsky,82 seven philosophic systems have exercised a somewhat obvious influence upon the phases of Buddhist philosophy. The first of them were the Materialists, conveniently called Cāṛvakas, who denied the existence of any spiritual substance. They did not believe in the theory of karma. The second system of philosophy was Jainism, in which the Buddhists found a developed theory of moral defilement and purification, just as in the Śāṁkhya system of philosophy, where the last elements are called qualities, and so in the early Buddhist philosophy qualities are substantives. Buddhist philosophy has much in common with the Yoga system of philosophy in that both believe in practicing meditation to realize the truth. Vedanta and Buddhism at different times of their parallel development showed mutual influences, which mutually attracted and then repelled. The Buddhists believe that Nirvāṇa can be attained by walking the eightfold path, not by performing the kind of sacrifice enjoined by the Mīmāṁṣākas. The Buddhists had developed logic before Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, but their interest in it was not formal as was the attitude of the latter. The Buddhist monk-scholars based in the monastery of Nālandā took the science of reasoning mentioned in the Brāhmaṇical sūtra texts especially Nyāya, the foundation of all Indian logical thought, to a new height. The logicians of Śrī Nālandā whose inputs went a long way in shaping Buddhist logic were many in number—the most renowned of them were Vasubandhu, Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Śāntarakṣita, and Kamalaśīla. Besides these, there was one more well-known name, Nāgārjuna, who was more a philosopher than a logician. The life of Nāgārjuna is shrouded in mystery. His Mādhyāmika Kārika propounds the philosophy of Śūnyavāda (i.e., Svābhāvaśūnyata) and asserts what is called the theory of relativity. But he also composed some works and showed how to carry on the art of debate. His Vigraha Vyavartini (restored in Sanskrit in part from the Tibetan translation) is the exposition and the vindication of that unique method of conducting a debate, which consists in proving nothing positive but in applying the test of relativity to every positive thesis of the opponent and thus destroying it dialectically.83 Much progress in logic could not be made during the centuries that followed Nāgārjuna because he condemned all logic for the cognition of the absolute. We find from the records that the brothers Asaṅga and Vasubandhu took up the study of Nyāya logic in all seriousness and adapted it to their philosophy, which had idealistic foundations. Xuanzang mentions that Asaṅga84 (450 A.D.), a native of Gandhāra, lived at Ajodhya, and before coming to Nālandā



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had followed the Hīnayāna. The elder brother of Vasubandhu and ācārya of Nālandā established a set of rules on the art of debate, which was not substantially different from the rules prescribed in the Nyāya School. In his Yogācārabhūmi, he has described in detail the Hetuvidyā. Asaṅga according to Stcherbatsky was probably the first Buddhist logician who seems to have made good use of the five-member syllogism of the Nyāya. The five members of a syllogism are: 1.  Proposition: The Mountain has fire. 2.  Justification: Because it has smoke. 3.  Example: As in the kitchen, wherever there is smoke, there is also fire. 4.  Application: The Mountain has smoke. 5.  Conclusion: The Mountain has fire.85 Asaṅga’s younger brother, and the second Buddha Vasubandhu86 (about 410 to 490 A.D.) had authorized three logical treatises, namely Vādavidhi, Vādavidhāna, and Vāda-hṛdaya. The meaning of the title Vādavidhi is the “art of disputation.” His other treatise on logic called Vādavidhāna contains his corrected formulations. From this, it appears that Vasubandhu makes use of the five-membered syllogism, and established a formal rule of syllogism based on examples. It is in Vasubandhu that we find the Buddhist method of formulating what is called the invariable concomitance.87 Apart from this, the contribution of Vasubandhu to the science of logic is great as much as the way in which he classifies reasons and fallacies as that forms the seeds, which are developed by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. When Vasubandhu was at Nālandā Mahāvihāra, it became a big center of Buddhist logic, and Dignāga (c. 400–480) came all the way from the south to receive higher training in Buddhist logic under Vasubandhu. We can say that the Buddhist contribution to the development of logic in South Asia began with Dignāga as he represented the most creative age of Buddhist logic. Dignāga developed the abridged though equally efficient three-membered syllogism (trairūpya) consistent of justification, examples, and proposition (i.e., of the second, third, and first stages of the classical five-stage syllogism, application and conclusion being dropped): 1.  Proposition: There is a fire on the mountain. 2.  Reason: Because there is smoke on the mountain. 3.  Example: as in the kitchen, where there is fire, not as in the lake, where there is no fire.88 Later, Dignāga elaborated the trairūpya in a table called the wheel of reasons (hetu-cakra), the first Indian attempt to a ‟formal logic.”89 90 He was

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the first to make the distinction between Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist syllogism by his attempt to construct his own syllogistic. He was a powerful logician and laid the underpinning of a new school, which went by the name of Pramāṇa , since it put the study of the means of knowledge (Pramāṇa) in the first place, instead of taking up sūtra and Abhidhamma as the foundation of Buddhist philosophy. The logic of Dignāga was carried to China by the famous traveler Xuanzang, who learned it over the course of his stay at Nālandā. One of Dignāga’s two early works is Abhidharmakośamarmapradipa, which summarizes Vasubandhu’s magnum opus Abhidharmakośa. The second work contains in summary form all the topics discussed in the Aṣṭa-Śahaṣṭṛka-Pāramitā-Sūtra and is written in verse. Besides these two works, all his works are devoted to logic, which are Hasta-Vāla-Parākraṇa (Trunk and Tail of Treaties), Alambana Parīkṣā (Critique of the Object), Sāmānya Parīkṣā (Critique of the Universal), Hetucakradamaru (Drum of the Wheel of Middle Term), Nyāyamukha (Introduction to logic) and Pramāṇa Samuccaya (Compendium of the Theory of Knowledge).91 The last is his major work, which brought his theory of logic in the broader context of his view on epistemology or in the context of Pramāṇa theory, an instrumental cause for generating knowledge. Dignāga developed and systematized a theory of inference, as well as a theory of the concept of logical reason or adequate inferential sign, which became most influential among the logicians of all colors—Buddha, Hindu, Jain—and was at the center of discussion and criticism in all the writings on logical theories for several centuries to come.92 He holds that perception is knowledge without imagining (Kalpanābodh). In his view, there are only two means of knowledge i.e. perception and inference.93 The supposed authority of the sacred scripture or the master himself is nothing except these two. Relative significance (anyāpoha) of words propounded by Dignāga is the meaning in a nutshell. It can express meaning only by excluding the other contradictory sense and not referring directly to objects. For instance, the word ‟white” does not convey the knowledge of all white objects as these are infinite in number and so cannot be grasped. The name simply draws a demarcation between white and nonwhite by excluding the non-white. Words in this way convey knowledge of negation. Knowledge obtained from words is of the same kind as of inference. He argues that the apprehension of the knowledge and the object is simultaneous. The color blue and the idea of blue are apprehended together. Hence there is non-difference (abheda) between them. It is the law of simultaneous apprehension (Sahopalambha).94 The other logician of such repute who came to Nālandā to study was Dharmakīrti (seventh century), a Brāhmaṇa from South India. His period was a negative one for Buddhism because the process of decay had set in and the able pens of Kumārila and Sankarācārya almost gave a deathblow



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to Buddhism.95 Dharmakīrti dominated the Pramāṇa School and took it to maximum height through improvements in earlier works. He was more than a commentator; he was an original thinker and a brilliant logician. He has seven logical works96 to his credit, which formed the textbooks for the study of logic by the Buddhists in Tibet. His Prmāṇavārttika, which is an explanation and supplement of the Pramāṇasamuccaya of Dignāga, is considered as a kind of canon on which all study should be based. Here, he makes an addition to Dignāga’s doctrines on inference by saying inferences can be of three kinds based either on nature or reason (Svabhāva) or related to the effect of reason (tad-utpatti) or else on non-perception of some property of a reason (anupalabdhi).97 Dignāga divided inference in two categories; the first is inference for one’s own sake (svārtha), which covers all the general problems epistemological, logical, and psychological connected with the process of inference, and the second is inference for the sake of others (parārtha), which involves the demonstration of language in the process of inference, so that others may be persuaded to accept the conclusions.98 Dignāga classification was customary for both the Buddhists and the non-Buddhists but Dharmakīrti classification seems to be more useful. Dharmakīrti extended his master of the trairūpya by means of eva (only), which can be applied to either subject or predicate, which radically changed the exemplification from a mere exhibition of examples to a universal premise, marking Indian thought as having attained the level of formal logic.99 His works sparked a significant amount of commentary literature. Philological, philosophical, and religious comments have been made on them. Śāntarakṣita and later Kamalaśīla rejected universal connections/laws as a basis for syllogism. Śāntarakṣita (eighth century), though a Mādhyāmika, adopted the new epistemology from Dharmakīrti. He refused to accept the idealist explanation of the nature of reality and followed Dharmakīrti’s doctrine that perception relates to the nature of reality. His Taṭvasaṁgraha is a kind of critical encyclopedia of philosophy. It is a series of twenty-six critiques of reality, first causes, categories, and so forth, as conceived by diverse schools of philosophy. He went to Tibet and founded a permanent school there for imparting training to Tibetan disciples. We’ve so far made a brief attempt to see the influences of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra on South Asian dialectics from its origin to its growth. Many works of its scholars testify to the tremendous contribution of the monastery of Nālandā in institutionalization of hetuvidyā within monastic curriculum as a discipline against the canonical prohibitions and the promotion and development of the science of logic independently for the outside world. In fact, the logicians of Nālandā were actively involved in the development of formal logic in India, a different variety to their Western counterparts. We can see the highly developed systematic philosophic logic in India at this time. We can see the impact of Buddhist logic on

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Brāhmaṇical logic and their influence on each other. Not only the proponents but also the opponents needed intellectual basis to understand, refute, and prove their different theories regarding the nature of reality. Even when the sway of Buddhism became weak, its influence could be seen in the fact that the schools were accusing one another of having yielded to Buddhist influences. The Vedantists accused the Vaiśeṣikas of being Buddhists in disguise; in turn, the Vaiśeṣika accused the Vedantists of denying the ultimate reality of the external world like the Buddhists. The numerous scholastic works of Buddhist religion and philosophy that Nālandā produced in the form of dialectical treatises, some of which still exist in translation, are a valuable asset to contemporary studies in Buddhism. In other words, these manuscripts tell the story of gradual and step-by-step development of the Buddha’s religion and the maturalization of Buddhist philosophy. The different epistemological schools of Buddhism— mainly Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, and Tantrayāna—budded and bloomed together in the same campus of Nālandā and rose as a distinct Buddhist school with their practices. We can generalize up to an extent that all Buddhist schools beginning from the simple teachings of the Buddha to the complex Kālacakrayāna had been influenced by the monastery of Nālandā directly or indirectly, more or less not only in terms of their philosophy but also practices. The rise and growth of several philosophical ideas and their later branches associated with different Buddhist schools also happened at Śrī Nālandā (these included Mādhyāmika, MādhyāmikaPrāsangika, Mādhyāmika-Sautrāntika, Yogācāra-Mādhyāmika, ĀryaMūla-Sarvāstivāda, Vijñānavāda, and others). Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra was a prestigious institution of Buddhist studies in pre-modern South Asia. The mahāvihāra was the highest authority on the studies, research, and controversies of Mahāyāna Buddhism and later of Tantric Buddhism. Śrī Nālandā can be included among the type of learning seats, which developed new ideas of Buddhism through the deep re-exploration of religious scriptures, and from here this knowledge got diffused not only in India but also in all of Asia. In this way, the real place where Nālandā helped was related to the Buddhist religion and philosophy, for which Buddhism would always be indebted to Nālandā. We have already discussed in detail Nālandā’s support to both the field of generation and development of Buddhist knowledge, and faith and propagation of Buddhism in India and outside, in chapters 4 and 5. Nālandā Mahāvihāra’s endowment to Buddhism as a whole was unique and unlimited in nature. Buddhism was deeply rooted in Nālandā from the very beginning. It was the center where the Buddhist religion and philosophy evolved, matured, refined, and regenerated to the outside of its campus by its monk scholars. This continuous process led Buddhism to the apogee of its growth. On the negative side, Nālandā was also



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the seat where new thoughts and philosophies got mutated, which led Buddhism to its degeneration in India. The divisive ideas also emerged here through specializations in different supplementary activities, which ultimately pushed Buddhism forward to deterioration. We know that in the last phase of Nālandā, Tantric Mahāyāna Buddhism, which was full of magic, esoterics, image worship, and rituals, gained popularity in the campus life. This sect and its religious activities played a decisive role in the degeneration of Buddhism in India with other factors. This is also evidenced by the fact that it was about the same period of the decline of Nālandā and Buddhism. Regarding the maturation of Buddhist ideas, we can say that Śrī Nālandā was the highest and largest organization of South Asia for the advanced study, research, and teaching of Buddhism. Apparently, Nālandā contributed a lot to Buddhism—those gifts can be seen in two ways.100 First of all, it was an educational cum monastic institution where monks and students in large number got admitted for going through the ideas of Buddhism. In this way, its scholars had donated little or more in the codification, refinement, and maturation of the Buddha’s vacanas through rigorous study, research, and modification. Buddhism as a fullfledged religion, and later its different forms not only developed but also got their philosophy at Nālandā. For example, the works of Asaṅga—like the Saptadaśa-bhūmi-sūtra, the Mahāyāna-sūtra-upadeśas and the Mahāyānasamparihraha-śāstra and Vasubandhu’s work the Abhidharmakośa, the Vijñāna-mātra-siddhi, the Mahāyāna-samparigraha-vyākhyā, the Nature of the Ratna-Traya and Gate to the Nectar—are immortal contributions to Mahāyāna Buddhism.101 Nālandā was also the place where Buddhism was not only taught but also practiced with its full spirituality, morality, and rituality. The practical aspects of Buddhism and its later sects (i.e., rituals and practices), also developed at Nālandā, as it was also the hub of rituals. The archeological findings of many stone, copper, and bronze images at Nālandā also prove the importance of worship and rituals. So, the effects and side effects of the particular practices and thoughts got examined at Nālandā. Nālandā’s contribution in the field of Buddhist philosophy and canonical literature through its extensive translation and writings is incredible. As we know now, besides delivering lectures, writing and translations were necessary and sacred academic activities. This resulted in the creation of commentaries, re-commentaries, sub-commentaries, and auto-commentaries on the primary Buddhist literature such as Tripiṭaka and other manuscripts. This is also evidenced by the literary fact that there were three libraries at Nālandā with thousands of books written by its monk scholars only. Also, Xuanzang translated some texts into Chinese and wrote commentaries on difficult philosophical texts, which are still an intellectual treat to researchers.102 Nālandā also contributed a

