Nalanda

The original ‘Nālandā Māha Vihāra’ and its associated colleges were established during the Gupta Period in the 5th Century CE. It benefited greatly from centuries of royal patronage across several dynasties, and even received support from Buddhist monarchs outside India. During its heydays 1,300 years ago, where an estimated 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers came from every corner of Asia to acquire knowledge and wisdom at the world’s premier university!

The most impressive structure among the ruins of Nālandā is the former library building – reputedly 9-storeys high and containing Buddhist texts in many languages including Pāli, Sanskrit, and various indigenous scripts!

The ruins of ‘Nālandā Māha Vihāra’ and its colleges cover 14 hectares. In its prime, the institution covered a few hundred hectares, with its towering stupas, temples, monasteries, meditation halls, libraries, parks, and reservoirs. In the late 7th to early 8th Centuries CE, Nālandā hosted 12,000 teachers and students from all over Asia .

There were a series of monasteries and temples built by Indian kings over the centuries. Some monasteries were even ‘sponsored’ or built by foreign monarchs, such as “Temple No.1” which was built by Maharaja Balaputra of Srivijaya Empire (in Southeast Asia), circa 850 CE.

Nālandā was one of the four premier Buddhist ‘universities’ in ancient India, the other three being Vikramashila, Somapurā (in present-day Bangladesh), and Odantapurā.