History of Nalanda University & Update with Interesting Facts
Nalanda University Updates:
NEW DELHI: Prime minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated the new campus of Nalanda university in Rajgir, Bihar. The ceremony was attended by several dignitaries, including external affairs minister S Jaishankar and ambassadors form various country.
Highlighting the broader significance, Modi said: “My mission is to see India become the centre of education and knowledge for the world. My mission is that India should again be recognised as the most prominent knowledge centre of the world.” He asserted that India is “transforming its education system” as part of its mission to become a developed nation on the 100th year of its independence.
History of Nalanda University:
Nalanda University, situated in the ancient kingdom of Magadha (modern-day Bihar), was established in the 5th century CE. Nalanda was located near the city of Rajagriha or the present-day Rajgir, close to Pataliputra or the present-day Patna. Renowned as the world’s first residential university, it attracted scholars form across the globe, including China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia.
who Destroyed Nalanda University:
In the 1190s, the institution fell victim to arson by Bakhtiyar Khilji, a Turko-Afghan military general. The devastating fire raged for three months, destroying what was arguably the most valuable collection of Buddhist wisdom.
Some manuscripts that survived the destruction are now preserved in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Yarlung Museum in Tibet. After six centuries of obscurity, the university was rediscovered in 1812 by Scottish surveyor Francis Buchanan-Hamilton. Later, in 1861, it was officially identified as the ancient university by Sir Alexander Cunningham.
Revival of Nalanda University:
In a bid to revive its legacy, the idea to re-establish Nalanda University was proposed by former president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in 2006. This vision gained momentum with the passing of the Nalanda University Bill in 2010, leading to its operational launch in 2014 from a temporary location near Rajgir.
Former president Pranab Mukherjee laid the foundation stone for the permanent campus in 2016 at Pilkhi village, Rajgir. Construction commenced in 2017, culminating in the inauguration of the new campus today.
(source: The Economic Times )
It’s no secret that Nalanda was an acclaimed centre of learning, not only in India, but also in the world. During its heyday, Nalanda was located near the city of Rajagriha or the present-day Rajgir, not too far away from Pataliputra or the present-day Patna.
More than 500 years before Oxford University was founded, India’s Nalanda University was home to nine million books and attracted 10,000 students from around the world.
The winter morning was cloaked in thick fog. 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.
After 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.
Founded 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. They gathered here to learn medicine, logic, mathematics and – above all – Buddhist principles from some of the era’s most revered scholars. As the Dalai Lama once stated: “The source of all the [Buddhist] knowledge we have, has come from Nalanda.”
(source: BBC )
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