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lot to Tantric Buddhism. During the reign of the Pāla kings, Nālandā became the center for Tantric activities. Siddhās like Naropā and others were gems of Nālandā at this time. The Nālandā Copper Plate of Devapāla refers to Nālandā as the abode of Bhikkhus and bodhisattvas who were well versed in Tantra. A vast Tantra literature was also composed at Nālandā such as Mahājalatantra, Samājatantra, Mahāsamayantantra, Taṭvasaṁgraha, Bhutadāmaratantra, Vajrāmrtatantra, and Cakrasamvaratantra.103 We can say beyond any doubt that Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra did a remarkable job in the popularity and expansion of Buddhism within India. It is hard to recall particularly the intensity and share of this mega-monastery in comparison with other monasteries in the enlargement of Buddhism in the various parts of India. We can say for sure that Nālandian monks were more devoted to such sacred acts as they went up to the northeastern and the southern parts of India to preach and propagate Buddhism. Nālandā seems more responsible to cover the entire central India with the shadow of Buddhism due to its prime location and work zone. Magadha and its neighborhood witnessed the flood of monks’ activities related to nonviolent conversion. For example, Śāntideva alone made five hundred adherents to the Pāṣaṇḍaka teaching and made a thousand beggars residing in the country of Magadha to adopt Buddhism.104 Śrī Nālandā’s role in the exposition of Buddhism in different South Asian countries will always be recalled. Buddhism disappeared from its birth land, but it spread outside of India and is still alive. Almost complete credit for this sacred work goes to the monastery of Nālandā, and particularly to its scholars. The expansion of Buddhism to as yet unreached lands was the primary objective of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. As we have discussed previously, many abbots of Nālandā Mahāvihāras went outside of India to such countries as Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Central Asia, Java, Sumatra, and others and successfully propagated Buddhism there. The upājjhāyas named Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla, Atīśa Dīpāṁkara, and Paḍmasaṃbhava105 were the first amongst many to visit Tibet, where they learned the Tibetan language and translated Buddhist and Sanskrit works into Tibetan and consequently transformed the inhabitants into Buddhists.106 Last but not the least, let’s now examine in brief the influences of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra on the neighborhood, which seems possible up to an extent being situated in the broader society of Magadha. It is understood that the scholars of the ancient Mahāvihāra of Śrī Nālandā laid emphasis on the higher and abstruse learning of Buddhism that was kept strictly confined within the four walls of the monastery. The monastic education completely dissociated itself from the general cultural stream. It does not seem true, as we have already discussed in detail Nālandā’s deep relationship with its neighborhood in chapter 6. The excavated archaeological materials such as images, seals, and inscriptions from the vi-



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cinity of Nālandā and available literary sources also attest to this. In other words, we can say it reflected mutual interactions between Buddhism and Brāhmaṇism in the locality in particular and on the Indian subcontinent in general. It was a reciprocal and supplementary relationship in two ways, where the monastery took materials and supporters from the society and in turn gave back a new religion and religious and peaceful life. There can be no doubt that the Buddha’s dynamic personality and his powerful message produced a powerful effect on many aspects of contemporary society, as it was his prime work zone. The canonical writings almost all supposedly from the Buddha’s discourse and dialogues were addressed in everyday language to the whole of contemporary society.107 It defused the breath of new life in the society. The Buddha may not have thought of himself as the founder of a new religion; probably he looked upon himself as a reformer. Even long after the Buddha and his pupils were dead, Buddhist doctrine continued to grow in Nālandā nevertheless, because it was eminently fitted to the needs of a rapidly growing society. Indirectly, it can be proved by the fact that a large number of big monasteries existed in the society of northern India in general and in particular in Magadha. Buddhism had started at a time of social and spiritual revival and reform in ancient Magadha, which increased the degree of its effect on the society. The cult of sacrifice was advocated by the Vedic Brāhmaṇas for a happy life in this world as also in the next, and could not secure for the performer the objects for which the sacrifices were performed.108 The four Varṇa systems of social grades developed into a rigid and hereditary caste system.109 Women were regarded as household goods and held a negligible position in the society. In this situation, Buddhism emerged as the most social religion within monasteries like Nālandā, because the application of its various steps was carefully developed and expounded in a long series of discourses that were ascribed to the Buddha. The monk’s life is formulated according to the needs of society after many discussions. Many times, changes came in their garment, itinerants, and behaviors, which did not fit the needs of contemporary society.110 There were regulations specially meant for the monk, as they are the representatives of Buddhism, which were not binding upon the lay followers. The monks served as a role model of Buddhism, which life was supposed to be followed by the citizens. Buddhism gave an easy and popular path of salvation to its laity and more importantly a non-violent needed life through its monks. The effect of the monastery of Nālandā on the social structure appears to have been one that was entirely opposed to its whole outlook. It was about caste, which it did not approve of though more importantly was attached to capacity, character, and occupation than to birth. The Buddha did not attack caste directly, yet in his order, he did not recognize it. There is no doubt that his whole attitude and activity weakened

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the caste system.111 The Mahāvihāra of Nālandā envisaged a society of equality by birth, condemned the caste system in its works, and attracted all castes inside the campus. The Brahmin Sāriputta and Moggallāna were the leading disciples during the Buddha’s lifetime: the Buddha himself initiated Upāli, a lowly barber, a scavenger, a dog eater, and many more members of the lowest castes, who became highly respected monks in the history of monasticism. It was a selfless band of social workers by which was developed the method of protection created by the “order of Saṁgha” consisting of monks based on equality as presented by Nālandā Monastery.112 These were also centers of material development, as Buddhism taught the control of lust of individual acquisition of property. Most important of all, the Buddha and some of his early disciples ventured to propound new duties for the absolute monarch.113 They knew very well that the root of social evil was poverty and unemployment, so the king should supply seed and food to those who lived by farming and trading. Many of the big rituals and ceremonials associated with Brāhmaṇical religion disappeared, particularly animal sacrifice within the campus, and a disciplined and straightforward life full of veneration and studies were promoted. Buddhist scriptures work out the duties of caste, wealth, and profession with no attention whatsoever to ritual. There was a separate order of Buddhist nuns within the organization. Although we don’t have any reference of this in Nālandā, surely the condition of women also improved in ancient Magadha. The Buddha gave the Dhamma to both men and females; he also gave talks to the householders and their wives. The women set excellent examples in conduct and intelligence, while the men for their part appreciated the Buddha’s teaching in the widening of the field of women’s activities. Thus, the tide turned, with the position of women becoming not only bearable but also honorable. Women came to enjoy equality and greater respect and authority.114 Under Buddhism, more than ever before, a woman was an individual in command of her life. As a spinster, wife, or widow, she had rights and duties—not limited to childbearing—and became an integral part of society and religion.115 It is interesting to note the process of interaction between Buddhism and Brāhmaṇism. They acted and reacted to each other in spite of their dialectical conflicts or, because of them, approached nearer of philosophy and that of popular belief.116 This process is evident in ancient Magadha, from the Buddhist images found that were like Brāhmaṇical deities, and the philosophical developments at the monastery of Nālandā. The Mahāyāna especially approached the Brāhmaṇical systems and forms, which reflected upon the Brahmins who later joined Buddhism. It was prepared to compromise with almost anything, so long as its ethical background remained Brāhmaṇism—it made the Buddha an avatar of god Viṣṇu, and



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so did Buddhism. In the eighth century, one of the greatest Indian philosophers, Sankarācārya, started religious orders for Hindu monks. It was an adoption of the old Buddhist practice of Saṁgha. During this time, both Brāhmaṇism and Buddhism deteriorated, and degrading practice grew up in them. It became difficult to distinguish the two. If Brāhmaṇism observed Buddhism, this process also changed Brāhmaṇism in many ways.117 NOTES  1. See Jonathan A. Silk, Managing Monks: Administrators and Administrative Roles in Indian Buddhist Monasticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), chapter 2.   2.  See chapters 2, 4, and 5.   3.  S. Beal, trans., The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by Hwui Li, 2 vols., first edition (London: Trench Trübner Com., 1888), 101.   4.  Ann Heirman, “Indian Disciplinary Rules and Their Early Chinese Adepts: A Buddhist Reality,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 128 (2008): 257–72.   5.  Talal Asad, “On Ritual and Discipline in Medieval Christian Monasticism,” Economy and Society 16 (1987): 159–204.  6. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 95.  7. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 96–100.   8.  C. S. Upasak, Nalanda: Past and Present (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 1977), 15.  9. Beal, Life, vol. 1, 145. 10.  Losang Norbu Tsonawa, trans., Indian Buddhist Pandits from “the Jewel Garland of Buddhist History” (New Delhi: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1985), 19. 11.  T. Watters, trans., On Yuan-Chwang’s Travels in India (A.D. 629–695) 2 vols., second edition (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1961), vol. 1, 302–03; Takakusu, I-Tsing, 152. 12. Melford E. Spiro, Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and Its Burmese Vicissitudes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 306. 13.  Ann Heirman and Mathieu Torck, eds., A Pure Mind in a Clean Body: Bodily Care in the Buddhist Monasteries of Ancient India and China (Gent: Academia Press, 2012), 111. 14.  Heirman and Torck, Pure Mind in Clean Body, 114. 15.  For detail see chapter 2. 16.  For details of the monks’ style of using toilet presented by Yijing based on Mūlasravāstivādavinaya see Heirman and Torck, Pure Mind in Clean Body, 79–82. 17. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 108–109; this is true even today in many religious institutions. 18.  Heirman and Torck, Pure Mind in Clean Body, 46. 19.  Heirman and Torck, Pure Mind in Clean Body, 41. 20. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 155. 21. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 123.

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22. Watters, Yuan-Chwang, vol. 2, 173. 23.  See chapter 2. 24.  Lars Fogelin, An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 213–14. 25.  L. Rongxi, Buddhist Monastic Traditions of Southern Asia: A Record from the Inner Law Sent Home from the South Seas by Sramana Yijing (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2000), 135. 26. Brij Narain Sharma, Social Life in Northern India (A.D. 600–1000) (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1966), 265. 27. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 19–23. 28. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 40. 29. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 42. 30. Rongxi, Buddhist Monastic Traditions, 135–37. 31  Pintu Kumar, “Cultural Life at Nālandā University,” The Icfai University Journal of History and Culture 4 (2010): 105. 32.  For details see Ann Hierman and Tom De Rauw, “Offenders, Sinners and Criminals: The Consumption of Forbidden Food,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hung 59 (2006): 57–83. 33.  Xuanzang refers to a kind of rice with the large grain of extraordinary savor and fragrance called the rice of grandees; Watters, Yuan-Chwang, vol. 2, 86; Takakusu, I-Tsing, 43–44; Rekha Daswani, Buddhist Monasteries and Monastic Life in Ancient India: From the Third Century BC to the Seventh Century AD (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2006), 113–14. 34. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 35–39. 35. Watters, Yuan-Chwang, vol. 1, 149. 36.  Thomas Borchert, “Monastic Labor: Thinking about the Works of Monks in Contemporary Theravāda Communities,” Journal of American Academy of Religion 79 (2011), 179. 37.  S. J. Tambiah, Buddhism and Spirit Cults in Northeast Thailand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Spiro, Buddhism and Society; Ruth-Inge Heinze, The Role of the Sangha in Modern Thailand (China: Chinese Association for Folklore, 1977); H. L. Seneviratne, The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); Monica Lindberg Falk, Making Fields of Merit: Buddhist Female Ascetics and Gendered Order in Thailand (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007); Justin McDaniel, Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words: Histories of Buddhist Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008); Borchert, “Monastic Labor,” 162–92. 38.  Cullavagga, I.13.2. 39.  R. K. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education: Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist, second edition (London: Macmillan, 1951), 448. 40.  J. A. Page, Nālandā. Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1923–24 (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1926), 74. 41.  H. D. Sankalia, The University of Nālandā, Indian Historical Institute Series (Delhi: Oriental, 1972), 154. 42.  See chapter 6; the most dominant feature of esoteric Buddhism is its ritualized practice, beginning with preliminary rites of protection, empowerment, initiation, and generation of oneself and one’s environment into divine forms, and



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ending with yogic practices; Vesna A. Wallace, “A Generation of Power through Ritual Protection and Transformation of Identity in Indian Tantric Buddhism,” Journal of Ritual Studies 19 (2005): 115–28. 43.  Bali Ram Singh, “The Tantric Mahāyāna,” in Nalanda and Buddhism, edited by R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2002), 169–72. 44.  Jane Bunnag, Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 66–67. 45.  Bell says that ritualization is nothing other than the production of ritualized agents; Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 221; Kevin Trainor, Relics, Rituals, and Representation in Buddhism: Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 140; and Roy Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Richmond: North Atlantic Books, 1979), 200. 46. Wallace, ‟Generation of Power,” 121–22. 47.  Veidlinger has discovered the impact of the Mahāyāna tradition of writing, scribing, and worshiping the manuscripts on the Theravāda Buddhist culture of Sri Lanka, Burma, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand; Daniel Veidlinger, “When a Word Is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Mahāyāna Influence on Theravāda Attitudes towards Writing,” Numen 53 (2006): 405–47. 48.  Gregory Schopen, “The Five Leaves of the Buddhabalādhānaprātihāryavi kurvāṇirdeśa Sūtra Found at Gilgit,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 5 (1978): 319–36. 49.  Jacob Kinnard, Seeing and Knowing in the Art of Indian Buddhism (Richmond: Curzon, 1999), 138–42. 50.  Gregory Schopen, “The Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs in Indian Inscriptions,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens und Archiv für Indische Philosophie 29 (1985): 119–49. 51. Kinnard, Seeing and Knowing, 152. 52.  Joseph Walser, Nāgārjuna in Context: Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 125. 53.  For details of these findings, see Kinnard, Seeing and Knowing, 150–58. 54. Watters, Yuan-Chwang, vol. 1, 173. 55. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 22 and 70. 56.  See chapter 2. 57.  For growth and functions of these two rituals in Buddhism see Singh, Buddhist Monastic Education, 55–89. 58. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 96–97. 59. Daswani, Buddhist Monastery and Monastic Life, 97. 60. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 101. 61.  G. C. Pande, Budddha Dharma ke Vikāsa ka Itihāsa (Lucknow: Hindi Samiti, 1976), 144. 62.  G. S. P. Misra, The Age of Vinaya (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1972), 119; Gokuldas De, Democracy in Early Buddhist Saṁgha (Calcutta: Calcutta University, 1955), 59; S. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India: Their History and Their Contributions to Indian Culture (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962), 73; Daswani, Buddhist Monastery and Monastic Life, 106. 63. Watters, Yuan-Chwang, vol. 1, 302; J. Legge, trans. A Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-hien of his Travels in India and

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Ceylon (A.D. 399–414) in Search of the Buddhist Book of Discipline, second edition (Delhi: Oriental Publishers, 1972), 44–46. 64. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 188; the four fasting days were in the dark half of the moon, the eighth and fourteenth or the tenth and fifteenth and in the bright half of the moon, the eighth and fifteenth. 65. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 36–40. 66.  John C. Holt, Discipline: The Canonical Buddhism of the Vinaya Piṭaka (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981), 131–32. 67.  I. B. Horner, trans., Book of Discipline, vol. 4 (London: Luzac, 1951), xvii. 68.  It was an ancient custom; Takakusu, I-Tsing, 85. 69.  K. L. Hazara, Buddhism in India as Described by the Chinese Pilgrims A.D. 399–689 (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1983), 63–64. 70. Takakusu, I-Tsing, 37–38. 71.  Wallace, “Generation of Power,” 116. 72.  Vesna A. Wallace, The Inner Kālacakratantra: A Buddhist View of the Individual (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 42. 73. D. N. Bose and Hiralal Haldar, eds., Tantras: Their Philosophy and Occult Secrets (Calcutta: Firma KLM Private Ltd, 1981), 209. 74. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 35. 75. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 40 76. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 47–49 77. Tsonawa, Indian Buddhist Pandits, 61–62 78. Sankalia, University of Nālandā, 226. 79.  Kumar, “Cultural Life,” 108. 80.  Bruno Lo Turco, “Evaluation or Dialogue? A Brief Reflection on the Understanding of the Indian Tradition of Debate,” in Cultural, Historical and Textual Studies of South Asian Religions: Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia, edited by Squarcini Federico (London: Anthem Press, 2011), 592. 81.  Kumar, “Cultural Life,” 111. 82.  F. Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, vol. 1 (New Delhi: Oriental Publication, 1984), 2–22. 83. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, vol. 1, 28. 84. Beal, Si-Yu-Ki, vol. 2, 98–100. 85. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, vol. 1, 26. 86. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, vol. 1, 32. 87. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, vol. 1, 343–49. 88. I. M. Bochenski, “Indian Variety of Logic,” in Indian Logic: A Reader, ed. Jonardon Ganeri (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001), 136–37. 89.  As per understanding of I. M. Bochenski, we can say that a formal logic concerns the fundamental question of logic, the question of ‟what follows from what,” a universally valid formulae. In India too a formal logic developed, and so far is known, without the influence of Greek logic; Bochenski, “Indian Variety of Logic,” 149. 90.  Bochenski, “Indian Variety of Logic,” 138. 91.  Mauli Chand Prasad, “Contribution of Nālandā to Buddhist Thought and Culture,” in Heritage of Nālandā and its Continuity, ed. R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2000), 86.



