My sister and I were on a quest to follow the trail of
Ashoka the Great and the modest, docile monk Hiuen Tsang. Ashoka for my sister,
Tsang for me and we figured out plan of action where both these men had traversed
each other’s pathways. Our reference book was “Ashoka: The Search for India’s
Lost Emperor” by Charles Allen and my sister booked me a ticket to join her in Kolkata
and hence we were off to Bihar by the night train.
Nalanda University was built during the Gupta period of the
5th century CE (Current Era)and retained its high standards of
education up until the 1100s, when it was plundered and left in ruins, by the Mamluk Mohammed Khilji' men. Tsang
had travelled across China from Xian, crossing the Gobi desert, the Tian Shan and the
Amu Darya, Uzbekistan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan to reach Bihar. He
took 3 years to arrive at Nalanda, having won hearts along the way as kings of various
states all bowed down to his wisdom and offered him help.
At Nalanda, Tsang
gained more popularity and today it is because of him that Sir Alexander
Cunningham, the chief archeologist of the British, excavated some of the most
important sites of Buddhist history, and Ashokan history. Tsang's travelogue helped the archaeologist locate the lost relics of Buddhist and Indian history, so in my eyes, Tsang is one of the biggest preservers of our history.
Now I had been watching a documentary in Chinese with
English subs on Tsang and the narrator kept pronouncing it as “Naalundaa” so throughout the 2 hour car ride I kept bugging
my sister with an elongated stretch of “Oooh look appa Naalundaa is still quite
far..!” We got lost, our driver tried acting smart and took all the wrong turns
but we finally arrived and I had to go into zen mode to stop myself from
hurtling down the long path to the entrance of ancient Nalanda and throw myself
on the red bricks, sobbing with delight! Ahem.. I took measured steps and we
first visited the museum as it was midday so we decided to cool our heels before
entering the main university campus. The shops lining both the entrance way to
the Nalanda and the museum were highly distracting and the loud, raucous
religious songs playing which sounded like raunchy quacks in that heat were a
serious disturbance. Inside the museum we even saw a mandate on Responsible
Tourism by Bihar tourism board which stated “avoid buying from shops close to
archaeological site as it will promote more shops from being set up” Ironic!
Museum done and my level of anticipation about to reduce me
to a bawling fit, my sister downed two glasses of Zeera paani (she even drank
mine!) and we finally entered the Nalanda premises.
A long walk to the entrance
was flanked by massive gardens on either side and the red brick structure began
with an introductory plaque. Once inside, I wasn’t in 2014 anymore.
Mahavihara is the name given to a Great Learning Centre and
in the times of the Gupta dynasty ( 320-550 CE), Nalanda is said to have been
at its best. With no expenses spared, the state supported an education system
that would not only teach young Buddhist monks about subjects like Metaphysics,
Grammar, Theology and Science, but also Logic, which led to a healthy tradition
of open debates amongst the students. The vast, lush gardens were the site of
much debate or quiet contemplation, as the monks took refuge under the massive
trees. The University could accommodate over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers,
with an average of 3,000 and 5,000 students at any time. The architecture of
the university was considered for many centuries as a masterpiece. It had eight
separate compounds and ten temples, along with many other meditation halls and
classrooms and a library that is said to have been 9 storeys high! The grounds constituted
of lakes and parks and the main complex was built with red bricks and its ruins
occupy an area of 14 hectares.
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| Plaque at the entrance explaining the history |
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| passages leading to inner quarters |
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| rooms lined on one end |
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| alcoves for lanterns and a drainage system! |
We walked from one bricked passage to the other and peered
inside alcoves and large openings which were the rooms with a distinct drainage
system in place and marveled at the vastness of the place. I imagined my docile
Tsang, who was greatly honored by the celebrated teacher Shailabhadra, who is
said to be well conversed in the mnay forms of Buddhism that were in practice
in those days as well as languages like Pali. Shailabhadra had dreamt of a star
pupil who would arrive to him from China so when Tsang came, he was given VIP treatment.
In his yellow robes that were tied like a loin cloth around the waist and hung
just below the knees, Tsang was given betel nuts, nutmegs, rice (long grained
and aromatic, possibly Basmati?? But apparently they were only grown in Bihar)
and some vegetable provided by the locals, where the university which owned
about 200 such villages. I passed a passage and could see my submissive monk
walking along it deep in thought, trying to understand the wisdom of the
gospels of Buddha, while younger monks went about quietly only to break into a
run once outside or twitter at a joke and stifle their laughter everytime they
saw a high abbot.
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| Only a solitary pose when all I wanted was to STAY there! |
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| the main complex area. The plaque says temple area but I read in some sources it was the 9 storied library! |
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| yours truly ;) |
And then it turned out that those 2 glasses of zeera paani had after all NOT been
enough for my sister and she wished to dive into a barrel full of zeera pani so we slowly made our way
back and I left the large gardens and open courtyards, whose walls once rang
with the voices of the debaters. The debates were taken so seriously, that
challengers at any one given time, is defeated, had to either convert to
Buddhism (in case of Hindus), leave the town, forsake their wealth or cut off
their tongues!!!! :O As we contemplated all this and cast an eye on the present
day visitors, a stray sentence caught my attention unfortunately, where the overzealous
guides who had also accosted us at the gate, were bringing in a family of
tourists, complete in wedding attire in the 2pm heat of Bihar. The guide was
telling them about which scenes and movies had been shot in this site and which
actors frequented during shoots. I think that depressed my sister even more
than the lack of zeera pani in her
system and I stopped at one last raunchy shop and bought some Buddhist DVDs
which naturally didn’t work back home in Dhaka!!!
However the good news is that Nalanda has had a rebirth.
Like a phoenix, it rose from the ashes left by Khilji’s men and the rubble that
Sir Cunningham cleared, to be the new Nalanda University, whose Vice
Chancellor is none other than the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.
With a supremely high standard of education, Nalanda is again set to become a university to be reckoned with. I truly hope
it produces the next genre of thinkers and philosophers, the likes of whom we
lost all those centuries ago.
