Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Bihar today to inaugurate a new campus at Nalanda University near Rajgir’s ancient university ruins. The campus is named after the ancient Nalanda University, which has attracted hundreds of scholars from around the world about 1,600 years ago.
External Affairs minister S Jaishankar and ambassadors from 17 partner countries, including representatives from ASEAN nations, will attend the event. Bihar governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar and chief minister Nitish Kumar will join the Prime Minister.
The university’s interim vice-chancellor, professor Abhay Kumar Singh, said, as quoted by The Hindu, “We consider the visit of the Prime Minister a very prestigious and auspicious occasion. The Prime Minister has made the occasion special because he is bringing the diplomats of East Asia Summit countries. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is also coming. This celebratory spirit will give Nalanda a boost.”
Historical Significance of Nalanda University
The university has been a home to thousands of scholars and the world’s first residential university more than 1,500 years ago in the ancient kingdom of Magadha (present-day Bihar). 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.
It was founded in the 5th century CE and became one of the most renowned universities in the world. It had an impressive staff of 2,000 teachers and 10,000 students from far-flung regions such as China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia. Chinese monk Xuan Zang has offered invaluable insights into the academic and architectural grandeur of ancient Nalanda.
Though the exact age of the university is still not known to the historians, but it did reach its peak of fame during the reign of Pala dynasty in the 8th and 9th centuries CE. It was during this era that the university saw international exposure.
Subjects such as medicine, ancient Indian medical system Ayurveda, religion, Buddhism, mathematics, grammar, astronomy and Indian philosophy were taught there.
However, Nalanda’s most enduring legacy lies in its monumental contributions to mathematics and astronomy. Did you know Aryabhata, the father of Indian mathematics who invented zero, used to teach at Nalanda in the 6th century CE?
The admission into the university was as tough as getting into today’s elite colleges or Ivy League. Students underwent rigorous oral interviews with the university’s top professors. Those who passed were tutored by an eclectic group of scholars under revered Buddhist masters such as Dharmapala and Silabhadra. The university’s library, ‘Dharma Gunj’, or the ‘Mountain of Truth’, was a treasure trove of nine million handwritten palm-leaf manuscripts and the world’s richest repository of Buddhist knowledge.
In the 1190s, the institution was set afire by Bakhtiyar Khilji, a Turko-Afghan military general. The campus blaze reportedly raged for three months, reducing to ashes what was arguably the richest repository of Buddhist wisdom.
The few manuscripts, which survived the destruction, are now safeguarded in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Yarlung Museum in Tibet.
After six centuries, the university was rediscovered in 1812 by Scottish surveyor Francis Buchanan-Hamilton and later identified as the ancient university by Sir Alexander Cunningham in 1861.
Revival of Nalanda University
In 2006, former president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam proposed the re-establishment of the university during a session of the Bihar State Legislative Assembly. The idea found strong support, leading to the passing of the Nalanda University Bill in 2010.
In 2014, the new university began operating from a temporary location with just 14 students. The temporary location at the International Convention Centre in Rajgir, 10 km from ancient Nalanda, was inaugurated in September 2014 by the then-external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.
Former president Pranab Mukherjee laid the foundation stone for the permanent campus in Pilkhi village in Rajgir in 2016. Construction on the new campus started in 2017.
About the New Campus
The new campus merges eco-friendly architecture with ancient Vaastu principles, creating a net-zero carbon footprint campus spread over 100 acres. A 1.2-MW AC biogas-based waste-to-energy plant is in the last phase of completion.
It features two academic blocks with 40 classrooms accommodating nearly 1,900 students, two administrative blocks, two auditoriums with a combined seating capacity of over 300, and hostels housing up to 550 students. The residential area includes 197 academic housing units, ensuring comfort and convenience for faculty and students alike.
The new campus also has a guesthouse, an international centre, a dining hall with a capacity of 1,000, an Amphitheatre that can accommodate up to 2,000, and essential amenities such as a sports complex, a medical centre, a commercial centre, and a faculty club.
A library with a capacity to hold 300,000 books and 3,000 users is scheduled for completion in September.
The university has six schools – the school of Buddhist studies, philosophy and comparative religions, the school of historical studies, the school of ecology and environmental studies, the school of sustainable development and management, the school of languages and literature, and the school of international relations and peace studies, which is yet to commence.
It also has four centres – the Center for Bay of Bengal Studies, Center for Indo-Persian Studies, Centre for Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies, and a Common Archival Resource Center.
The university currently offers postgraduate and doctoral research courses, short-term certificate courses, and 137 scholarships for international students.