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  92.  Jonardon Ganeri and Heeraman Tiwari, eds., The Character of Logic in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 88.   93.  A. B. Keith, The Origin and Development of Buddhist Philosophy and Religion in India and Ceylon (Delhi: Universal Voice, 2007), 305–307.  94. Prasad, “Contribution of Nālandā,” 87–88.   95.  Chimpa and Chattopadhyaya, Tāranātha, 38.  96. Pramāna-Vārttika (Explanation and supplement of Pramāna Samuccaya), Pramāna Viniscaya (Assertation of the means of Knowledge), Nyāyabindu (Point of Logic), Hetuvindu (Manual of the Middle Term), Sambandhapariksā (Critique of Relations), Vādanyāya (Method of Debate), Santāntra Siddhi (Proof of other series of Consciousness); see Prasad, “Contribution of Nālandā,” 89.  97. Keith, Origin and Development of Buddhist Philosophy, 311–313.   98.  Ganeri and Tiwari, Character of Logic, 108.   99.  Bochenski, “Indian Variety of Logic,” 134–39. 100.  Kumar, “Cultural Life,” 109. 101.  J. Takakusu, “Paramartha’s Life of Vasu-Bandhu,” 33–53. 102. Beal, Si-Yu-Ki, vol. 2, 111–19. 103.  Prasad, “Contribution of Nālandā,” 84. 104. Obermiller, Buddhism by Bu-ston, 164. 105.  Paḍmasaṃbhava, a teacher of the Tantric school, was also a leading personality in the second propagation of the Buddhist doctrines in Bhutan. See A. Q. Ansari, “Padmasambhava: A Missionary of Nālandā.” in Heritage of Nālandā and its Continuity, edited by R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2000),109–15. 106.  Ven. Rastrapal Mahathera, “Nālandā: Its Historical Background,” in Heritage of Nālandā and its Continuity, edited by R. Panth (Nalanda: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, 2000), 78. 107.  H. H. Wilson, Buddha and Buddhism (Delhi: Nag Publication, 1979), 45. 108.  D. D. Kosambi, The Culture and Civilizations of Ancient India in Historical Outline (Delhi: Vikas Publication, 1970), 96–110. 109. A. C. Banerjee, Buddhism in India and Abroad (Calcutta: World Press, 1973), 47. 110.  Christmas Humphreys, The Buddhist Way of Life (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), 25–30. 111.  Jawaharlal Nehru, Discovery of India (Calcutta: Signet Press, 1946), 120. 112. Dutt, Buddhist Monk and Monasteries, 102. 113. D. D. Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1975), 232. 114.  Roy Kumkum Roy, Women in Early Indian Society (New Delhi: Manohar, 1999), 84. 115.  Sayadaw U. Thittila, Essential Themes of Buddhist Lectures (Penang: Buddha Dharma Education Association, 1997), 356. 116.  P. V. Bapat, ed. 2500 Years of Buddhism (Delhi: The Publication Division Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1959), 227. 117.  Kumar, “Cultural Life,” 117.

C onclusion

We have gone through the history of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra and Buddhist monastic education in the preceding chapters. We started with the long description of origin, growth, and decay of the monastery of Nālandā with favorable factors. We also went through the details of how a vihāra, or a resting place for Buddhist monks, turned into a mahāvihāra and later into a learning establishment. Then we painted an archaeological and literary picture of Śrī Nalendra, which was crucial for our discussion. The general view of early Indian education and the location of Nālandā within it would have been incomplete without the discussion of and connection with the prior and concurrent form of learning in gurukulas, or Vedic schools. Then we moved to the particular study of Śrī Nālandā as an educational institution of Buddhists by discussing curriculum, students, and teachers. Then we took serious note of the organization of the monastery to justify it as an institution but of religious nature, and we went through the structure, religion, administrative bodies, management, and relationship with the neighborhood. Finally, we have gone through the daily life and rituals of the residents of Nālandā with its social, religious, and academic influences in South Asia in general and India in particular. Now in this concluding chapter, we will summarize the whole argument that developed from the beginning. In this way, we will also come across the real nature of Nālandā Mahāvihāra concerning its functions and structure. Indirectly, we will also address the question of whether Sri Nālandā can be treated as a ‟University” or if it was one of the Buddhist monasteries of India like any other. Such summarization and generalization become necessary mainly to understand and explain the role and position of Nālandā Mahāvihāra in the South Asian educational system. The nature of currently available sources is such that a particular generalization and leveling in our reconstruction is almost inevitable. This generalization, however, may be nothing more than a product introduced by our studies. Sometimes, in this process, over-generalization occurs. So, we have to be careful regarding what our sources themselves suggest to 271

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us, and rather, we should pay closer attention to what emerges from the manner in which we have chosen to array those sources. RELIGION AND EDUCATION Principally, ancient India could be identified with the fervency of the earliest religions like Brāhmaṇism, Jainism, and Buddhism. It may not be an overemphasis to suggest that in ancient India, religion became the way of life and was powerfully visible in every aspect of an Indian’s life. Present with the Indian people at every stage of their historical process, a combination of the three religions mentioned above contributed to the development of a peculiar Indian civilization and culture of India. A mix of the three religions and an evolutionary development of Indian culture has largely been a two-way process. Religion in ancient India not only gave birth to new changes but also actually decided the spheres of life that could be affected by those changes. Therefore, a better understanding of the role of religion in ancient Indian life would be immensely critical to gain the accurate knowledge about socio-cultural formations in the old India. Getting the real picture of the first happenings in India is possible only when the Indian past is seen through the spectacle of religion and its repercussions. It should be noted with emphasis that the education in ancient India was primarily derived from Brāhmaṇism, Jainism, and Buddhism. These religions also had an outstanding role in creating, transforming, and transmitting Indian religious knowledge. In the case of ancient India, religion and education acted as two sides of the same coin. The intimate relationship between the dominant school system and prevailing religious beliefs in ancient India was so intensive that it remains a classic mystery even for modern historians. Each religion had a clear method of learning, entirely different from the other. Every education system in the past, therefore, was cautiously conscious of its principle source of the cult. Every religion established its learning centers, realizing the twofold necessity of transmission and continuity of their beliefs and practices. It was felt largely in those days that the success of religion was based on the development, promotion, and propagation of its ideas and thoughts. It was precisely here that education was used as a propagating force of religious lifestyle and cultural traits in Indian life. Thus, the continuity of religion from one generation to the next became possible. Education has been playing a significant role in this historical process. It is particularly the case because the religious founders, in the beginning, took much interest in teaching their disciples, paving smooth the way for the unhindered continuity of the faith and beliefs they followed. These religious teachers



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used education as a useful tool not only to impart and instill their beliefs but also to ensure that they would continue even into further generations. A variety of scriptures were compiled and presented in a particular way in which the religious beliefs have been contextualized and preserved. From the above historical truth, it might not be a fallacy to assume that Indian education was institutionalized in religious patterns and practices. These religious, educational institutions became increasingly visualized in subsequent times. And in effect, a combination of education and religion played an overarching role in influencing the larger framework of social life in the past. Another emerging aspect of South Asian educational history in the recent past has been to explore the cause-andeffect relationship between society and education, or vice-versa. This two-way relationship between education and social structure becomes crucial for studying both society and culture, and a particular educational system. The educational systems, mainly learning institutions, are found to have emerged and flourished in their contemporary societies at different times. In fact, it was the conducive social atmospheres of various cultures at the different stages of history that led to the growth of these institutions. The same conditions, when turned unfavorable for such institutional growth, may also have resulted in degradation and sometimes to complete erosion. Various changes and developments occurring in religion and society transformed the existing education system by bringing about modification in its objectives, style of instruction, curriculum, teacher-student relationship, and even regular life. The same seems true especially in ancient India and particularly with Nālandā Mahāvihāra. But the experience of the past also attests to the fact that the education system always has the potential to influence the socio-cultural milieu in which it originated and from which it grew. Historically, the education system, in its full intricacies, served as a useful tool to improve the lifestyles of commoners. Education helped one to live a high-standard moral life. Moreover, it also created conditions necessary for the advancement of material, spiritual, vocational, and scientific fields. Throughout this study, a serious attempt has been made to explore how the Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist educational systems have emerged from their religious institutions. What were the principal points of synthesis between these learning systems? How did the Buddhist educational system respond to frequent changes happening in religion, politics, economy, and society? How did the Buddhist monasteries like Nālandā institutionalize and promote religious learning in South Asia? What were the influences of the Nālandā learning system on South Asian religion, society, and education at large? And how did the monastery of Nālandā strive to achieve the excellent knowledge of nirvāṇa for centuries, both before and after the death of the Buddha?

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PRE-NĀLANDĀ AND THE NĀLANDĀ EDUCATION SYSTEM Let us recapitulate the basics of Pre-Nālandā and the Nālandā systems of learning discussed previously to understand the nature of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra better. By far, education in ancient India was intimately related to the contemporary society and religion, reflecting the needs and requirements of society. We have discussed this regarding its growth. Early Indian education can be classified into two categories: Pre-Nālandā and Nālandā. The Pre-Nālandā system revolved around the Brāhmaṇical learning, which symbolizes today’s gurukula pattern. The Nālandā system, on the other hand, was a Buddhist style of learning imparted through the monasteries. The following system, in some ways, made a modest beginning for organized and institutionalized education, with Nālandā Mahāvihāra as an example. Prominently discussed in the mainstream of historical writings is the Pre-Nālandā or the gurukula (the guru-śiṣya paramparā or the ācārya-kula-s) system of education, which created, preserved, and imparted knowledge by the posterity of saints at their homes, situated in semi-forested areas not far from populated residential areas. The learning system of gurukulas was run by fixed tenures, almost similar to present-day semester patterns. Keeping the contemporary happenings in mind, the curriculum of the ācāryakulas was reviewed. Until the time of the Sūtra Age (c. 400–200 B.C.), the course of study included the four Vedas, along with six Aṇgas, and treaties of the Brāhmaṇas, the Araṇyakas, the Upaniṣads, and so on. Several other independent and allied sciences such as philosophy, yoga, medicine, astronomy, arithmetic, music, and so on were also added. Although the Vedic education was imparted to all classes of people, in the beginning, the Vaiśyas, Śūdras, women, and non-Āryans were excluded from it after the Vedic age. Brāhmaṇas established a monopoly over the entire education system. In the earlier Vedic texts, the attainment of mokṣa was considered to be the prominent goal of human life in general. But gurukula education, in particular, was taught with three primary objectives: sharpening the intellect, formation of character, and attainment of social efficiency. As a matter of fact, the Buddhist monasteries like Nālandā formed the chief mark of difference between mahāvihāra and gurukula systems of education. Although it seemed quite similar to the Brāhmaṇical learning model with a religious background, the mahāvihāra educational system, in fact, began the age of organized or institutional instructions. Unlike its contemporary Brāhmaṇical pattern, the Buddhist learning system centered around the monasteries that functioned as establishments of imparting, training, and propagating Buddhist knowledge and thought. These private and autonomous monastic organizations provided systematic learning to its monks, followers, and those desirous of education, with such necessary infrastructural facilities as hostels, mess halls, wells, tem-



Conclusion 275

ples, and so on. The gurukulas were predominantly a domestic system of education under which the individual teacher’s home became the school for young children admitted as pupils. It was treated as the home of the religious parents of the student, where students were expected to lead a life of brahmacārins under the strict, religious code of moral conduct. These centers of learning were not equipped with a substantial campus or any developed form of infrastructural facilities necessary for education. The courses offered at the Buddhist mahāvihāras were of higher education and invited those students who had become snātakas in Vedic schools. However, the gurukulas could teach only the primary forms of knowledge to their inhabitant pupils. Students who completed their elementary education at gurukulas were considered graduates by monasteries. It was one of the major reasons why the Buddhist monasteries were particularly interested in the continuous functioning and success of Vedic schools. Later Buddhist monasteries also started instruction in elementary education to admit the maximum number of residents, especially the Brāhmaṇically excluded sections. The Buddhist system of education began with the destruction of home life, which was then replaced by a monastery. But in the gurukulas, students did not lose their past identities, and their family home was succeeded by their teacher’s home in the same cultural context. They usually returned home after the completion of their studies to begin their household life, fulfilling both the material and spiritual goals. They never lost their self-identity unless and until they willingly opted for vānaprastha and saṃnyāsa. The monk’s life had a close resemblance to that of an ascetic life of vānaprastha and saṃnyāsa, but with striking dissimilarities. Unlike the monk, both vānaprastha and saṃnyāsa could begin their search for excellent knowledge while simultaneously continuing their household life. The monks in the system of vihāras had to live only with admissible comforts. The doors of the Buddhist system of study and training were open to almost all. The Vinaya texts claim that the comfortable life within the order drew many to it to solve their problems of survival. Logically put, while the Brāhmaṇical system of learning appealed more to the head than to the heart, the Buddhist system of knowledge did just the opposite. It appealed more to the heart than to the head, winning eventually millions into its fold. The distinct urban and liberal culture of ancient Magadha stimulated the diffusion of both Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist knowledge. However, the mahāvihāra education system flourished more in Magadha because it was situated beyond the eastern limit of the Ganges, which was purely Āryan culture. After the complete Āryanization of Mithilā, Āryans turned towards isolated Magadha after the Vedic period. With the stabilization in the economy by the expansion of agriculture, especially in Magadha, the region became ready for Āryanization. It led to the spread of gurukula

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culture in Magadha. There was a late start of Brāhmaṇical education in the land of Magadha, but when it started, the pace of spread was faster. Ancient Magadha had hermitages of teachers of repute of various denominations, who formed the greatest attraction for Prince Siddhārtha. He walked all the way from Kapilavastu to the capital of Magadha, Rājagṛha, and learned from Brāhmaṇical teachers such as Ālāra Kalama, Kauṭilya, Kāmaṇdaka, Upavarṣa, Varṣa, Pāṇini, Piṅgala, Vararuchi, and Patañjali. In the vicinity of Magadha, we have large monastic institutions like Nālandā, Odantapurī, Pāṭaliputra, Jītavaṇa, Tiloṣika, Kukkuṭārāma, Mahābodhi, and others. For over six hundred years, the monastic establishments ungrudgingly and impartially patronized all branches of Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist learning. The society of ancient Magadha was unique in its ideology, structure, and composition, which stimulated the growth of education. The society was comparatively more liberal in thinking and less conservative in behavior than other parts of contemporary India. It was not stifled by a priest-ridden society that squandered much of its wealth on expensive sacrifices. The culture of ancient Magadha was also very diverse in nature, being composed of all social classes, from Āryans and non-Āryans, and all religions: merchants, peasants, artisans, untouchables, Buddhism, Jainism, and Brāhmaṇism. Because of a flexible social structure, Magadha probably benefited from an influx of clans from upper India with a mixture of groups, which so often brings new vitality to culture. Religious factors had special significance in the rise of ancient Magadha as a learning center. From the point of view of religion, the land of ancient Magadha was not very dominated by the traditions and rituals of the Brāhmaṇical faith, in the beginning. When Brāhmaṇism reached its apex with a magnification of rituals and sacrifices, Magadha adopted two new pure religions, Buddhism and Jainism, to assimilate anxious common folk of the contemporary society. The interaction between the Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist religions, especially, shaped the growth of education in Magadha. The complications associated with Brāhmaṇical religion led to the emergence and popularity of Buddhism. In the same way, the problems with the Brāhmaṇical mode of education (i.e., gurukula) also resulted in the growth of the Buddhist style of education (i.e., mahāvihāra). The above-presented brief differential discussion between Pre-Nālandā and Nālandā systems of education undoubtedly makes us understand the Buddhist monastery as an institution of learning. The comparison with another spiritual learning center of India (i.e., gurukula), reflects its modest expansion and institutionalization regarding structure, organization, and function. If we treat the gurukula as a place of religious instruction, then the mahāvihāra would also be a religious learning institution. In this way, we can say that Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra was an educational



