Journey to the Heartland – Part 6 Nalanda: Where the Echoes of Ancient Wisdom Still Whisper

 

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.

From there, we proceeded to the Xuanzang Memorial Hall, built to honour the seventh-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, and traveler who studied at Nalanda. Located just 1.5 km from the ancient university, the memorial combines Indian and Chinese architectural styles, symbolising the historical and cultural exchange between the two civilisations. The concept for the memorial hall was developed in the 1950s, and Xuanzang’s relics along with an endowment were received by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in January 1957. Construction began around 1960, and the restored memorial was formally inaugurated on 12 February 2007 by Indian and Chinese dignitaries. Inside, detailed paintings depict Xuanzang’s long journey along the Silk Route, his years of study and teaching in India, and his monumental scholarly contributions.

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.