Journey to the Heartland – Part 6
Nalanda: Where the
Echoes of Ancient Wisdom Still Whisper
Nalanda lies just
forty kilometres from Rajgir. It was one of the earliest and greatest
residential universities in the world, remaining a renowned centre of learning
for nearly eight hundred years, from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries CE.
Nalanda emerged as a
major monastic and scholastic centre in the fifth century CE, traditionally
associated with the Gupta ruler Kumaragupta I. His successors—Buddhagupta,
Tathagatagupta, Baladitya, and Vajra—established additional monasteries and
temples. Significantly, during this period, many non-Buddhists also became
patrons of Nalanda. The seals, artworks, images, and inscriptions unearthed at
the site point to an ecumenical atmosphere. Archaeologist Hartmut Scharfe notes
that sculptures of Lakshmi, Ganesha, and Durga, as well as a Shiva linga, have
been found at the site.
In the seventh
century, Harshavardhana and his successors continued to nurture this great
institution. According to Xuanzang’s biographer, revenues from about one
hundred villages supported the monastery, with two hundred households
contributing rice, butter, and milk each day. Rulers from as far as Sumatra and
China also provided financial support. Nalanda attracted students and monks
from across India, China, Korea, Tibet, Southeast Asia, and other parts of
Asia.
Today, this once-great
storehouse of knowledge is surrounded by an ordinary settlement whose residents
depend largely on tourism for their livelihood—working as guides, e-auto
drivers, shopkeepers, sculptors, and artisans.
We hired an e-auto for
₹120 per person. Raju, our driver, first took us to the Craft Village, where
local artists live, sculpt, paint, and sell their creations. The campus,
adorned with decorative domes and a serene Buddha statue, was pleasant to walk
around and offered a wide variety of souvenirs.
After visiting the memorial, we travelled
through agricultural fields and lotus ponds typical of rural Bihar to reach the
Tirthankara Mahavir Mandir—a serene, white-marble Jain temple housing a
Digambara idol of Lord Mahavira.
When we stepped out, Raju and his auto were
missing—along with the items we had just purchased at the Craft Village. For a
moment, we feared he had absconded, reflecting the common anxieties often
associated with traveling in the region. But the reality was quite different;
Bihar has transformed in many ways. Raju returned shortly afterwards,
explaining that he had briefly stepped away to drop off a friend nearby. Our
worries instantly dissolved.
Next, we were taken to a small temple housing
a black Buddha idol. However, the venue appeared to be set up primarily to
extract money through forced pujas and rituals. I would not recommend
visiting it—the narrow access lanes were unpleasant, and the overall atmosphere
felt unwelcoming.
Glad to leave that place behind, we finally
reached the ancient ruins of Nalanda, spread across a vast, lush campus right
beside the main road.
Even a full day would not be enough to absorb
the majestic beauty of these remains. Monasteries, temples, stupas, residential
quarters, meditation halls, and classrooms stand crafted in aged red brick,
framed by green trees and gentle winds that seem to whisper the wisdom of
centuries. The complex is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The
towering Sariputra Stupa anchors the complex, surrounded by meticulously
preserved baked-brick monastery walls.
Nalanda was celebrated not only for Buddhist
studies but also for its expansive curriculum, which encompassed logic,
metaphysics, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, grammar, and philosophy. It was
home to generations of eminent philosophers, including masters like Dharmapala
and Dharmakirti. Later accounts describe Nalanda’s legendary library complex, Dharmaganja,
which comprised three grand buildings: Ratnasagara, Ratnodadhi,
and Ratnaranjaka. One of these structures was said to rise nine storeys
high, housing hundreds of thousands of rare manuscripts.
Although the ruins had attracted antiquarian
interest earlier, Sir Alexander Cunningham’s survey in 1861–62 firmly
identified the site as ancient Nalanda, relying on the travelogues of Chinese
pilgrims. Systematic excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India began in
1915. These digs revealed thick layers of ash over several structures,
indicating that a catastrophic fire had swept through the complex.