Conclusion 277

institution with a Buddhist orientation. The study and training that took place at Nālandā were focused on spiritual and religious spheres, to develop a complete or partial Buddhist faith reflected through ordination as a monk or householder life after the study. Nālandā was founded perhaps as early as the Gupta period, and continued as the largest Buddhist monastery of South Asia through at least the fourteenth century C.E. In all aspects of life at Nālandā, Buddhism acted as sole motivator. It always adjusted itself with the changes in Buddhism and vice-versa: variations in Buddhism brought modifications in its academic, religious, and cultural life. With the later diversification in Buddhism, Śrī Nalendra reconciled itself gradually in Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, Tantrāyāna, Vajrayāna, and Kālacakrayāna. Nālandā, being a Buddhist monastery, represented a beautiful example of assimilation of, not Buddhism, but Buddhist traditions.1 Nālandā’s devotion to Buddhist study and training attracted scholars from all over India and South Asia. Due to its international prominence, there are more historical accounts of Nālandā than any other contemporary monastery. Prominent among these sources are the accounts of Chinese and Tibetan pilgrims. Whatever the source, most describe Nālandā as a large and dynamic center for the training of monks from across Asia. The dynamism of Nālandā was in part due to its intellectual eclecticism. We can agree with Prasad when he proves that in the context of South Asian Buddhism, monasteries served as its institutional nuclei, the very prism through which much of the history of Buddhism in Indian is reflected. However, the Saṁgha was not an ideal retreat from the world to pursue the nirvāṇic goals only, but it was also an institution in dynamic interactions with other social institutions, acting and reacting to them and being influenced by them in turn.2 ŚRĪ NĀLANDĀ MAHĀVIHĀRA VIS-À-VIS THE UNIVERSITY It has been emphasized that education in pre-modern India was based on multifaceted socio-cultural and religious dimensions. However, historically speaking, this multifaceted aspect of the early Indian education system has been interpreted and reinterpreted by various historians in different ways. The nationalist historians, for instance, made possible attempts to glorify its style and content, always trying to manipulate historical sources in their way to show that India enjoyed one of the best education systems, even in the beginning of her civilization. The oriental historians, on the other hand, more logically painted a different negative picture of the ancient Indian education system, just to prove their single argument that always had a subordinating position vis-à-vis the occidentals. Interestingly, the early Indian education system in general and Nālandā

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in particular remained one of the highly discussed points of contention amongst educationists. But more than often, their only aim in raising the high-tempered debate over the issue seems to have been grounded in nothing other than its religious orientation and spiritual goals. Precisely for this reason, they chose to explain the Nālandā education system using their emphasis on religion. While each group of educationists has its own merits and demerits, and supporters and opponents, what seems important when talking about the wider perspectives provided by these scholars is twofold. In the first place, while some tried to look at the positive side of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, others tried hard to bring out its problematic aspects. Second, to present their analysis in the way they intended, most of these educationists interpreted the historical sources for their convenience, thus manipulating the past events. Having exercised their wisdom so judiciously, these scholars, in effect, failed largely in understanding Nālandā Mahāvihāra to its fullest extent, thus neglecting both its successes and weaknesses. An elaborate discussion and informed debate on the failure of educational historians in fully understanding the ancient education system should be an important component of presentday research. Thus, perhaps future scholars working in the same area won’t commit the same error. We started our discussion with the claims of modern day historians of India that Nālandā was the oldest international university in the world, where students came from all over. Later, some Orientalist historians like Basam, Warder, and Scharfe also referred to Nālandā as one of the famous universities of the Middle Ages in India. There are two words (i.e., international and university) in this argument that we can question. It has frequently been pointed out in this book. Scholars seem to use the word “international” to mean “all over the world.” We have already discussed while talking about the composition of students and teachers of Śrī Nālandā, especially outsiders, that they came mostly from South Asian countries, and more broadly from all over Asia. Rarely, we have scholars from Korea and Japan, and European and American continents have no representation. There was a hand-countable number of students studying at Nālandā from China, Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, Mongolia, and Sri Lanka, among other countries. Mostly we see the concentration of international students in the campus particularly during the seventh and eighth centuries B.C., which were also the prosperous days of Nālandā. Other than this, we have almost no incoming international students. Interestingly, we have also no record of any famous foreigner teachers on the campus. In this regard, we can locate the monastery of Nālandā in South Asia up to an extent. The use of another word, ‟University,” concerning Nālandā, is almost a standard practice. It has become a tradition to refer to Nālandā as a



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university. The ordinary people visualize the complex more as an old university than a monastery. Unfortunately, sometimes intellectuals also misleadingly referred it to as a university.3 This traditional concept of Nālandā, somewhere related to the traditional writings, certainly avoids the real picture of the monastery of Nālandā. The idea of “university” was produced in the West and derived from universitas, which refers to the first European scholastic institutions developed from studium generale. The actual term studium generale for universities of medieval Europe became popular in the last quarter of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century. The term “university” was first used at the University of Bologna in Italy, believed to have been founded in 1088 A.D., and then later established at Paris and Oxford. Then, the designation of University became the gold standard for referring to institutions of higher learning around the world. It looks like the prestige of the universities of Italy and France earned in the later times, and sometimes the similarities in the circumstances of their establishment and curriculum with Buddhist monasteries led to these religious institutions also being referred to as universities. It does not seem entirely accurate, which I have discussed in detail in a comparative study of mahāvihāras and studium generale in an article.4 Obviously, there were some similarities in pedagogy, curriculum, and origin regarding religious orientation at the beginning of Buddhist monasteries and studium generale, but the organization and composition of students and teachers were products of the local situations. European universities were better institutions regarding the corporation of masters and students, both increasing in secular orientation day by day. On the other hand, Indian monasteries were good at knowledge generation and resource management, but in a religious compound and atmosphere. Indeed, centers of learning around the world, whatever their scholastic orientation and heritage, have consistently adopted a Western standard of the university in covering their institutional designation since at least the nineteenth century. The institution of higher learning at Nanjing, China, founded in 258 B.C., changed its name to ‟University” in 1888; Al-Karaouine founded in Fes, Morocco, in 859 became a university in 1947; and Al-Azhar in Cairo, Egypt, founded around 970–972, converted to university status in 1961.5 These examples are the official conversions of pre-modern learning institutions into universities. At Nālandā, it did not happen through government interference, but rather through traditional conception. The imposition of Western concepts and ideas on the Indian Buddhist monastery of Nālandā doesn’t seem to be intellectually justified. It questions its inherited nature and changes its motivation for a happy existence, which it held for more than a thousand years. The first generation of historians of India tried to prove Indian supremacy in all spheres of life over England, but now the situation has changed. So, the

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name and inheritance of Nālandā Mahāvihāra need a critical revision in the popular imagination. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra started as a Buddhist monastery and remained a Buddhist monastic, always devoted to study and training. Invisibly, the Buddha was the initiator, founder, organizer, supreme commander, and the undisputed leader of the monasteries of South Asia, including Nālandā. Having understood the nature and the real purpose of Nālandā and its academic activities, it now seems more appropriate to say that it was merely a Buddhist mahāvihāra, rather than a university (a non-religious learning palace), which served Buddhist monks and contributed incredibly to Buddhism. We will now go through concluding remarks on the previous discussion of the daily operations, the compositions of the monks and laity engaged in study and practice, the manner of teaching and instruction, and especially the changes of curricula or texts used for the various examinations, which were almost all internal practices of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, to support the above thesis. We will be in a position to judge for ourselves whether or not Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra was a large Buddhist monastery and simultaneously acted as an institution of learning in South Asia. When the pre-Nālandā education system reached its pinnacle, it faced several problems concerning its consolidation. Almost until the sixth century, people lived a life dissatisfied with the Vedic educational apparatus. In fact, this growing dissatisfaction with the contemporary system led to the evolution and success of the Nālandā education system. At the outset, the pattern of learning and accumulation of knowledge followed in gurukulas gave impetus to the Nālandā institutional framework. Interestingly enough, both of these educational apparatuses developed simultaneously, and this amalgamation gave way to the generation of knowledge in different fields. Based on historical sources, it can be assumed that the ancient mega-monastery of Nālandā was the best representative of the Nālandā system of education. We can imagine the beginning of the new age of religious learning, which was primarily Buddhist and institutional, in South Asia with the emergence of Śrī Nālandā. Nālandā not only became a well-established educational institute in its time but also emerged as the largest monastery in South Asia. There existed no other monastery like Nālandā in India for quite some time, and later on, other model monasteries like Vikramaśīlā, Valabhī, and Odantapurī were constructed. The decline of the Buddhist mahāvihāra of Nālandā is significant inasmuch as it not only marked the near decline of organized learning, but it also marked the beginnings of the Middle Ages in India. We have already discussed how Muslims cannot be the sole destroyer of the monastery of Nālandā. It was more due to changes in the external political, social, economic, and religious situations, and internally the changes in Buddhism and modifications in the academic and spiritual life of the campus, that



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led to the desertification of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The increased ritualism and encroachment of various deities and Brāhmaṇical gods with the rise of esoteric Buddhism in the campus made Nālandā’s cultural life more close to the Brāhmaṇical system and generated apathy of laity and kings concerning donations. Finally, the Buddha also appeared as an incarnation of Viṣṇu, which led to the silent assimilation of Buddhism in Brāhmaṇism. In the beginning, Nālandā was only a small village among the numerous villages of India. Its association with the life of the Buddha brought Nālandā onto the map of ancient India. It was the important haltingplace, Pāvārika Mango-grove, at Nālandā where a small vihāra got constructed. Over centuries, this little vihāra expanded in a mahāvihāra, with the substantial donations of laity and kings, and transformed into a temple of learning. As emphasized before, in fact, the favorable conditions of the contemporary society and religion stimulated the growth of Nālandā to its highest peak. At a time when the Brāhmaṇical religion became out of reach to everyday people, and the gurukula educational system almost failed in providing Vedic education to all, the community was waiting for a change. Thus, the ancient Nālandā began developing itself gradually from a simple monastery and became almost an alternative socio-educational system for the people. However, it could not come out of its inherent Buddhist nature of monastery and the learning place of Buddhist scholars until its end. The inherent characteristics of Nālandā as a Buddhist religious facility were clearly visible in all of its activities. Buddhist canonical literature uses the terms ‟ārāma” and ‟vihāra” to denote dwelling places for monks. The Buddha allowed monks to stay in vihāras, as a resting place, during the rain retreat. In due time, the vihāra became a permanent place of residence for monks, not only during the rainy season but also year-round. The vihāra subsequently developed into a large dwelling house for a community of monks, who earlier lived in small, individual cells. Later we find a description of vihāras in Mahāvagga and Cullavagga, which were likened to full-fledged houses. Liberal royal grants, as well as public donations, helped in the establishment of Buddhist vihāras and then their expansion into mahāvihāras from as early as the sixth century B.C. The next stage of development of the religious building was that of a long verandah with a cell behind it, rectangular in shape, which constituted a vihāra. Afterward, the Buddha allowed the monks to have a fence made of bamboo sticks, thorns, or a ditch, as we find in the case of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The Buddhist monasteries at the next stage slowly and steadily turned into temples of learning, which was a remarkable feature in the history of Buddhism. The root of the transformation of mahāvihāras into learning institutions goes back to the age of wandering homeless religious saints. The Buddha provided theoretical and practi-

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cal approval for the teaching and learning process within mahāvihāras. It seems that from the fifth century on, learning was not confined to monks, but was made available to all seekers of knowledge, Buddhist and nonBuddhist alike, attested to by the Chinese travelers. It is in this transformation of the monasteries that we find the seeds of a scholastic institution. Some of these mahāvihāras developed later into large-scale establishments for education and academic culture, and Nālandā was first and foremost among them. In the course of time, the Buddhist monasteries made room for secular learning in addition to mere ecclesiastical teaching and religious preaching. The Buddhist monasteries, which started with learning for the purpose of faith, had now turned into full-fledged didactic institutions and widened their academic curriculum. The goal of Nālandā Mahāvihāra was to help its ordained monks to achieve salvation through the exploration and re-exploration of Buddhist knowledge. Most of its academic activities were confined primarily to studying and compiling the scriptures, and discussing the discourses of Buddhism. Nālandā began primarily as the simple forum for discussing the Buddha’s preaching and later functioned as a Mahāyāna academy of learning, research, training, and propagation of Buddhist ideas. As an advanced study institute of Buddhism, Nālandā’s ultimate objective was to push forward Buddhist religion to the unreachable parts of ancient Indian terrains and to outside of India. In this respect, some of its venerated abbots like Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla, Dharmakīrti, Atīśa, Paḍmasaṃbhava, and others became successful in spreading Buddhism in Bhutan, Tibet, China, and Nepal. Monks of Nālandā generously propagated Buddhism in the northeastern and southern parts of India. As the most prestigious and authoritative complex of higher studies in Buddhism, Nālandā not only initiated new developments in Buddhism but also solved problems and controversies regarding Buddhist religion and philosophy. Although the curriculum followed by Nālandā University was directly related to the detailed study of Buddhist Tripiṭakas, the Chinese narrations show that students in Nālandā studied the Great Vehicle (Mahāyāna Buddhism) and the works of the eighteen sects. Investigations of such works as the Vedas, Hetuvidyā, Śabdavidyā, Cikitsāvidyā, Śilpasthānavidyā, Adhyātmavidyā, the works on Magic (Atharvaveda), and Śāṁkhya were also taken up. However, the exercise of studying the works of other religions should not be mistaken as a secular education. The primary purpose of such cautious an exercise would have been to know about and criticize those faiths, to establish glory and supremacy for Buddhist religion and philosophy. The religious teachers at that time thought it essential to study logic and grammar for the understanding of religious scriptures. The disciplines of logic and philosophy were given importance in the studies of monks to defeat and to convert non-believ-



