A perceptive and well-researched article on
current attempts to re-create the University of Nalanda. M.
http://www.vifindia.org/article/2011/january/27/Recreating-Nalanda-Is-the-Deeper-Raison-d%C3%AAtre-Missing
Recreating Nalanda
- Is the Deeper Raison d’être Missing?
Anirban Ganguly
Research Associate, VIF
The great Nalanda University of yore is being sought to be revived
and the ongoing effort since 2007 has been widely projected and
discussed. It is but natural that the state of Bihar has been
selected as the venue for recreating what was once undoubtedly,
one of the leading knowledge-lighthouses of the world. While the
thought needs national acclaim and the effort national support,
certain uncomfortable questions remain hinting at a certain degree
of confusion or lack of foresight in evolving the support system
that shall eventually see the project through. A brief survey
first, of some of these questions will perhaps give an idea of
the deeper malaise that seems to be subtly plaguing the effort
at its inception.
Why, for example, does the Mentors Group of the proposed university
comprising of public intellectuals, scientists, academics and
bureaucrats not have a single representation from the Tibetan
community.1 A glaring omission considering the historic-religious
link that Tibetan Buddhism and Nalanda had and the fact that successive
Tibetan monarchs in history, had through their munificence, hosted
and established in Tibet a number of masters from the Nalanda
Mahavihara. It was, in fact, through the efforts of these teachers
from Nalanda that the ‘Golden Age of Tibet’ was inaugurated.2
In his seminal study of ‘Indian Teachers of Buddhist Universities’
noted scholar Phanindranath Bose lists at least 14 major and minor
‘Pandits of Nalanda’ who either went on to establish
solid academic credentials in Tibet or wielded a wide influence
in that region through their works. Nalanda sent missionaries
‘to China and to Tibet, notes Bose, and ‘was also a
great centre of Tibetan learning’ where Indian pandits ‘learned
Tibetan [and] translated numerous Buddhists books from the Sanskrit.’
It was through these translations that ‘they [pandits] instilled
the principles of Buddhism in Tibet.3 Numerous historical evidences
exist in support of this link. For example in the eighth century,
king ‘Khri-sro?-deu-tsan’ of Tibet ‘invited several
Indian pandits to his court to propagate Buddhism in his kingdom’,
among the invitees was the great ‘Acarya Santa Raksita.’
It was on the Acarya’s advice that the king constructed ‘the
first Buddhist monastery of Tibet - ‘Sam-ye’. Santa
Raksita worked for 13 years in Tibet and died there in C.E.762.
In recognition of his work for the ‘cause of Buddhism’
he was conferred the honorific of ‘Acarya Bodhisattva’4
by the Tibetans.
Even in our times the Tibetans have done much to keep alive the
flame of Buddhist teaching and knowledge as symbolized by Nalanda
and have propagated it globally. In India their efforts have been
symbolized by such institutions as the Central Institute of Higher
Tibetan Studies at Sarnath, near Varanasi and the Central Institute
of Buddhist Studies in Leh. It would be interesting to recall
that just five days before his death on 27th May, 1964, Jawaharlal
Nehru was closeted with the Dalai Lama in New Delhi and a discussion
on the necessity of establishing a ‘central organisation
to preserve Tibetan knowledge and culture’ ensued.5 The exclusion
thus of the Dalai Lama or his representatives, or of any other
representatives of Tibetan Buddhism from the Mentors Group requires
more than a passing explanation from those entrusted with the
work of drawing up the first plans of the University. The Chief
Mentor, Professor Amartya Sen’s answer, when asked whether
the Dalai Lama was associated with the project that, ‘He
is heading a religion [and being] religiously active may not be
the same as (being) appropriate for religious studies’6 speaks
volumes of the group’s ‘understanding’ of the essence
of religious studies and practice within the Indic paradigm. Being
religiously active was an essential pre-requisite for the study
of religion in the Eastern context. The religion and philosophy
of India was the ‘Science of the Self’ (Adhyatma-vidya)7
and it was only through an assiduous study of this vidya (Science)
that one could begin to practice it. In the ancient Indian scheme
of things, at least when the older Nalanda was in its full bloom,
the dichotomy between being religiously active and studying religion
did never really exist.