While Nalanda had survived earlier
invasions—by the Huns in the fifth century and the Gaudas of Bengal in the
eighth century—it suffered a severe blow in 1193 CE when the army of Bakhtiyar
Khilji attacked and plundered the site. The monasteries were destroyed and the
great libraries burned, reportedly smouldering for months and consuming
invaluable centuries of human knowledge. The Persian historian Minhaj-i-Siraj
documented the destruction of the nearby Odantapuri monastery, while
contemporary Tibetan sources record the fall of Nalanda.
Yet, Nalanda did not
completely vanish overnight. Following the initial destruction, many monks
fled, but limited academic activity persisted. A vital surviving account comes
from the biography of the Tibetan pilgrim Dharmaswāmi, who visited Nalanda in 1235–36.
He found the institution severely damaged but not entirely abandoned. Though
most manuscripts were destroyed, survivors were carried off to Nepal and Tibet.
Supported by local royal families, Nalanda continued operating on a small
scale. The venerable ninety-year-old scholar Rahul Śrībhadra was still teaching
a modest group of about seventy students, and Dharmaswāmi studied under him for
six months. He noted that a Brahmin named Jayadeva was arrested and threatened
with death by troops for warning Śrībhadra of an impending raid. At the time,
nearby Odantapuri (present-day Bihar Sharif) served as a military encampment
while monks dispersed. Modern scholars, such as Johan Elverskog, confirm that
small-scale scholarly activity lingered well into the thirteenth century.
Nalanda’s
international legacy is deeply rooted in these cross-cultural visits. Xuanzang
spent significant time here between 630 and 643 CE, studying yoga, grammar,
logic, and Sanskrit under the university’s chancellor, Śīlabhadra, and taking
the name Mokshadeva. Xuanzang described Nalanda as a walled sanctuary with a
grand main entrance opening to eight central halls, surrounded by intricately
decorated towers and steep-roofed structures that seemed to rise out of the
morning mist like something from a fairy tale. He eventually returned to China
with 657 Sanskrit manuscripts (personally translating 75 of them) alongside 520
boxes of relics and texts carried by twenty horses.
Many scholars followed
in his footsteps. The pilgrim Yi Jing arrived around 673 CE, spent nearly a
decade at Nalanda, and returned to China with roughly 400 Sanskrit texts and
300 sacred relics. He meticulously recorded Nalanda’s daily monastic rules, describing
vast multi-room dormitories, large lotus ponds, and a structured daily routine
signaled by the ringing of bells (which notably included a prohibition against
bathing immediately after meals). Korean monks such as Kyom-ik, Hyeon-jo,
Hye-ryun, and Nyeon-gak also undertook the journey; records note that Hyeon-jo
passed away at the university. Tibetan tradition similarly holds that Thonmi
Sambhota studied Sanskrit and Indian scripts here before developing the Tibetan
writing system and influencing the king's conversion to Buddhism.
Under the Pala dynasty
(eighth to twelfth centuries), Nalanda enjoyed rich royal patronage. Even as
Vajrayana Buddhism gained prominence and new learning centres like Jagaddala,
Odantapuri, Somapura, and Vikramashila emerged, Pala kings like Dharmapala and
Devapala continued their support. A Sumatran king built a dedicated monastery
here, and students from Java, Thailand, Indonesia, and Myanmar filled its
halls.
Even during its
decline, intellectual threads remained connected across borders. In 1204 CE,
the Kashmiri master Śākyasribhadra departed Nalanda for Tibet at the invitation
of Tropu Lotsawa, bringing a group of scholars and rare manuscripts with him.
Later, in 1436, the Tibetan scholar Rongtong Sheja Kuntrig founded a Nalanda
Monastery in Tibet, preserving its educational structure. To this day, His
Holiness the Dalai Lama speaks of the unbroken "Nalanda Tradition,"
traced through seventeen great Indian masters. Foreign visitors like the East
Asian monk Dhyānabhadra in the fourteenth century further show that Nalanda’s
intellectual aura lingered far longer than popular history suggests.
By the time we left
Nalanda that evening, the air still felt thick with the weight of history.
Filled with a quiet nostalgia for an era when knowledge illuminated the world
from this very ground, we made our way back to Varanasi via Patna, arriving
late at night.
The next morning, our journey would take us onward to Prayagraj ,the place famous for its Mahakumbh Mela.