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ers to Buddhism. The study of professional courses such as medicine, art, and architecture was viewed significantly only to gain basic knowledge about the daily needs of life and the monastery. Yijing mentions that he studied medicine, but he left it later because it did not seem to be so vocative. The art and architecture school of Nālandā was developed to fulfill the needs and requirements of religious rituals, which was considered to be an essential part of the curriculum. Subjects of the arts of divination, spells, omens, astrology, Tantra, mantra, mudrās, maṇḍalas, witchcraft, and quackery were excluded from the curriculum in the beginning. Of course, these new subjects got added in the studies to the popularity of Tantrayāna on the campus. But the scientific and professional courses did not become significant parts of the curriculum of Nālandā, although it recognized that knowledge of these subjects was necessary for human survival. These scientific disciplines could not find ground convincing enough for them to be included in the curriculum of the ancient Buddhist monastery. It was probably because the residents of Nālandā had abandoned the world to reach nirvāṇa, depending entirely on the charity of laity for their existence and survival. The practice of medicine and meditation within the campus deserved some prominent place in the life and curriculum of the campus, pointed out by the research and works of Joseph Loizzo, an American. We can say it was all in the context of a faith-driven learning design. Various arts and crafts, including medicine, meditation, and other sciences could have been attractive options for non-believers. Simultaneously, the study and training of the laity and non-believers at Nālandā aimed to develop the Buddhist faith. It was dependent upon them to become either a monk or a householder after their studies. Nālandā employed the ancient Brāhmaṇical methods for teaching, related to lecturing, debating issues of larger concern, and copying the Buddhist scriptures. Nālandā’s library housed a large amount of manuscripts copied by various scholars, but most of them related to Buddhist faith, practices, and values. The academic and religious activities at Nālandā were primarily Buddhistcentric, trying to visualize the wonderful Buddhist way of life through worship, rituals, and prayer. The daily life was a beautiful amalgamation of veneration and study in the suitably designed campus, to such an extent that outsiders could not identify whether the monks were studying or worshiping. In other words, it reflects both the theory and practice of the learning achieved, which was a simultaneous process. Based on the archaeological and textual information, it is evident that the residents at Nālandā were heavily invested in images of the Buddha, and worshiped him while facing those images both within their vihāras and in the four temples located on the campus. This also shows the Buddhist religious and educational nature of the institution, but the extent of participation

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of outsiders and laity in these sacred activities within the campus more strongly reflects this image of Nālandā Mahāvihāra. Lars Fogelin raises an interesting query of to what degree the laity was allowed to worship in the temples of Nālandā.6 At Nālandā, a massive wall surrounded all of the vihāras, temples, and pools. More so, Xuanzang states that the guards at the gate of Nālandā were trained to quiz all who sought to enter the monastery. He goes on to describe numerous sacred sites outside the wall of Nālandā that were frequented by the laity. These references suggest that the temples and images of Nālandā were strictly reserved for the residents for worship, which was in opposition to other vihāras of India like Sāranātha, where the laity frequented the pilgrimage site. It is not possible to state whether all the laity or perhaps only the non-elite were excluded from Nālandā. The worship at Nālandā was part of the studies and training, instructed by teachers, of those who came to study at Nālandā. Upājjhāyas used to lecture on the different topics of the Buddha’s preaching every day at Śrī Nālandā. As controversies and discussions between the exponents of the various schools of thought and faith became increasingly popular, much emphasis began to be laid upon one’s own ability to expound the texts in public meetings. The day-to-day relationship between monk-teacher and student was utmost spiritual and moral. They equally followed all the advice of the Buddha in all spheres of their lives. The Buddhist monks living in Nālandā had certain similar traits to those living in the last āśrama, or stage of the four āśramas, where, after having lived his/her life fully, one took to saṃnyāsa to achieve salvation or liberation through rebirth. The admiration of the Buddha became institutionalized in Nālandā’s everyday life, which is evident in its architecture even today. Nālandā’s monastic life and practices were derivations of the injunctions of the Vinaya texts. The monks lived in individual cells, sometimes shared by monks with similar scholarly interests, furnished with a solid, raised platform like a bed. The water clock and a gong regulated the punctilious observance of the monastic life, including bathing, sleeping, eating, worshipping, and all other activities. Nālandā was a perfect Buddhist monastery involved in practicing the Vinaya since the beginning of its existence. In this way, it witnessed and even gave birth to the process of the institutional evolution of South Asian Buddhism. We can also say that Mahāyāna and Tantrayāna were the monastic creation of Nālandā Mahāvihāra, as these two most visible sects of Buddhism matured through the academic and religious life of the institution. Although the origin and growth of both of the sects at Nālandā reflected a close interaction with the Brāhmaṇical system, Tantrayāna and its later offshoots were more and more clear in their Brāhmaṇical associations and adapta-



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tions. In this way, we cannot think of South Asian Buddhism in general, and Indian Buddhism in particular, without monks and monasteries. Given the brief but substantial discussion presented so far, it is tough to deny the impact of the Buddha’s religion on various aspects and functions of Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra. It would be apt to hypothesize that the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā, being both an educational institution and a religious learning organization, might have represented both Buddhism and Brāhmaṇism, two dominant religions of the time. Although the doors of the Mahāyāna Academy of Nālandā were said to be open for all, only Buddhist monks, laity, and others ready to accept or follow Buddhism as their faith were readily admitted to it. As Nālandā did not incorporate all the sects of Buddhism, it would have been hard for Nālandā to teach all of them. Theoretically, it combined works of all eighteen sects, lest the teaching of other religions was kept aside. Despite many images of Brāhmaṇical gods, Temple No. 2 might be a Hindu temple, and an inscriptional mention by Adityasena referred to the agrahāra of Nālandā, a Brāhmaṇa settlement. There are no other adequate historical sources available to support the involvement of Brāhmaṇas in the activities of Nālandā. Those few Brāhmaṇas found residing at Nālandā would have adopted Buddhism. Although most of the teachers at Nālandā were Brahmin by birth, they readily accepted Buddhism after joining and made significant contributions to establishing it as a powerful alternative religion at that time. They designed the Buddhist philosophy for raising prominent debates about the weaknesses of other religious values and practices. Although there is scant evidence available about the involvement of Brahmin teachers, the active participation of Jains in Nālandā’s activities has so far been beyond historical traces. Also, the fact that there is no reference to the presence of women, either as students or teachers, in this reputed institution of the ancient period is quite severe. The obvious question, which is commonly raised by many, is, if Nālandā opened its learning gates to all, why were women not admitted? Surprisingly, the Buddha himself freely allowed women to join his faith, and women monks managed some of the monasteries. But it was only at Nālandā that no women were found. The absence of women at Nālandā leads to two prominent possible conclusions: In the first place, Nālandā was regarded as the highest religious institution, where the presence of women might have been thought to be an aggravating factor for male inhabitants. In the second place, the recognition of Nālandā as a prominent educational institute itself seems doubtful, especially when it fails to integrate half of the living society, discriminating based on gender. As soon as Nālandā turned into an academic institution, its functions widened, consisting of both religious and educational activities. Also, the mahāvihāra developed its independent and autonomous organizational

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setup to impart both religious and didactic duties. Apart from philosophical reasons, there were other equally important practical considerations, which made it essential for the mahāvihāra to develop a structure of the organization, such as financial management, maintenance of disciplined daily life, and regulation of student-to-student, teacher-to-teacher, and teacher-to-student relationships. The institutional rules of mahāvihāras mentioned in the Vinaya Piṭaka were not the invention of the Buddha, but modeled upon those of numerous other monastic orders professing other faiths, and also of Brāhmaṇism itself, the common source from which all sects arose. These rules were accepted gradually in the process of organization of the mahāvihāra’s life; thus, an earlier law was altered and modified by a later rule. The system of joint deliberation, the postulation of equality of all members in decision-making on matters of mutual interest, the rule of the majority, and the rejection of personal dictation, are also some attractive features of the organization of Nālandā. But democracy is a political concept that did not emerge until the society had developed a political organization. The Mahāvihāra of Nālandā does not embody a notion of democracy; it only reproduces into monastic life and polity, which were the leading features of the tribal council. In pre-political tribal society, the tribal council was the instrument of government. The management of the mahāvihāra was performed by a numerous and varied staff of officials with a well worked-out differentiation of functions. These office bearers were appointed from amongst the monks themselves, either on a regular or temporary basis, by the general declaration of Ñatti to conduct the business of the mahāvihāra. The Saṁgha staff included principal officers like the distributor of lodging places, the regulator of rations, the receiver of robes, Ārāmikas, (or those who kept the grounds of the Ārāmas in order), the superintendent of Ārāmikas to look after their work, director of sāmaṇeras to keep them to their duties, and other various small officers. However, these officials, though themselves Bhikkhus, could not make any decisions regarding the management of Nālandā. These rested with the committee of elder monks, and important decisions, such as the admission or expulsion of members, could only be made by the court and not by the chief. The monkish nature of the organization and management of Nālandā Mahāvihāra was the result of its Buddhist orientation. Śrī Nālandā Mahāvihāra was a self-governed learning institution, which also shows that the organization designated itself as a mahāvihāra. There were two levels of administration at Nālandā assigned to its central organization and related monasteries. The key administration of Nālandā issued the largest number of seals, which describe it as a Mahāvihāra: Śrī-Nālandā-Mahāvihāra-ārya-bhikṣu-saṁghasya or ‟The Great Monastery of Nālandā of the noble community of monks.” And the recovered seal of Nālandā contained the dharmacakra or ‟wheel of law” flanked by two



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deer, a reference to the deer park at Sāranātha where the Buddha is said to have taught his first disciples, which directly shows its Buddhist orientation. It is clear enough to say with the archaeological evidence that Nālandā was a mahāvihāra designated for monks, and was Buddhist. Being self-sufficient, it provided free lodging and boarding facilities to its residents, counting almost more than three thousand. The administrative responsibilities of the mega-monastery seemed enormous, related to the management of the campus and monasteries, disciplining the life of residents, providing all necessities to residents, the management of villages and donations, and so on. The councils of monks headed by the abbot managed all affairs of the monastery in a democratic way, based on the rules of Vinaya. Most of its expenses were met by the generous grants made by a generation of kings of the Mauryas, the Śuṅgas, the Guptas, Emperor Harṣa, the Pālas, and many private individuals. Nālandā was in possession of more than two hundred villages during the time of Yijing’s visit, which can be the best example of the generous help and donations it received from the prominent personalities of those times. These generous gifts also substantially indicate that it was more of a religious institution than a single learning center where thousands of monks engaged in seriously observing Buddhist dharma and generating a monastic field of merit. The rulers thought it was their ethical responsibility to protect and develop this as a religious, sacred place than as a learning center. The prestige of the institution and its material support were incontrovertibly linked to the religious practices of its pious residents. As can be expected, the maintenance of a vast number of granted villages and the security of other laities must have disturbed the academic and spiritual life of Nālandā, although it was paid hardly any attention by the research scholars. These led monks invariably to engage in agriculture, commerce, and dealing with a lot of cash and kind. Being responsible for the overall administration and supervision, the senior monks at Nālandā were confronted with a gradual loss of their academic credentials. Fogelin has noted that a single monastery performed multiple roles: functioning as a place for retreats for the monks, and offering economic engagements with the industrial community and religious engagement with the laity. Such religious commitment was not regarding Buddhist doctrines but rather the practice and conduct of daily, mundane ritual.7 The Nālandā system of learning was not perfect. It had its inherent weaknesses. Nālandā Mahāvihāra was composed of heterogeneous elements. Some of the residents at Nālandā, for instance, decided to take refuge there only to escape from dangers, which they otherwise had to face. For those who often felt that life came full of problems, Nālandā seemed a safe haven that could provide lifetime security for both material and spiritual needs. Others who converted from other religions faced difficulty

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coming out of their old beliefs, values, and practices, even after they had joined Buddhist vihāras. In fact, not long after, a clash occurred between the old and new beliefs. Subtle cracks developed within the Greater Vehicles of life of Nālandā brought about by a Vehicle of Thunderbolt, which, in effect, forcefully brought Buddhism closer to Brāhmaṇism. It led to the decline of Nālandā’s spiritual and moral life, thereby creating a mixed space of image worship, magic, rituals, and so on. The propagation of historians, probably to present before colonial England the glory of India long before they invaded her, led to the exaggeration of the functioning of the old Nālandā as the greatest international university, with students and teachers from all religions and all parts of the world. Irrespective of these ill-informed claims, however, what is clear from the brief account presented above is that the ancient Nālandā University was, in reality, a Buddhist Mahāvihāra. More than sixty years ago, Fulbright Professor Margaret Wiley Marshall and her husband visited the ruins of Nālandā and quickly imagined the intellectual and spiritual vitality that abounded there as recently as eight or nine hundred years ago, when Nālandā was in function (my emphasis).8 It admitted only Buddhists and laity into its educational system. Therefore, Nālandā should, in reality, be considered as the institution of advanced study and training of Buddhism. Here, Buddhist learning was given prime importance, and it had achieved international fame as one of the best centers of religious learning. It should be kept in mind, however, that the conclusions arrived at in this brief research study might be subject to re-interpretation when seen in the light of available historical sources, without actually trying to look for some fresh data in this regard. What is required, if anything at all, to appreciate these arguments, is some new outlook into the past with a dynamic approach. The education history of Nālandā Mahāvihāra needs a closer examination by modern historians. Perhaps in the future, honest research may bring some interesting facts, which can either support or refute the conclusions arrived at in this book, but with new facts and a fresh approach. The contribution of Nālandā Mahāvihāra to the spheres of education, religion, and society should not be looked down upon just because of its religious orientation. First, it institutionalized and expanded the practices of the Vedic educational system, making it more scientific. It increased, if not completely encouraged, the process of the democratization of education by opening its gates for all. Second, Nālandā devoted itself to the development and propagation of the Buddhist religion and philosophy through extensive translations and writings. The great logicians of Nālandā such as Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Asaṅga, Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Kamalaśīla, Śāntarakṣita, and others took Buddhist logic to maximum heights. Third, the monastery of Nālandā brought about fruitful changes in the contemporary society in particular, and in South Asian



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society in general, by challenging inequality, caste, and various religious dogmas. The principles of non-violence and avoidance of rituals left an impact even on the common man both materially and spiritually. We have already questioned putting the word and concept of ‟University” on Nālandā Mahāvihāra, but the recent Asian attempt to revive the Mahāvihāra of Nālandā as a modern Nālandā University goes one step further. The trans-national Asian initiative including South, Southeast, and East Asian countries not only consciously recognized the Buddhist monastery of Nālandā as a university but also tried to reinforce the idea in visible form. It is a big question of scholarly debate in the present time as to whether we can restore a Buddhist monastery in the shape of a modern university. It is hard to support this endeavor intellectually. It is not our topic to discuss in the present book, but since it is a related issue we can raise some concerns and questions related to this problematic revival attempt. The restoration idea first advocated by Singapore’s former minister of foreign affairs George Yeo Yong-Boon at the 2006 meeting of the East Asian Summit was to build a modern Nālandā University in Bihar, near the site of the ancient Nālandā Mahāvihāra. It would be hosted by the Indian government and backed by countries across Asia as a means of increasing cooperation for the development of a new model of Asian education.9 Later, the Nalanda Mentor Group was formulated under the leadership of India’s Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen and included many famous persons from all over the world to lead the project. It also worked as the first governing body of the university. In August 2010, both houses of the Indian Parliament passed the Nalanda Bill and legally the university came into existence. We are not going into the details of early skepticism surrounding the project (there are obstacles regarding faculty, facilities, and funding), but the first batch of students started their studies in 2014. Now there are three departments—School of Historical Studies, School of Ecology and Environmental Studies, and Schools of Buddhist Studies, Philosophy, and Comparative Religions—which function in a rented building in Rajgir. The project aims to be a means for more economical, cultural, religious, and educational cooperation among Asian countries. Pragmatically, framing Nālandā as an ancient exemplar of the dominant contemporary model of education is a useful heuristic, which captures enthusiasm for the project and permits a mosaic of actors to embrace the proposal.10 Let us come back to some of our other theoretical concerns about the project. We have seen throughout this book that Nālandā Mahāvihāra was a religious learning institution devoted to Buddhist values and experiences. However, the revival of Nālandā appeared to be a secular university for economic and political purposes. Nālandā’s historical truth stands in sharp contrast to the contemporary revival and reflects the

