Foundation of Nalanda University

Foundation of Nalanda University likely in 2009: Amartya Sen

The foundation of the ambitious Nalanda University, which would be a centre of outstanding academic excellence reflecting the collective Asian heritage, is likely to be in the year 2009 and the first teaching class could begin in a few years from then, Nobel Laureate, Amatya Sen, said on Saturday.

Give me Light! Give me Enlightenment! Such has been and is the daily prayer of the Hindus from Vedic times. The fire of knowledge, assures Krishna in the Gita, “turns all karma into ashes.”

From the chanting of the Gayatri to the creation of Gurukulas (Krishna had his education in a Gurukul), from Gurukulas to the universities to Taxila and Nalanda, it has been a glorious march (Jnana Marga) of the Hindus in search of salvation.

Men are of two kinds: the active (Europeans) and the contemplative(Hindus). The former took to karma yoga and the latter to Janna yoga. Which explains why the Hindu civilisation is the richest and greatest of all. The Hindus were naturally known for their Sattwa guna and the Europeans for their rajo guna. Jnana marga and jnana dana came to be closely associated with the Hindus alone.

This explains how the Nalanda university came by its name, for “Nalam” means knowledge “da” means to give dana, Nalanda was the greatest giver of knowledge for either longer centuries till it was destroyed by the Jehadi Muslim invaders. Jnana dana was considered greater than Anna dana by Hindus. This tradition of the Hindus is reflected in every aspect of Hindus civilisation.

Takshashila (Taxila) was perhaps the first university to be built in India. It was mainly devoted to Sanskrit studies. Alexander, the Great, is reported to have met with some of the teachers to Taxila. (They were called Gymnosophistes by the Greeks) And there was Kanchi in the South and Kashi in the North as major centres of learning. Bhojshala in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh is another such university in central India which was started by Vikramadiya.Not to metion Except Kanchi all were destroyed.

Nalanda was built around 427 AD. It began as a Indian University, but came to be an international university. The Hindu dynasty of Guptas made a major contribution to its expansion. And emperor Harsha added many faculties to the university. With 10,000 students, 2000 teachers, Nalanda attracted students and teachers from all over the world and from India.

The university was indeed an architectural wonder with temples, open spaces for recreation, meditation halls, class rooms, lakes, parks, a multi-story library with tens of thousands of manuscripts in Sanskrit and Pali, dormitories for students, etc. Apart from Buddhist studies, Nalanda taught comparative religions, astronomy, fine arts, mathematics, medicine and art of war.

By the 9th century,Nalanda came under attack by Muslim invaders. In 1197 AD, the Khilji commander Bhaktiyar destroyed the Nalanda University.

Learning was suspect in both Christianity and Islam. For a thousand years Europe lived in mental darkness. And Islam is still living in darkness. While the Christians destroyed the best library of Europe, the Muslims destroyed the Library and Museum of Alexandria. Like the Alexandrian Library, Nalanda burnt for months.

For 800 years, the Hindus were not allowed to pursue the jnana marga. Nehru laments in Discovery of India: in 800 years of Muslim rule, they did not build even one college! And had it not been for the law passed by Lord Curzon to protect the great Indian monuments, Nalanda would have been a mere name in Indian history.

Independent India restored the Somnath Temple. Thanks to Dr K M Munshi, a Gujarati. But no Bihari came up with the idea of restoring the Nalanda! Perhaps the idea came first from George Fernandes. In any case, he was the one to approach UNESCO in 1990 for financial assistance. In the event, it is largely financed by Japan.

India needs a world class university like Oxford of Harvard. More so, because the world expects India to provide moral leadership to the world. Nalanda can be the conscience of India, the symbol of our commitment to freedom of thought.

The fear is: Nalanda will end up like Viswabharathi unless it is in the hands of committed men. We are not restoring Nalanda to produce MBAs. Unfortunately, the Mentor Group which is looking after the restoration fails to carry conviction. A Amartya Sen, one of the Group, is not Tagore!

The Mentor Group was right in one thing: they declared that the restoration of Nalanda is part of the Asian renaissance. That is exactly what it is. An Asian renaissance—to be precise, an Asian awakening—is necessary to prepare Asia for a leadership role in the world.

Sen, who heads the Nalanda Mentor Group, said the final report in this regard, is expected to be presented to the East Asia Summit in December this year, which is most likely to be finalized at the fourth meeting of the mentor group in August. The first two meetings of the Nalanda Mentor Group were held in Singapore and Tokyo last year.

''We are expecting that the foundation of the institution, with some luck, would be sometime in 2009. By the time classes begin it has to be more time, possibly an year or two from then,'' Sen said after the conclusion of the third meeting of the Nalanda Mentor Group in New York. The Nalanda Mentor Group also decided to pursue the structure of interim appointment of a rector or registrar who would be stationed at the proposed site to ensure the timely establishment of the university. An eminent academician is likely to be appointed soon for an initial period of five years, he said.

The two day meeting was attended among others by Lord Meghnad Desai, Prof. Emeritus, London School of Economics; Professor Sugata Bose from Harvard University; N K Singh, Deputy Chairman, Bihar Planning Commission, besides high level representation from China, Japan and Singapore.

Terming the establishment of the Nalanda University, a collaborative effort of as many as 16 countries, a challenging project, Sen said: ''This is a new kind of the university in the sense that the subjects are modern and at the same time that we do have an ancient heritage. We also do have the perspective of Asian togetherness, which is very strong. That does not mean that we would not welcome interest and participation from any country in the world, but our focus is Asian, it is an Asian effort and it is distinctly post-imperial in that sense.''

Besides the host India and the 10 ASEAN countries, China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia are part of this collective effort to revive the glorious academic heritage of the historic Nalanda University. The intention is to construct a university in Nalanda on international cooperation across the South and East Asian region with participation from all the countries, with whom the heritage of Nalanda connects, he said.

''We are very keen that we keep our academic standards impeccably very high and faculty with greatest distinction as well as students who are suitable for that kind of studies,'' Sen said, arguing that there would be no compromise with the ''standards'' and standing of the Nalanda University.

Describing his vision of the Nalanda University, Sen said: ''Maintaining past heritage is a very important thing. I think, we have to maintain it through an unconscious process that we respect the past. Nalanda was totally unique as an university, which came to an end at the same time when the Oxford University was being founded and Cambridge was yet to come. It was an outstanding university then, it is maintaining the heritage to be an outstanding university now. Secondly, it was an international university then, and it should be an international university now.''

Sen said: ''It is interesting that the bulk of what we know about Nalanda is not in Sanskrit, but it is in Chinese. It had a global conception then and maintaining that it is important that we should have global conception now and maintain the high standards which teachers there like Huen Tsang would have been proud.''

While the funding aspect of the project would be decided later this year, Sen said the University would six departments / faculties. These are Buddhist Studies, Philosophy and Comparative Religions; Historical Studies; International Relations & Peace Studies; Business Management and Development Studies; Languages and Literature; and Ecology and Ecology and Environmental Studies.

With Bihar Government already acquiring the land, Sen said the location of the Nalanda University would be across the historic site, a large portion of which still has not been excavated. ''We would keep our respectful but visible distance from them.'