While China’s link and relevance to the project is being
reiterated primarily through the Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang) factor
and the historical records which talk of several teachers also
going to China from Nalanda – such as Dharmadeva who visited
China in the latter half of the 10th century and was appointed
‘a member of the Imperial Board for the translation of Indian
Buddhist text’ during the Song Dynasty (C.E. 960-1127),8
- the Tibetan Buddhist connection to Nalanda cannot be discounted
or overlooked. Why the Tibetans, one does not hear, as yet, of
any effort to include the Koreans who, as records indicate, had
also visited Nalanda during a period of thirty years following
Xuanzang’s departure from that seat of learning.9 The inclusion
and involvement of the Tibetans and a host of others, who fell
within the ambit of the influence of Nalanda, as radiated through
its spread of Buddhism, would be a true symbolic representation
of the civilisational and cultural confluence that the ancient
seat actually embodied. A selective approach will only serve to
reinforce the perception that the whole project is imbued with
an exclusionary outlook arising out of the need to satisfy a large
and powerful regional player bent on controlling and infiltrating
academic and knowledge instruments in its neighbourhood. Ironically
it was through Nalanda that India controlled, in a sense, the
mind and thought of China and the whole surrounding region for
nearly two thousand years!
Another question that needs adequate answering in order to clear
the air on the intent and aim of the whole exercise may be mentioned
in passing. Why has the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and
not the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) been designated
as the nodal agency for the University, is not clear. While the
reason given that an international university must be spearheaded
by the MEA and that there should be no centralisation of the function
of education10, is debatable – this was at least an opportunity
for the MHRD to initiate an international project and to strike
greater global partnerships and as well as develop a universal
vision of education and educational systems.
Be that as it may, what perhaps needs greater thought is the
question of the deeper raison d’être of a Nalanda University
in our times. Will it be just another University eventually specializing
in the areas of information technology, management and engineering
– namely the physical sciences – simply to cater to
the inordinate market demand for these subjects? Will the proposed
international university, with a supposedly universal message,
end up functioning as a local body with a provincial vision? Will
it be bogged down by elaborate officialese and follow the beaten
track in pedagogical and instructional methods or will it chart
out an altogether new path in these and recreate the ancient spirit
of learning that Nalanda signified. In his once acclaimed, but
now forgotten work, ‘Men and Thought in Ancient India’
noted historian R.K.Mookerji briefly describes the spirit and
outlook of teaching and learning that once pervaded Nalanda. Nalanda
was, writes Mookerji, ‘a true University in the universality
of its studies, in its ideal of freedom in learning, welcoming
knowledge from all quarters, from all sects and systems, and,
lastly, in its pedagogic method, the method of discussion for
higher learning.’11 Nalanda signified ‘liberty and liberality’
in learning then prevalent all over India, the learners were encouraged
and trained to diligently follow their ‘own tenets, pondering,
urging objections, raising doubts, resolving them, giving etymologies,
disputing, studying, and explaining.’12 It is this principle
of ‘liberty and liberality’ in education – now
lost because of a long strain of an education that has broken
the ‘threads of tradition’ and severed the ‘continuity
of Indian life’13 – that could perhaps be the inspirational
core of the new effort. Any attempt at merely replicating aspects
of the present university system would perhaps only serve to stultify
the original vision.
It has been vociferously argued, for example, that the proposed
university should not exclusively teach ‘Humanities, Arts
and Literature or Historical Studies’14and must equally encourage
other subjects. While there is no apparent fault with that line
of thought, one could equally ask as to why not have an exclusive
centre of international learning dedicated to the furtherance
of the studies of humanities and why not have it in India? There
is a plethora of internationally acclaimed technical institutions
already in India and the government continues to diligently churn
out a whole lot of these annually, while the sore truth is that
the state of humanities in most of our institutions of higher
learning leaves much to be desired. Educational institutions today
that ‘are not institutes of technology or medicine or management’
have lost much of their glitter or preeminence.15 In contrast
Nalanda, though it also taught technical subjects such as medicine
(chikitsa-vidya), mathematics and astronomy, did evolve into a
‘genuine centre of intellectual debate’ by emphasising
subjects such as linguistics, state-craft and logic, apart from
topics of religion-philosophy-metaphysics that were central to
its system.16 Why not therefore, seek to recreate the grandeur
of Nalanda in the field of humanities and make special efforts
in it to develop pioneering courses in humanities?
Another interesting feature of ancient Nalanda, worth considering
and perhaps emulating in the present effort, was the idea of social
responsibility of educational institutions. The ancient University,
it appears, was not just an institution of higher learning isolated
from its surrounding and happy in the thought that its only service
to society was the imparting of knowledge and preparing scholars.
Apart from being a premier seat of learning it was also ‘an
emporium which supplied medicines to the sick, alms to the beggar,
garments to the naked, and shelter to the homeless.’17 It
combined a number of features – a monastery for monks to
reside, a University and a library, a ‘hospital, and finally
a free institution, catering to all the needs of the poor.’18
This spirit of social responsibility could perhaps be revived
today in institutions of higher learning by urging them to undertake
specific developmental projects. The new project of Nalanda may
well be the first to suggest such a practice nationally, for all
institutions of higher learning.