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exaggerated and opportunistic representation of the history of Nālandā for practical benefits. The contemporary idea of Nālandā as the crown jewel of Indian civilization was overly glorified here, disconnecting it from its religious character. The limited Asian connections and participation of Śrī Nālandā in the Buddhist spheres became the common cultural property of Asia, and they got the right to misuse it. The Buddhist nature of Nālandā is celebrated as the common cultural heritage of all three interested regional blocs: South, Southeast, and East Asia. In cultural terms, however, it was removed from religious belief or environmental practices.11 The contemporary revival understated the very religious features, which gave Nālandā its exemplary Buddhist character. It would be hard for anyone to revive the wonderful academic, religious, and cultural life of monks practiced at Nālandā Mahāvihāra, which we have discussed in chapters 6 and 7: how the residents lived, ate, slept, worshiped, prayed, cleansed, celebrated, disciplined, and followed the Vinaya. It is true that Nālandā Mahāvihāra was a learning institution, but of a different religious type. The aims of study and training at Nālandā were to develop Buddhist faith and to produce monks, not like the present central universities of India, which aim to create administrators and teachers.12 The idea of this religious education was to achieve salvation through the practice of Dhamma. How will the peculiar educational ideals and objectives be obtained by Nālandā University? Theoretically, the concept of revival does not seem justified, particularly in the context of an ancient tradition and a learning institution, which inhibits a unique community related to its identity. It is not problematic to establish a new international university named Nālandā University, but when we try to use the word ‟revival” for it, its nature becomes challenging. How will India find the Buddhist community to give a life and a unique identity to Nālandā University, which only conjures up thoughts of Nālandā Mahāvihāra? There is a lot of hope for the emerging new university related to different pan-Asian cultural, educational, economic, and political ideals, and it has a lot of funds at its disposal from donations from all over the world. To conclude with hope for further vigorous research into some of the concerns raised in the present study, it would be apt to suggest that the Nālandā system of learning proves the fact that the institutions of religion and education had an intimate relationship with each other, at least in the case of ancient India. The same synthesis is no less evident even in today’s modern societies. The revival of Nālandā represents one part of this combination. We are not sure how the new Nālandā University will develop the beautiful relationship between veneration and study, which Nālandā Mahāvihāra promoted. The nature of the relationship between these two vital institutions was not only of interdependence but also of reinforcement, both mutual and hostile. What



Conclusion 291

is much more exciting and challenging is to see how this complicated relationship is going to be handled by historians and educationists in the impending research. NOTES   1.  Lopez argued that the term ‟Buddhism” or ‟the Buddhist tradition” should better be pronounced in the plural. Donald S. Lopez, ed., Buddhism in Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 3.  2. Birendra Nath Prasad, “Major Trends and Perspectives in Studies in the Functional Dimensions of Indian Monastic Buddhism in the Past One Hundred Years: A Historiographical Survey,” in Monastic, Shrines and Society: Buddhist and Brahmanical Religious Institutions in India in their Socio-Economic Context, ed. Birendra Nath Prasad (New Delhi: Manak Publications, 2011), 27–83.   3.  Ronald M. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2004), 107.  4. Pintu Kumar, “European Studium Generale and Indian Mahāvihāras in Middle Age: A Comparative Glance,” Historical Yearbook 13 (2016): 27–46.   5.  Andrea Marion Pinkney, “Looking West to India: Asian Education, IntraAsian Renaissance, and the Nalanda Revival,” Modern Asian Studies 49 (2015): 139–40.  6. Lars Fogelin, An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 214–15.   7.  Lars Fogelin, “Sacred Architecture, Sacred Landscape: Early Buddhism in North Coastal Andhra Pradesh,” in Archeology as History in Early South Asia, edited by H. P. Ray and Carla M. Sinopaly (New Delhi: Aryan Book International, 2004), 377.  8. Margaret Wiley Marshall, “Bihar Universities-New and Old,” Journal of Higher Education 32 (1961): 503–06.  9. George Yeo, “Nalanda and the Asian Renaissance,” The Huffington Post, Singapore, April 12, 2011. 10.  Pinkney, “Looking West to India,” 121. 11.  Pinkney, “Looking West to India,” 128–30. 12.  Gauri Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 146.

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I ndex

abbot, 84, 140, 142-44, 147, 151, 156, 163, 172, 193, 197, 203-04, 206, 20809, 217, 225, 287 Abhayākaragupta, 6, 195 abhayamudrā, 72 Abhidharmakośa, 147, 156, 169, 258, 261 Abhidharmasamuccaya, 138 Abhisamayālaṁkāra, 169 abodes for Buddhist monks, 3, 10, 197, vihāra, 7, 8, 10-12, 16-21, 25, 34, 37-38, 51, 62, 64-66, 68-71, 79-80, 83-84, 120, 126, 195, 201, 205-06, 214-15, 238, 242, 271, 281, guhā, 10-11 academic council, 197, 201, 249, 287 academic freedom, 102, 116, 128, 146, 166 ācārya-kula-s, 105, 121n19, 274 ācāryas, 66, 111, 133, 141-42, 146, 15051, 156n48, 160, 163, 165 action-oriented pedagogy, 158n102, 165-66, 188n13 adhikaraṇa, 207 adhyātmavidyā, 164, 282 administrative council, 197, 201, 207 advertisement of Buddha’s thoughts and philosophy, 132-33 Ajātaśatru, 34, 40-41, 113, 234 Ālāra Kālāma, 118, 276 Anāryas, 111, 131 Anāthapiṇḍaka, 11 Angas, 15, 108, 109, 115, 116, 274 antevāsika, 141 Aparājita, 181, 225, 245

aparāvidyā, 109 apportioner, 204 apprenticeship, 110 ārāma, 11, 126, 281 Ārāmikas, 205, 286 Araṇyakas, 105, 108, 116, 274 Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), 59, 69, 70-71, 73-78, 96n42 archaeology of neighborhood of Nālandā, 76-79 archer type coin of Kumāragupta, 50n89, 74, 77 arhatship or arhathood, 13, 17, 220, 222 arts and crafts, 109-12, 127, 129, 178, 180, 182-83, 186, 283 Ārya-bhikṣu-saṁgha, 20, 83-84, 196, 286 Āryadeva, 66, 140, 144-45, 150, 155, 159 Āryan, 26, 33, 36, 103-04, 108-10, 114, 117, 122n29, 127-28, 230n66, 275 Āryanization, 33, 275 Asaṅga, 137, 140, 143-44, 147, 156, 164, 166, 174, 189, 225-26, 256-57, 261, 288 Aśoka, 1, 17, 36, 40-41, 66, 78, 100n137, 120, 208, 213 āśramas, 101, 105, 109, 112, 121n18, 129, 284, 295, brahmacāri, 105-07, 111, 113-15, 120, gṛhastha, 105, vānaprastha, 105, 131, 275, saṃnyāsa, 10, 109, 129, 131, 275, 284 313

314

Index

astronomy, 102, 108, 117, 175, 183-84, 274 asuras, 251 Atīśa Dīpaṁkara, 6, 24, 47-48, 143, 262 atman, 84, 140, 142, 143, 144, 147, 151, 156, 163, 172, 193, 197, 203, 204, 206, 208, 209, 217, 225, 287 autonomous religious body, 8, 31, 39, 129, 196, 274, 285 Avalokiteśvara, 44, 72, 92, 96-97, 180, 224-25, 235, 245 āvāsa, 10-12 Āyurveda medicine, 110, 175-76 Bāgīśvarīkīrti, 6 bāharikā or pāḍā, 5, 43 Bālāditya, 18-20, 62, 64, 68, 71, 74, 95n32, 96n39, 99n109 Bālaputradeva, 19-20, 51n108, 70-71, 84, 96n49, 152 Bālaputradeva copperplate grant, 71, 96n49 Balarāma, 181, 191n73 Baragāon, 44, 67, 68, 74, 76, 83, 214, 215 bath, 44, 58, 64, 115, 178, 240-41 beam holes for roof timber, 72 Bharhut, 232, 234, 306 bhūmisparshamudrā, 72 Bhutan, 156n56, 262, 269n105, 278, 282 Bihar Sharif, 7, 17, 22, 52, 21 Bitapālo, 178, 180, 224 Bodhicitta, 227 Bodhisattva, 72-73, 91-92, 96nn50-51, 137, 171-72, 178, 180-82, 221-22, 22427, 235n157, 241, 243, 245, 247-48, 250-51, 262 Bodhisattvabhūmiḥ, 138, 187 Bodhisattvayāna, 137 Brahma, 106-07, 115, 118, 127 brahmacārin, 9, 101, 107, 114, 141, 163, 206, 275 Brahmajāla Sutta, 56, 135, 293 Brāhmaṇical, 2-3, 12, 19, 22-23, 26, 32-33, 35-41, 45-46, 53, 66, 71, 73, 78, 96, 101, 105-06, 110, 116-20, 125-31, 135, 138, 140-41, 145, 149, 155-56, 161, 165, 168, 174, 180-81, 188, 191,

223, 229, 238, 246, 250-52, 256, 258, 260, 264, 266, 273-76, 281, 283-85 Brāhmaṇism, 15, 32-33, 35, 37-38, 41, 47, 116, 118, 127, 133-34, 149, 184, 202, 213, 221, 227, 246, 263-65, 272, 276, 281, 285-86, 288 Brahmin as the ideal teacher, 2, 102-04, 113-14 Broadley, A. M., 68-70, 75, 76, 95n36, 232n108 Buchanan, Francis, 67-69, 76 Buddha, 3-5, 7-19, 24, 26, 29-30, 34-36, 38, 42-50, 57-58, 60-64, 66-68, 70, 72-78, 80, 85, 90-92, 94, 96, 98-101, 103, 118-19, 121, 125-128, 132-33, 139, 143-44, 149, 151, 155, 157, 15960, 162, 164, 166, 171, 173-76, 178, 180, 184, 190-91, 193-96, 199-02, 206, 213-216, 219-20, 222, 224, 229, 231, 233-34, 237-38, 241-43, 245-49, 251, 255, 257-58, 260, 263-64, 269, 273, 280-81, 283-87 Buddhaghośa, 123, 150, 174, 199 Buddhagupta, 18, 51n98, 62, 70, 72 Buddhakīrti, 144 Buddhism, 1, 3-5, 7-11, 13-14, 16, 19-26, 29-30, 32-33, 35-43, 45-62, 66, 69, 80, 83, 93, 95-96, 99-100, 104, 114, 116, 118, 125-27, 130-35, 137-47, 149, 15363, 165-74, 178, 184-91, 193, 195-96, 198, 202, 209, 212-229, 231-36, 23839, 244-46, 250-53, 255-56, 258-69, 272, 276-77, 280-85, 288, 291 Buddhist council, 47n18, 159, 213, 232n106 Buddhist faith, 13-14, 26, 38, 103, 126, 159, 165-66, 173, 189, 239, 247, 254, 260, 272, 276-77, 282-85, 290 Buddhist pilgrimage, 4 Burma, 91, 227, 26 Caitya No. 12, 73-74, 91, 225 Caitya No. 13, 74, 91, 181 Caitya No. 14, 74, 75, 91, 181 caityas, 17, 64, 83, 92, 96n53, 239 caityavandanā, 238, 241-42, 252 Cambodia, 182, 227, 267n47



Index 315

Campā, 28-30 campus plan, 80-86, balance of study and veneration, 80-82, religious and pious, 81-84 Cāṇakya, 103 caṇḍālas, 102 Candragomī, 140, 143, 163, 166, 170, 225, 239, 243 Candrakīrti, 140, 142-45, 159, 172-73, 185-86, 223, 239 Candranātha, 140, 172 Captain Marshall, 59, 68-70, 75, 79, 95n32 Caraka, 103, 109, 176, 206 caturddis-ārya-bhikṣu-saṁghasya, 3, 11, 12, 61, 63-64, 72-74, 77, 84-86, 89-91, 239, 281 cause and effect relationship between education and religion, 273 cell, 12, 64, 72, 74, 84-85, 90-91, 239, 281 central gong, 239 Ceylon, 6, 50, 144, 153, 201, 234, 268-69 Chag-lo-tsa-ba. See Dharmasvāmin21, 26, 65, 148, 157n68 Chandra, 73-74 China, 6, 25-26, 52, 61, 63, 65, 94, 139, 143-44, 146-49, 154, 156-57, 161, 182, 187, 189, 222, 227, 232, 234-35, 258, 262, 265-66, 278-79, 282 Chinese, 5-6, 15-16, 22, 46, 52, 59-63, 65, 67-69, 76, 85, 93-96, 134-35, 138, 141, 144-46, 149, 152, 157, 161-62, 169-70, 174-75, 187, 189, 210-11, 221, 226, 229, 232, 238, 240-41, 243-44, 254, 261, 265-68, 277, 282 Cikitsāvidyā, 164, 168, 282 circumambulating, 248 colonnaded verandah, 72, 84 complementariness, 218 comprehensiveness, 168, 184 construction method, 7, 19, 28-29, 34, 62, 77-78, 83, 86, 99, 144 content-driven curriculum, 162 continuities between pre-Nālandā/ gurukula and Nālandā/ mahāvihāra systems, 117-20

conversion, 143, 169, 223, 249, 262 coordinator, 2, 104, 195 copperplate of Dharmapāla, 6, 19, 23, 71 copperplates of Samudragupta, 51n98, 71, 77 corporal punishment, 34, 119, 151, 200, 209 creation and propagation of doctrines, 108, 116, 128, 138, 184, 261 Cunningham, Alexander, 30, 60, 67-70, 72, 77, 91, 93, 95n32, 100n146, 214, 232n108, 233n111, 233n117, 233n119 curriculum, 6-7, 16, 83, 101-02, 108, 115, 138, 159-63, 166-169, 173-75, 178, 180, 182, 183-88, 193, 197-98, 218, 259, 271, 273-74, 279, 282-83 daily health care, 175, 176, 183, 208 daily life of monastery, 24, 120, 126, 129, 139-40, 143, 173, 193, 198-99, 226, 238-41, 244, 252, 271, 283, 286 dantakāṣṭha or tooth wood, 178, 240 decorated chattis, 73 democratic, 131, 200-01, 254, 287 democratization and popularization of education, 131, 288 demons, 34, 52, 191, 248, 251 Devadatta, 47n18, 220 development of Buddhist self, 165, 172, 238 Dhamma, 13, 38, 50, 128, 143, 161, 165, 167, 188, 200-01, 228, 249, 264, 290 Dhammadhara, 13 Dhāraṇīs, 149, 185-86, 224, 226, 248, 251, 267 Dharma, 22, 63, 98nn90-96, 99n110, 116, 119, 140, 144, 149, 225, 267n61, 287 dharmacakra, 72, 286 dharmacakramudrā, 72 Dharma Deva, 149 Dharmakīrti, 137, 140, 143, 155, 166, 170-71, 173-74, 155n38, 186, 189n3233, 225, 230, 251-52, 256-59, 282, 288 Dharmapāla, 6, 23, 47n27, 71, 140, 145, 147, 155n36, 168, 170, 178, 195 Dhātu, 164



