Facts: World Class University in India with World Funding

Historical University in India

• On 9 December 2006, the New York Times detailed a plan in the works to spend $1 billion to this University.
• A consortium led by Singapore and including China, India, Japan and other nations will attempt to raise $500 million to build a new university and another $500 million to develop necessary infrastructure.
• On 28 May 2007, Merinews reported that the revived university's enrollment will be 1,137 in its first year, and 4,530 by the fifth. In the 'second phase', enrollment will reach 5,812.
• On 12 June 2007, News Post India reported that the Japanese diplomat Noro Motoyasu said that "Japan will fund the setting up an international university in Bihar". The report goes on to say that "The proposed university will be fully residential. In the first phase of the project, seven schools with 46 foreign faculty members and over 400 Indian academics would come up." ... "The university will impart courses in science, philosophy and spiritualism along with other subjects. A renowned international scholar will be its chancellor."

Facts

It was one of the world's first residential universities, i.e., it had dormitories for students. It is also one of the most famous universities. In its heyday, it accommodated over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers. The university was considered an architectural masterpiece, and was marked by a lofty wall and one gate.

 

It had eight separate compounds and ten temples, along with many other meditation halls and classrooms. On the grounds were lakes and parks. The library was located in a nine storied building where meticulous copies of texts were produced. The subjects taught at University covered every field of learning, and it attracted pupils and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey. During the period of Harsha, the monastery is reported to have owned 200 villages given as grants.

 

Nalanda was an ancient center of higher learning in Bihar, India. Historical studies suggest that the University of Nalanda was established during the reign of a king called Śakrāditya.Nalanda University was the first great university in recorded history.

 

The Tang Dynasty Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang left detailed accounts of the university in the 7th century. He described how the regularly laid-out towers, forest of pavilions, harmikas and temples seemed to "soar above the mists in the sky" so that from their cells the monks "might witness the birth of the winds and clouds." The pilgrim states: "An azure pool winds around the monasteries, adorned with the full-blown cups of the blue lotus; the dazzling red flowers of the lovely kanaka hang here and there, and outside groves of mango trees offer the inhabitants their dense and protective shade."
The entrance of many of the viharas in the Nalanda University ruins can be seen with a bow marked floor; the bow was the royal sign of the Guptas.
Libraries

The library of Nalanda, known as Dharma Gunj (Mountain of Truth) or Dharmagañja (Treasury of Truth), was the most renowned repository of Buddhist knowledge in the world at the time. Its collection was said to comprise hundreds of thousands of volumes, so extensive that it burned for approximately more than 6 months when set aflame by Turkish invaders. The library had three main buildings as high as nine stories tall, Ratnasagara (Sea of Jewels), Ratnodadhi (Ocean of Jewels), and Ratnarañjaka (Delighter of Jewels).

 

According to an unattributed article of the Dharma Fellowship (2005), the curriculum of Nalanda University at the time of Mañjuśrīmitra contained:

 

...virtually the entire range of world knowledge then available. Courses were drawn from every field of learning, Buddhist and Hindu, sacred and secular, foreign and native. Students studied science, astronomy, medicine, and logic as diligently as they applied themselves to metaphysics, philosophy, Samkhya, Yoga-shastra, the Veda, and the scriptures of Buddhism. They studied foreign philosophy likewise.

 

In the 7th century, Xuanzang records the number of teachers at Nālandā as being around 1510.

 

History of the university

 

Some historical studies suggest that the University of Nalanda was established during the reign of a king called Śakrāditya.

 

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

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

The final blow came when it was violently destroyed in an Afghan attack led by Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1193. In 1193, the Nalanda University was sacked by Bakhtiyar Khilji, a Turk; this event is seen by scholars as a late milestone in the decline of Buddhism in India. The Persian historian Minhaj-i-Siraj, in his chronicle, reported that thousands of monks were burned alive and thousands beheaded as Khilji tried his best to uproot Buddhism.

 

The last throne-holder of Nalanda, Shakyashribhadra, fled to Tibet in 1204 CE.

 

Historians considers the destruction of the temples, monasteries, centers of learning at Nalanda and northern India to be responsible for the demise of ancient Indian scientific thought in mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, and anatomy.

 

Ruins

A number of ruined structures survive. Nearby is the Surya Mandir, a Hindu temple. The known and excavated ruins extend over an area of about 150,000 square metres, although if Xuanzang's account of Nalanda's extent is correlated with present excavations, almost 90% of it remains unexcavated. Nālandā is no longer inhabited. Today the nearest habitation is a village called Bargaon.

In 1951, a modern centre for Pali (Theravadin) Buddhist studies was founded nearby by Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap, the Nava Nalanda Mahavihara. Presently, this institute is pursuing an ambitious program of satellite imaging of the entire region.

The Nalanda Museum contains a number of manuscripts, and shows many examples of the items that have been excavated. India's first Multimedia Museum was opened on 26 January 2008, which recreates the history of Nalanda using a 3D animation film narrated by Shekhar Suman. Besides this there are four more sections in the Multimedia Museum: Geographical Perspective, Historical Perspective, Hall of Nalanda and Revival of Nalanda.

 

Restoration and revival

Nalanda International University (also known as University of Nalanda or Nalanda University) is the name of a proposed university in Nalanda, Bihar which is expected to be functional from 2013 with seven schools or more and will expand in later years. The university is based on the ideal of the ancient center of higher learning which was present from the 5th century CE to 1197 CE.

On 28th March, 2006 then President of India A.P.J.Abdul Kalam proposed the idea while addressing the Joint Session of the Bihar Vidhan Mandal for revival of Nalanda university.

• The Government of India constituted a Nalanda Mentor Group (NMG) in 2007, under the Chairmanship of Professor Amartya Sen to examine the framework of international cooperation, and proposed structure of partnership, which would govern the establishment of this University as an international centre of education. The University of Nalanda is proposed to be established under the aegis of the East Asia Summit (EAS), as a regional initiative. The NMG also has representatives from Singapore, China, Japan and Thailand. The NMG has met six times. The last meeting was held in New Delhi on 2-3 August 2010.
• The Nalanda University Bill, 2010 was passed on August 21, 2010 in Rajya Sabha and August 26, 2010 in Lok Sabha. The bill received Presidential assent on September 21, 2010 thereby becoming an Act. The University came into existence on November 25, 2010, when the Act was implemented.
• On May 11, 2008, The Times of India reported that host nation India and a consortium of East Asian countries met in New York to further discuss Nalanda plans. It was decided that Nalanda would largely be a post-graduate research university, with the following schools: Buddhist Studies, Philosophy, and Comparative Religion; Historical Studies; International Relations and Peace; Business Management and Development; Languages and Literature; and Ecology and Environmental Studies. The objective of the university was claimed to be "aimed at advancing the concept of an Asian community...and rediscovering old relationships."
• On December 16, 2010, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao contributed US$ 1 million dollars for the Nalanda University during his visit to India.
• In May 2011, George Yeo confirmed his support of the project to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar. During May, Nitish Kumar also met SM Krishna to receive reassurement that the Central Government would allocate sufficient funds to the project.
• On July 7, 2011, iNewsOne reported that a global competition will be held to get the best architectural design for the Nalanda International University at the ancient seat of learning in Bihar, officials said. For the sake of the best design for Nalanda university, a global competition will be held soon,' said N.K. Singh, a member of the Nalanda Mentor Group (NMG) headed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.
• On 15 Nov, 2011 the Economic Times announced that China's ambassador to India, Zhang Yan had handed over a cheque of USD 1 million for the building of a Chinese-type library.

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