At a deeper level, it could be said, that Nalanda enhanced the
‘phenomenon of [a] peaceful acculturation unparalleled in
the history of religion’ which saw Buddhism spread to central
Asia through Afghanistan and through the ‘Fabled Silk Road’
from India into China.19 It was truly an international university
and ‘races belonging to different climates, habits and languages
were drawn together [there], not in the clash of arms, not in
the conflict of exploitation, but in harmony of life, in amity
and peace.’20 The real raison d’être then of the
whole Nalanda University project could perhaps be the regeneration
of this convergence and unity that the ancient seat symbolized.
The heart and essence of the Indian experience speaks always of
unity and is inspired by the constant ‘intuition of the unity
of all life, and the instinctive and ineradicable conviction that
the recognition of this unity is the highest good and uttermost
freedom.’21 The true universality of the Nalanda project
will only emerge when it projects and manifests this unity through
a global confluence of thought, culture and knowledge and aspires
to become, like the old, ‘the most global university of its
time.’ The sustaining aims of this exercise at recreation
might well be the ones suggested, interestingly, by Jeffrey Garten,
former dean of the Yale School of Management – [it can aspire
to be] ‘a great global university that reaches deep into
the region’s underlying cultural heritage, restores many
of the peaceful links among peoples and cultures that once existed…[it]
should try to recapture the global connectedness of the old one’
and could set a ‘bench mark for mixing nationalities and
cultures’, inject ‘energy and direction into global
subjects’ and develop ‘true international leaders’
and strive for ‘religious reconciliation on a global scale’.22
All of them surprisingly are areas in which Indian civilisation
and thought once excelled. Moreover, an overarching vision shall
easily discern in such a project the potential for developing
a formidable instrument for wielding the influence of soft power
in the region and beyond.
To Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang) and his compatriots, India and
her culture were termed as Yin-tu. It meant the ‘moon’
to them and was applied to India because like the moon, India
[was perceived] to be the ‘only country which, through a
regular succession of great sages, illumined the spiritual darkness
in which humanity was merged at the setting of the sun of the
Buddha.’23
The deeper raison d’être then, of the proposed new
Nalanda in our time, may well be – however esoteric it may
sound to some – the rekindling of this very illumination!
Endnotes/ References
1 : Priyadarsi Dutta, ‘Nalanda Farce Unfolds’, The Pioneer,
September 14, 2010, New Delhi.
2 : Will Durant, Story of Civilisation – Part-I – Our
Oriental Heritage, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954) p.506.
3 : Phanindranath Bose, Indian Teachers of Buddhist Universities,
(Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1923), p.106.
4 : Ibid., pp.124-125.
5 : Dutta, op.cit.,
6 : Andrew Buncomb, ‘University Reborn After 800 Years’,
The Statesman, 5 August, 2010, Kolkata.
7 : Ananda Coomaraswamy, The Dance of Shiva (1918), (New Delhi:
Munshiram Manoharlal, 9th imp, 2009), p.27.
8 : H.D.Sankalia, The University of Nalanda – Studies in
Indian History of The Indian Historical Research Institute –
Vol. XII, (Madras: B.G.Paul & Co., 1934), p.. 202.
9 : A. Ghosh, A Guide to Nalanda, (Delhi: Archeological Survey
of India, 1939), p.43.
10 : Dr. Karan Singh, Rajya Sabha Debate on the Nalanda University
Bill, August, 2010, New Delhi.
11 : Radha Kumud Mookerji, Men and Thought in Ancient India (1924),
(Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, reprint, 1996), p.171.
12 : Ibid., p.172.
13 : Coomaraswamy, op.cit., p.170.
14 : H.K.Dua, Rajya Sabha Debate on the Nalanda University Bill,
August, 2010, New Delhi.
15 : Pavan.K.Varma, Becoming Indian- the Unfinished Revolution
of Culture and Identity, (New Delhi: Allen Lane, 2010), pp. 156-158.
16 : Varma, op.cit., p.158, Mookerji, op.cit., p.170.
17 : Sankalia, op.cit., p.205.
18 : Ibid., pp.205-206.
19 : Michel Danino, Indian Culture and India’s Future, (New
Delhi: D.K.Printworld, 2011), p.52. For a detailed analysis of
this process of acculturation vide chapter on ‘India’s
Gifts to the World.’
20 : Sankalia, op.cit., p.206.
21 : Coomaraswamy, op.cit., pp.21-22.
22 : Jeffrey.E.Garten, ‘Really Old School’, New York
Times, December 9, 2006.
23 : Radha Kumud Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education – Brahmanical
and Buddhist (1947), (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 4th ed., 1969),
p.503.