Index 316

Dhīmāna, 178, 180, 224 dhutangas, 9 Dhyānabhadra, 21 dhyānamudrā, 72 Dignāga, 137, 140, 143-44, 147, 155n37, 170, 174, 225, 251-52, 256-59, 288 diversity and specialization of knowledge, 1, 130, 165, 245, 261 domestic system of education, 129-30, 275 dual administration and authority, 25, 196-97 Duddā-vihāra-maṇḍala, 5 Dwārapaṇḍita, or gatekeepers, 134-35, 193-95, 204 economic bases, 27-32, circuit of exchange, 28, devedāna, 31 economic richness of Magadha, 27, 29, hālika-kara, 31, increase in affluent and occupational classes gṛhapati/gaḥapati, kaṣsāka, seṭṭhi, 30, iron technology and multifarious agriculture, 28-29, trade route Uttarāpatha, 29-30, 57n216, second urbanization, 29-30, untouchables, 31, 127, 131, 135, 276 education as propagating force of religion, 41, 129, 272-74 eighteen arts, 102 eightfold path, 133, 222, 256 enlightenment, 8, 13, 36, 40, 42, 112, 118, 127, 171, 173-74, 182, 215, 222, 227 environmental bases, 42-45, haṭṭas, 44, natural defence and beauty, 43-44, nearness to capital cities, 42-43, prosperous and peaceful township, 17, 25, 42-43, sacred religious importance, 43, 64, 76-78, 213-18 ethics, 160, 185, 186, 196, 235, 300 expansion of Buddhist monastic education, 14-16, formal but inclusive learning, 15, 161, 167-68, more participants and broader content, 14-15, to get salvation for society and himself, 15

Faxian, 17, 60-62, 64-65, 67, 93n4, 110, 152, 167, 171, 214, 216, 233n121 festival like celebration, 242-43 financial administration, 197, 209-13 fireplaces/ovens/chulas, 71-73, 86, 90, 175-76, 181, formal logic, 171, 173-74, 187, 257, 259, 268n89 foundation of monastery, 4, 17, 18, Kumāragupta, 18, 50, 51, 77 four Vedas with the six Aṇgas, 15, 108, 274, friendly and supportive, neighborhood, 213-18, 262, 271 games and sports, 245 gandhakuṭi, 84, 85, 99nn109-10, 242, 248 Gandhāra plan, 81 Gaṇeśa, 45, 181, 225, 245 Gaṅgā, 4, 6, 27, 28, 29, 32, 40, 43, 181, 234 gaṇikās, 34 garbhagṛha, 74, 75 Gāthā, 108, 165 Gayā and Bodh Gayā, 4-6, 20, 29, 46, 51, 61-62, 64-65, 67, 95, 100, 194, 210 Geyya, 165 Ghosh, 50n89, 51n99, 73-75, 181 Giriyaka, 65, 67, 214 Gopāla, 7, 19, 20, 69, 95 guides or supervisors, 6-7, 142 Guṇamati, 6, 140 Guṇaprabha, 169 gurukula, 2, 3, 26, 35, 37, 50, 101, 10406, 109-12, 114-16, 118-19, 120-21, 125-31, 150, 162-64, 194, 253, 271, 274-76, 281 gurukula curriculum, 108-11, religious courses, 108-09, non-religious courses, 109-11 guru-śiṣya paramparā, 104-05, 107, 110, 119, 121n19, 150, 274, half monastery half university, 2 happy blending of philosophy and religion, 172 Harappan, 103, 121n16



Index 317

Hāriti, 224, 245, 250 Harṣa or Harṣavardhana, 18-19, 24, 51, 209, 287 healthy and hygienic, 240-41 hermeneutics, 160, 187, 254 Hetuvidyā, 94, 137-38, 164, 168-70, 257, 259, 282 Hīnayāna, 5, 24, 61-62, 94, 130, 161-62, 166-68, 184-85, 195, 198, 217, 221-22, 238, 246, 257, 260, 277 Hiranand Sastri, 4, 46n11, 51n98, 59, 71, 76, 90, 96n49-53, 98n87, 98n96, 99n124, 100n128, 207, 210, 214, 228n4, 233n122, 234n134, 240 historical archaeology, 60, 68, 73, 75, 95n31 human authority of knowledge and learning, 161, 171, 174, 186-87 human-centric science, 173-74 Hūṇa, 19, 51n101, 71, 74 Huyi Li, 62-64, 175 Huyi Lun, 63 ideological origin, 7, religious orientation, 7, 81, 196, 253, 278-79, 288 inclusion of all varṇas, 131 Indonesia, 19, 25 Indrasilaguhā, 62, 65, 68 inscription, 4-5, 18-21, 23, 25, 27-28, 31, 44, 52n124-25, 67-69, 71-72, 75, 77, 84, 89, 93, 95nn37-39, 98nn89-90, 153n6, 178, 181, 191n73, 194, 196, 206-07, 210, 215, 218, 227, 231n91, 233n116, 234n134, 249, 262, 285 institution of religious learning, 125, 133 institutional bases, 37-39, autonomous nature, 39, 129, 196, 274, 285, conversation and religious discourses, 38, growth of pious laity, 38, instruction in Pāli, 39, relationship between Buddhism and mahāvihāra, 37-38, religious lab, 37 institutionalization and legitimation of debate, 136, 138-39

institutionalized instruction, 3, 37, 274, 288 instruction in vernacular, 160-61 intentional transgression of social taboos, 225, 251-52 interconnected and interdependent mahāvihāra, 194, 228n3 international university, 1, 59, 105, 126, 278, 288, 290 intrabuddhistic controversies, 137 Jainism, 4, 26, 30, 32, 35, 37-38, 40-41, 53, 118, 127, 149, 170, 213, 256, 272, 276 Jambhala, 96-97, 180-81, 191, 245 Jambudvīpa, 133 Japan, 146, 154, 187, 222, 227, 235, 278 Jayadeva, 144 Jīvaka, 34, 103, 234n126-27 Jñānaprabha, 139, 161 Jñāna Śrīmitra, 6, 226 Kālacakratantrayāna, 174 Kālacakrayāna, 186, 222, 224-25, 235n155, 246, 251, 260, 277 Kamalaśīla, 137, 140-41, 143-44, 15556, 170, 195, 227, 256, 259, 262, 282, 288 Kaniṣka, 61, 96 Karmadāna, 204, 211-12, 239 Karuṇāśrīmitra, 194 Kathāsaritsāgara, 6, 47, 145 Kaṭhina ceremony, 205, 250 Ke-Ye, 60, 152 khilas, 164, 188n9 Khotan, 146 Kittoe, Markham, 67-69, 95n28, 215, 233n121 Kolitagrāma, 214 Korea, 146, 148, 278 Kośala, 4, 26, 40, 102, 103 Kuṇḍalapura, 67 Kuraishi, 73, 83 laboratories of rituals, 246-52 latrines, 90, 240 leṇa, 11

318

Index

libraries at Dharmagañja, 151-53, 219, 261, Ratnadadhī, 66, 152, Ratnarañjaka, 66, 152, Ratnasāgara, 66, 152 literary education, 102 logic, 13, 30, 133, 143-45, 153, 155, 158, 160, 162, 164, 167-76, 182-83, 189, 193, 228-29, 254-60, 268-69, 282, 288 Madhyadeśa, 140, 143-44, 146, 180, 182 Madhyamakākārika, 185 Madhyamakāvatāra, 169, 185 Mādhyāmika, 141, 168-69, 185-86, 221, 256, 259-60 Magadha/ancient Magadha/Greater Magadha, 4, 20-21, 23, 26-29, 32-33, 35, 39- 41, 43, 47, 50- 53, 55- 57, 62, 65-66, 98, 102-03, 142-43, 146, 175, 180, 182, 188-90, 194, 232-34, 243, 245, 252, 262-64, 275-76 Mahākāla, 245 mahāpaṇḍita, 21, 144, 146 mahāparinirvāṇa, 43, 47n18, 62, 185, 213 mahāpaṭala, 25 Mahāsāṁghika, 56, 159, 167, 194, 213, 232 Mahāvagga, 10, 12, 49, 121-23, 156-57, 188, 229, 281 mahāvihāra, 1-3, 5-8, 12-13, 16-20, 22-24, 26-28, 32, 34-35, 37-39, 41-45, 48, 53, 59-63, 65-66, 68-69, 73, 75-80, 82-83, 86, 91-94, 96, 98-101, 104-05, 118, 125-28, 130-35, 139-47, 149-51, 154, 159-60, 162-64, 166-69, 172, 174, 176, 178, 180-81, 183-84, 186-87, 190, 193203, 205, 207-11, 213, 216-18, 220-21, 223-24, 227, 232-33, 237-42, 244-49, 251-54, 256-57, 259-60, 262, 264, 271, 273-78, 280-82, 284-90 mahāvihāra education, 32, 39, 104-05, 125, 127-28, 130, 141, 253, 274-75 mahāvihāra and state, 207-09 Mahāvīra, 4, 43, 127, 213, 233 Mahāyāna, 5, 24, 47, 62, 66, 82, 94, 96, 130, 137, 140-41, 143-44, 149, 151, 153, 155-56, 159-63, 166-69, 174, 178, 182, 184-87, 191, 195, 198, 203, 214,

217-18, 220-26, 235, 238, 243, 245-48, 251, 254, 260-61, 264, 267, 277, 282, 284-85 Mahāyāna academy, 161-63, 182, 185, 195, 203, 238, 243, 248, 254, 282, 285 Mahāyāna to Tantrayāna, 218-27, 246 Mahāyāna-Sūtrālaṅkāra, 138 Mahiṣasura-mardīni, 181, 191 Maitreyanātha, 169, 189n25, 226 Makkhali Gosāla, 43, 213 management, 25, 60, 142, 193-200, 203, 207, 210-12, 231-32, 237, 244, 271, 279, 286-87 maṇḍala, 91, 207, 223, 226, 251 Mañjuśrī, 180, 224-25, 235, 243, 245, 252 Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa, 51n101 Mañjuvara, 180, 225, 245 mantra, 108, 186, 226, 283 Manu, 34, 107, 113, 114 Marīci, 181, 224, 245 meditation, 10, 12, 14-15, 36, 44, 58, 61, 63, 80-81, 86, 89-91, 100, 106, 109, 116, 139, 142, 151, 160, 171-72, 17475, 180, 185-86, 188, 206, 233, 23739, 244, 246, 248, 251-52, 256, 283 metal casting, 86, 176, 181-83 metal coin of Narasiṁha-Gupta Bālāditya, 74 Middle Ages, 1, 132, 278, 280 Middle Age of Buddhism, 137, 155n25, 161 Mīmāṁṣā, 170, 189 Mithilā, 53, 102, 275 modern Xi’an, 63 modification in curriculum, 184, 261, 273, 277, 280 Moggallāna, 42, 47n18, 118, 214, 264 Mokṣa-deva or Mokṣa-ācārya, 139 monarchism, 43, 47, 118, 214, 264 Monastery No. 1, 19-20, 70-73, 77, 81, 84, 89, 90, 96n52, 98n95, 99n119, 240 Monastery No. 1A, 71, 72, 78, 96n51, 98n95 Monastery No. 1B, 72, 78, 98n95 Monastery No. 3, 21 Monastery No. 4, 72-73, 77, 81, 87

Monastery No. 5, 73, 81 Monastery No. 6, 72, 73, 77 Monastery No. 7, 73, 91 Monastery No. 8, 73 Monastery No. 9, 73 Monastery No. 10, 73-74 Monastery No. 11, 73-74 Monastery No. 12, 73 monastery superseded home, 10, 13031, 249 monastic door open for all, 105, 128, 131, 135, 198, 275, 285. See also inclusion of all varṇas monastic education, 14, 26, 104, 112, 118, 126, 128, 167, 173, 188n13, 195, 262, 271 monastic participation in agriculture and trade, 199, 211-12 monastic scholastic scheme, 2 coordinator, 2, 104, 195 monasticism/institutionalization of Buddhism, 8, 11, 52, 55, 100, 160, 184, 229-30, 264-65 monetized exchange, 198-99, 210, 212, 229n18 Mongolia, 146, 278 monk dominated movement, 195-96 moral, 25, 107, 112, 133, 143-44, 160, 162, 171-72, 176, 216, 238, 245, 253, 255-56, 273, 275, 284, 288 Mudrās, 92, 185-86, 224, 283 Muhammad Bhakhtiyār Khalji, 21-23 mūlagandhakuṭi, 64, 85. Also see gandhakuṭi Mūlasarvāstivāda, 56n199, 167, 194, 260, mural painting, 74, 97nn80-81, 178, 181, 183 Nāgārjuna, 118, 134, 137, 140-41, 144, 151, 155, 159-60, 163, 166, 168, 174, 185-86, 220, 226, 229, 256, 267, 288 Nālandā Art, 178, 180, 182, 224 Nālandā bronzes, 96n52, 180 Nālandā Copper Plate Inscription of king Devapāladeva, 19, 25, 44, 70, 262

Index 319 Nālandā education system, 104, 116, 125, 274, 278, 280 Nālandā-mahāgrahāra, 19 Nālandā Mentor Group, 289 Nālandā’s influences and contributions, 252-65 Nālandā University, 2-3, 282, 288-90 Nā-lo, 61-62, 65-68, 94n7, 95n33, 21415, 233n121 Naropā, 225, 262, Narotpāl, 6 Ñatti, 201, 203, 286 Navakammika, 205 navakarma, 83, 206 Nazim, 73-74, 97n78 Nepal, 6, 25, 52, 65, 134, 143-44, 146, 149, 182, 187, 200, 262, 278, 282 nirvāṇa, 17, 67, 118, 129, 172, 173, 214, 256, 273, 283 niṣkāma bhakti, 186 nissāyas, 9, 14, 119, 123n86 nivāsana, 244, 249 Nyāya, 108-09, 170, 256-57 objectivity, 186-88, 303 Odantapurī, 6-7, 11, 21, 23, 46, 83, 104, 144, 194-95, 214-15, 233, 276, 280 odd jobs, 244-45. See also physical labor open court, 64, 69, 72-73, 85, 90. See also quadrangular court ontology, 170, 255 oral methods of instruction, 106, 120, 135, 142, 167, 220, 251 organization, 2, 10, 37, 39, 89, 110, 129, 133, 144, 159, 172, 193-03, 208, 211, 213, 216-18, 223, 237, 253, 261, 264, 271, 276, 279, 285-86 organized/institutional education system, 126-31. See also Nālandā education system outsiders, 137-38, 147, 161, 169-70, 174, 250, 278, 283-84 pabajjā, 10, 119, 239, 249, 252 Paḍmasaṃbhava, 143-44, 156n56, 269, 282

