And the stucco produced here influenced ecclesiastical art in Thailand, and metal art migrated from here to Tibet and the Malayan peninsula.īut perhaps Nalanda's most profound and lingering legacy is its achievements in mathematics and astronomy.Īryabhata, considered the father of Indian mathematics, is speculated to have headed the university in the 6th Century CE. Other Buddhist institutions drew inspiration from the campus' design of open courtyards enclosed by prayer halls and lecture rooms. The ancient Indian medical system of Ayurveda, which is rooted in nature-based healing methods, was widely taught at Nalanda and then migrated to other parts of India via alumni.
The liberal cultural and religious traditions that evolved under their reign would form the core of Nalanda's multidisciplinary academic curriculum, which blended intellectual Buddhism with a higher knowledge in different fields. Interestingly, the monarchs of the Gupta Empire that founded the Buddhist monastic university were devout Hindus, but sympathetic and accepting towards Buddhism and the growing Buddhist intellectual fervour and philosophical writings of the time. What's more, Nalanda's enlightened approach to philosophy and religion would help shape the culture of Asia long after the university ceased to exist. The monastic university predates the University of Oxford and Europe's oldest university, Bologna, by more than 500 years. In the more-than seven centuries that Nalanda flourished, there was nothing else like it in the world. As the Dalai Lama once stated: "The source of all the knowledge we have, has come from Nalanda."
They gathered here to learn medicine, logic, mathematics and – above all – Buddhist principles from some of the era's most revered scholars. Our car swerved past horse-drawn carriages, a mode of transport still popular in the rural reaches of the eastern Indian state of Bihar, the trotting horses and turbaned coachmen looking like shadowy apparitions in the pearly-white mist.Īfter spending a night in the town of Bodhgaya, the ancient settlement where Lord Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment, I set out that morning for Nalanda, whose red-brick ruins are all that remain of one of the greatest centres of learning in the ancient world.įounded in 427 CE, Nalanda is considered the world's first residential university, a sort of medieval Ivy League institution home to nine million books that attracted 10,000 students from across Eastern and Central Asia. The winter morning was cloaked in thick fog.
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