Reincarnation of medieval Indian university

Eight centuries after the assault of Nalanda University by a Turkic general, the Buddhist university finally started classes again this week - a milestone described by an Indias lawmaker and member of the university's board as 'a moment of great satisfaction'.

Tourists walk at the ruins of the Nalanda University at Nalanda, India on July 5, 2006. The university, which was forced to close 800 years ago following an attack by a Turkic general, hopes to revive the prestige and wisdom it used to hold as classes for the new academic year started again in September 2014. Prashant Ravi/AP PhotoShow less

NEW DELHI // The last time Nalanda University held classes, it was the 13th century and the campus was still reeling from an attack by a Turkic general whose marauding forces had swept into eastern India all the way from Afghanistan.

Nalanda started a fresh academic year last week, eight centuries after Bakhtiyar Khilji ransacked the great Buddhist university, beheading its resident monks and students, burning its library of manuscripts, and forcing its closure.

The reincarnated Nalanda, near the town of Rajgir in Bihar, aims to revive the prestige and wisdom of the old university, and is located only 12 kilometres from its ruins. Its opening has been modest: nearly all the buildings on its 455-acre campus are still under construction, and its 15 students are taking lessons from 11 faculty members in either environmental or historical studies. For now, classes are being held in a government convention centre.

“More than a thousand students from various countries across the globe had applied,” Gopa Sabharwal, the vice chancellor of the university, told the Press Trust of India last week.

N K Singh, a member of parliament and of the university’s board, which is headed by the Nobel-winning economist Amartya Sen, described the formal start to classes as “a moment of great satisfaction”.

Historical records suggest that Nalanda was founded in the 5th century CE, well before Al Azhar in Cairo and Oxford in Britain; at its peak, as a residential university, it housed 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers.

Scholars flocked here from China, Korea, Japan, Turkey and South-east Asia to consult the hundreds of thousands of religious, scientific and linguistic manuscripts housed in a nine-storey library. The campus boasted tall temples, vast classrooms and meditation halls, set amidst parks and lakes.

One Chinese scholar named Xuan Zang, who visited Nalanda in the 7th century, recounted with wonder his memories of the university. He described its “richly adorned towers” and observatories “lost in the vapours of the morning”.

“The day is not sufficient for asking and answering profound questions,” Xuan Zang wrote of the university’s Buddhist and Hindu residents. “From morning till night they engage in discussion; the old and the young mutually help one another.”

Nalanda was invaded twice before Khilji’s final assault, by other kings, but was rebuilt on each occasions. Khilji’s attack in the 1190s, however, was too brutal to recover from, particularly since the university had no rich royal patrons at the time and was beset by internal chaos as well. Nalanda sputtered along for a few decades more before shutting down altogether.

The idea of reviving Nalanda was first proposed in 2006, by the then-president of India, A P J Abdul Kalam, in a speech to the Bihar legislature. A new Nalanda, Dr Kalam said at the time, could be “a beacon of light for the modern world … This university can be a place for the meeting of minds from the national and international arena.”

In 2010, India’s parliament passed an act approving a budget of 27 billion rupees (Dh1.63bn) for the university. The government of Japan has pledged US$100 million (Dh367m) in funding, keen on participating because of the strong Buddhist character of the bygone Nalanda.

The new Nalanda will offer master’s and doctoral degrees in seven schools, all of which are expected to be fully operational by 2021-22, according to a government note. Dr Sabharwal, the vice chancellor, told the Times of India newspaper last week that construction of the campus would be completed in two years.

Tuition fees range from 200,000 to 300,000 rupees a year. Nalanda has already announced research links with universities in Thailand, Singapore, the United States and the Netherlands. As with the old Nalanda, the new university’s student body is intended to be heavily international; of the 15 students enrolled so far, one is from Japan and another from Bhutan.

The alliances with South-east Asian nations will be an important ancillary benefit to the university, said Aditya Dev Sood, founder of the Centre for Knowledge Societies, a Delhi-based firm that consults on innovation in a range of sectors including higher education.

“I can imagine exchanges of students and faculty, literary and arts exchanges, comparative philosophy programmes all growing very productively thanks to these linkages,” Mr Sood said.

But Nalanda must not merely rest with mirroring its centuries-old predecessor in every way, he added.

“I hope it will do things that are truly different from conventional universities – that it will host events, festivals, gatherings of people from outside the local academic community, that it will allow knowledge to flow freely within, through and beyond its campus,” Mr Sood said. “This is the way for a global Indian university to be truly path-breaking and relevant to the world.”