320

Index

Page, J. A., 71-73, 76, 83, 96n50 Pag-sam-jonzang, 23 Pāla Art, 178, 181-83. See also Pāla school of painting Pāla Kings, 7, 19, 99n109, 152, 181, 195, 262 Pāla school of painting, 181-83 Pāli, 34, 39, 48, 86, 102, 126, 128, 131, 151, 160-61, 165-66, 175, 184, 19899, 204. See also instruction in local dialects, 39, 131, 160-61 Pañcavidyā, 161 paṇḍitas, 6, 21, 139, 141-46, 160, 167, 239 Pāṇini, 103, 108, 164, 276 paper painting, 182-83, Madhyadeśa School of Painting, 180, 182 Pāla style of painting, 182-83 pāramitā, 147, 222 parāvidyā, 109 paripālana, 194, 228n4 pariyatti (teaching), 172 patipatti (practice), 172 Patna or Pāṭaliputra, 4-5, 17, 27, 30, 40, 42-44, 46-50, 58, 61, 77, 95-96, 110, 152, 157, 210, 216, 232-34, 236, 276 pavāraṇā, 12, 201, 250 Pāvārikambavana, 18, 57n213, 213-14, 281 pedagogical tool, 247 philosophy as a way of life, philosophy, 24, 26, 36, 37, 102, 108, 109, 116, 119, 122, 125, 128, 129, 132, 133, 136, 138, 140, 141, 143, 145, 146, 147, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 163, 164, 167, 168, 169, 172, 173, 174, 176, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 189, 190, 191, 193, 207, 226, 237, 238, 253, 254, 256, 258, 259, 260, 261, 264, 267, 268, 269, 274, 282, 285, 288, 289 physical expansion, 6-16 politics and patronage, 6-8, 16-18, 20, 22-23, 195, 208, 212, 216-17, 223 physical and religious mortification, 19-23, destruction by fire, 19, 23, 51n99, systematic crisis within Buddhism, 22

physical labor, 165, 172, 189n38, 206, 244 piṭṭhiācāriya, 102 political bases, 39-42, inclusive religiopolitical policy, 40 political unity and stability, 40, decentralized administration and political hierarchy, 41 polychrome painting, 74-75, 181 ponds, 44, 46, 58, 240 Prabhākarmitra, 140, 144 pradakṣiṅāpatha, 77, 248 Prajñākaramati, 6 Prajñāpāramitā (the goddess of learning), 152, 168, 181-82, 224, 226 Prajñāpāramitā-Sūtra, 66, 168, 182, 226, Aṣṭa Sahaśrīka Prajñāpāramitā, 152, 258 pramāṇa, 147, 258-59 Pramāṇasamuccaya, 137n37, 170, 258-59, 269n96 Prasad, Birendra Nath, 74, 97n81, 98n85, 183 prātimokṣa, 12, 249-50, 252 prayer, 80, 120, 247, 251, 283 pre-Nālandā education system, 116, 280 Prmāṇavārttika, 169, 259 process-driven system, 162 propagation of Buddhism, 8, 25, 37, 128, 132, 143-44, 149, 156n56, 159, 172, 260, 269n105, 272, 282, 288 pure teaching, 13 quadrangular court, 84, 86, 89 Rāhulaśrībhadra, 21, 140, 146 rājadharma, 40, 57 Rājagṛha, 4-5, 10-11, 17, 25, 27-30, 34, 42-44, 47, 51-53, 61, 65, 67, 85, 94, 99, 102-03, 191, 210, 213-15, 220, 234, 276 rathakāras, 34 rational with theoretical debate, 13638, 170, 254 Ratnākaraśānti, 6, 194-95 Ratnāvajra, 6



Index 321

Ratnāvalī (Jewel Garland), 185, 189n25 real Buddhist, 14 reciprocity, 218 religious bases, 35-37, Buddhist legitimation of accumulation, 35-36, middle path of Buddhism, 36, proselyting religion, 36, public religious tournament, 36-37, waknesses of Vedic religion, 35 religious rites, 224, 237, 239, resolution, 150, 201-03, 206 Revanta, 181 Ṛgveda, 28, 34, 103, 105-06, 111, 113, 116, 121n15, 130 Ṛgvedic Age, 104, 114 ritualized agent, 33, 247, 267n45 ṛṣikas, 112 ṛṣis, 106, 111 Śabdavidyā, 94, 164, 168, 282 sacred duties became institutionalized, 139, 238-41 Saddhivihārika, 141, 151 Sahajakāyā, 226 Śakrāditya, 18, 50n91, 63-64, 70, 72, 84 salākā, 200, 202 salvation, 15, 31, 33, 36, 38, 45, 63, 81, 115, 118, 127, 129, 132, 137-38, 142, 150, 154-55, 159-60, 163, 166, 169172, 188-89, 203, 222, 263, 282, 284, 290 samadhi, 185-86, 225 Samājaguhya, 66, 220 sāmanera or śramaṇa, 8-9, 119, 205, 249, 286 Samāvartana, 115 Saṁgha, 3, 10-11, 13, 25, 28, 33, 37-39, 41, 45, 49, 51, 53, 84, 99, 119, 130, 141, 162, 165, 172, 196, 199-200, 20205, 208, 216-18, 220, 225, 229, 231, 242, 248-50, 264-65, 267, 277, 286 saṁghakammas, 201-03, disputatious, 201, non-disputatious, 201 saṁghārāma, 5, 11, 62, 86, 98 Śāṁkhya, 109, 168, 170, 256, 282 Sāñcī, 183, 211, 213, 217, 231 saṅkakṣikā, 244, 249

Śankaradeva, 223 Sanskrit, 4, 11, 34, 38-39, 50-51, 53, 55, 61, 63, 65, 67, 95-96, 103, 112, 119, 121-22, 127, 131, 144-45, 148-49, 152, 161, 176, 222, 230, 256, 262 Sankritayan, 25, 226 Śāntarakṣita, 7, 134, 140, 143-44, 15556, 170, 187, 195, 226, 251, 256, 259, 262, 282, 288 Śāntideva, 134, 142, 173, 187, 223-26, 251-52, 262 sāraha, 220, 226 Sarai Mound, 74, 81, 181 Sāranātha, 180, 182-83, 213, 231n78, 284, 287 sāratha, 28 Sāriputta, 17, 42-43, 45, 47, 58, 61-62, 66-67, 76, 94, 100, 118, 214-15, 264 Sarvāstivādin, 94, 137, 214 Śāstras, 15, 94, 139, 144, 155, 165, 167 scholastic religion, 14, 49n75, 170 scientific and technical education, 102, 173-84, 254, 273, 283, 288 self-control, 9, 238 services to the society, 129, 172 siddhis, 251-52 Śikṣāsamuccaya, 187, 226 Śīlabhadra, 51, 140-42, 144-45, 147, 161, 166, 168, 203, 209, 230 Śilpasthānavidyā, 164, 282 simple life, 24, 35-36, 45, 52, 63, 84-85, 105, 120, 165, 176, 201-02, 217, 219, 221, 238, 245-47, 249, 260, 281-82 Śivaism, 38, 170 Śiva-Pārvatī, 181, 191 smelting furnace, 74, 181 Śmṛti, 38 snātaka, 115, 116, 119, 130, 142, 162, 275 social bases, 32-34, domination of Brāhmaṇas, 34, fast Āryanization of Magadha, 33, foreign territory for Brāhmaṇas, 32-33, late Brāhmaṇization of the Gangetic valley, 33, more liberal in thinking and less conservative in behavior, 32, 276, social tension, 33-34 social interactions, 217, 238-39, 277

322

Index

South Asian education, 1-2, 104-05, 254, 271, 273 spiritual attainment, 24, 30, 35, 38, 112, 116, 118-19, 127-28, 130-31, 133-34, 142, 144, 150, 171, 173-74, 176, 182, 184, 186, 189-90, 202, 212, 224, 24547, 253-54, 256, 263, 273, 275-78, 280, 284, 287-88 Śrāvastī, 4, 28, 30, 47, 55, 114, 181 śreṇī, 42, 110 Sri Lanka, 17, 42-43, 45, 47, 58, 61-62, 66-67, 76, 94, 100, 118, 214-15, 264 Śrī-Nālandā-Mahāvihāra-ārya-bhikṣusaṁghasya, 83-84, 196, 286 stationary monastic culture, 2 Sthaviravāda, 204, 213 Sthiramati, 5, 137, 140, 147, 156, 163, 230 stone casting, 180-82 stucco-tower and figures, 70, 72, 73, 77, 89, 180, 182, studium generale, 2, 279 Stūpa No. 3, 69-70, 72-74, 78, 96nn5051 stūpas and votive stūpas, 20, 62, 64, 70, 72-74, 77, 80, 83, 86, 91, 92, 100n145, 182, 239, 242, 244, 247, 248 Śubhākarasiṁha, 149, 156 Śuṅga-Kuṣāṇa, 40, 48, 287, Śūnya, 226-27 supreme knowledge, 127, 153n6 survey of in and around Nālandā, 78-79 Sūrya, 70, 181, 245 Sūtra Age, 108, 109, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 274 Sūtrakāras, 114, 116 Sūtras, 43, 52, 65, 94, 139, 167, 169, 171, 187, 221, 226 Suttanta, 50, 165, 167, 188, 204 Suttavibhaṅga, 167, 229n18 Suvarṇadvīpa and Yavadvīpa, 19-20, 70, 96 T’ang dynasty, 63 Takṣaśīlā, 2, 29, 101-03, 109-10, 183, 253 Tāmraliptī, 146, 241

tantra, 6, 24-25, 53, 57, 186, 221, 224-27, 235, 252, 262, 283 Tantrāyāna, 130, 217, 277 Tantric Buddhism, 159, 217-23, 225-27, 251, 260, 262 Tantric gods and goddesses, 180-81, 185, 224, 226-27, 246 Tāntrika-Bodhisattvagaṇa, 20 Tārā, 20, 96, 181, 190, 224, 245 Tāranātha, 7, 17, 48, 60, 65-66, 76, 78, 95, 144-47, 152, 155-57, 178, 182, 190, 195, 224, 246, 269 Tathāgatagupta, 18, 50n93, 62 Taṭvasaṁgraha, 156, 167, 259, 262 teaching outside fence, 143 Temple of learning, 16, 18, 35, 133, 167, 281 Temple No. 2, 70, 74, 81, 91, 149, 285 Temple No. 14, 74, 75, 91, 181 Thailand, 153, 158, 227, 231, 266-67 Theology, 167-69, 183 theory of inference, 170, 254, 258-59 Theravāda, 14, 82, 161-62, 189, 217-18, 228, 244, 266-67 third stage of architectural development, 84 Threefold Salutation, 242 Tibet, 6-7, 19, 24-26, 48, 52-53, 65, 14344, 146, 148-49, 154, 156, 173, 176, 182, 187, 215, 227, 230, 235, 259, 262, 278, 282 toothbrush tree, 64 Trailokyavijaya, 181, 224 training, 2-3, 13-15, 21, 31, 36-38, 45, 102, 110, 118-19, 129-30, 132-35, 139, 141, 149-50, 159-66, 171-72, 180, 182-84, 187-88, 193-94, 197-98, 225, 237-39, 244, 247, 253-54, 257, 259, 274-75, 277, 280, 282-84, 288, 290 trairūpya, 170, 257, 259 trans-cultural rituals, 250-51 tribal council, 200, 286, Tripiṭaka, 94, 149, 153, 158, 161, 167-69, 261 trivargasamanvaya, 116 Tsung-lé, 22, 52n123 Turuṣka, 66



Index 323

Udāna, 165 Uddaka Rāmaputta, 118 unorganized education system, 3, 101, 103-04, 129, 253. See also preNālandā education system upādhyāya, 6, 113-14, 119, 123n87, 156n48, 249 upajjhāya, 119, 123, 140-41, 144, 150-51, 163, 202, 217, 244 Upakarma, 107 upanayana, 106, 111, 112, 114, 119, 131, 249 Upaniṣads, 104, 105, 107, 108, 116, 127, 274 upāsakas, 15, 129, 133, 159-60, 163-64, 172, 206, 237 upasampadā, 141, 239, 249, 252 upāsikās, 129 Upāyahṛdaya, 138 uposatha, 201, 205, 239, 249 use of food and clothes against rules, 243-44 Utsarjana, 107 vāda, 169, 170, 225 Vāda-hṛdaya, 257 Vādavidhāna, 257 Vādavidhi, 257 Vāgīśvarī, 20, 95n39 Vaiśeṣika, 109, 170, 260 Vaiṣṇavism, 80, 220, 261 Vajra, 18, 24, 62 Vajrapāṇi, 24, 180, 224, 225, 235, 245, 251 Vajrāsana, 6, 194-95, 236 Vajrasttva, 225, 245 Vajrayāna, 82, 148-49, 161, 174, 184, 186, 214, 222-24, 226-27, 246, 277 Valabhī, 5-6, 11, 46-47, 104, 145, 152, 176, 211, 280 varṇas, 33-34, 106, 113, 131, Brāhmaṇas, 8, 21, 24, 29, 31-35, 40, 104, 106, 108, 111, 113-14, 11618, 127, 133, 140, 143, 149, 186, 263, 274, 285, Kṣatriyas, 111, 117, 127, Śūdras, 33-34, 109, 111, 127-28, 131, 135, 163, 216, 274

Vaiśyas, 33-34, 111, 127-28, 131, 163, 274 varṇāśramadharma, 109 vassāvāsa, 10, 12, 201, 205 Vasubandhu, 50, 118, 140, 143-44, 147, 156n42, 163-64, 166, 168-69, 170, 173-74, 225, 251, 256-57 Vasundharā, 181 Vedāṇgas, 113, 116. See also Aṇgas Vedantists, 260 Vedic asceticism, 8, 105-06, 121n22 Vedic School, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 114, 115, 119, 127, 128, 129, 130, 141, 253, 271, 275 Vedic system of philosophy, 109 Vidyārambha, 113-14 vidyās, 15, 108, 165, 174 vihāras, 7, 8, 10-13, 23, 25, 37, 61-62, 64, 68, 77, 84-86, 93, 99n99, 120, 125-26, 128-29, 131-32, 163, 206, 215, 243, 255, 275, 281-84, 288 Vijñānavāda, 147, 157, 174, 203, 260 Vikramaśīlā, 6, 11, 21, 23-24, 44, 46-48, 83, 100, 104, 176, 194-95, 238, 280 Vinaya, 8, 10-13, 38, 48, 56-58, 61, 68, 128-29, 131, 141-42, 147-48, 167, 169, 172, 175, 185, 188, 195-99, 201-02, 204, 208, 220, 228, 240, 244, 267-68, 275, 284, 286-87, 290 Vinayadhara, 13 Vipulaśrīmitra, 20, 194, 206 Viṣṇu, 181, 245, 264, 281 Vṛtti-Sūtra, 164 Vyākaraṇa, 108, 170 wandering monk culture, 2, Brāhmaṇas and Śramaṇas, 8 well, 3, 28, 72-75, 77, 84, 86, 208, 274 willow, 240 wisdom, 8, 116, 140, 154, 160, 168, 185, 190, 278 women, 34, 102, 111-12, 115, 122n55, 127-28, 131, 149, 216, 234n134, 254, 263, 264, 274, 285

324

Index

worship, 24, 62-64, 80-81, 86, 90, 92, 103, 105, 114, 120, 139, 171, 173, 178, 186, 195, 221-23, 235, 237-39, 241-43, 245-48, 250-51, 261, 283-84, 288 worshipping books, 248 Xuanzang, 5, 18, 26, 36, 42, 46, 56-57, 60, 62-66, 68, 75-76, 78, 80, 91, 93-94, 96, 98, 134-35, 139-40, 142-43, 145-48, 152-53, 157, 161-62, 168-69, 175-76, 187, 193, 203-04, 209-11, 216, 222, 224, 242, 245-46, 248, 250, 256, 258, 261, 266, 284

Yāna Chandra, 140 Yogācāra, 143, 146-47, 156, 186, 221 Yogācārabhūmi, 138, 257 yajñas, 36 Yāmañtaka, 181, 225, 245 Yijing, 6, 25, 26, 31, 41, 44, 45, 46, 56, 58, 60, 63, 64, 65, 76, 78, 80, 83, 94, 120, 133, 134, 138, 142, 145, 146, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 162, 164, 166, 167, 169, 170, 175, 176, 181, 204, 206, 210, 211, 221, 224, 225, 233, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245, 246, 248, 249, 250, 265, 266, 283

About the Author

This book is a long-cherished dream of author Dr. Pintu Kumar intimately related to his research, teaching, and academic endeavors. He specialized in pre-modern history and later in South Asian History of Education during his Masters, MPhil, and PhD degrees from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He has been an assistant professor in the Department of History, Motilal Nehru College (Eve), Delhi University, since July 16, 2009. He has been devoted equally to interdisciplinary research and to teaching. He had an opportunity to demonstrate his experience and sharpen his research interests in pre-modern learning systems at the Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, as Fulbright Visiting Scholar. He has delivered papers at many international seminars in India and abroad, chaired sessions, edited journals, and published numerous articles.

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