Nalanda (history)
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The great monastery
Through the eyes of Chinese pilgrims
Arjun Sengupta, June 23, 2024: The Indian Express
The history of Nalanda — from comprehensive descriptions of the mahavihara, to its origin story and the rules students had to follow — has primarily been written based on Buddhist manuscripts, and travelogues by Chinese and Tibetan pilgrims. Since the early 20th century, modern archaeological evidence has been used to corroborate (or sometimes challenge) these literary sources.
Most quoted among the literary sources is the travelogue of 7th century Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (also known as Hsuan Tsang or Mokshadeva), who travelled across India from 629–645 CE in search of Buddhist manuscripts and “correct” teachings. He spent roughly five years in Nalanda, where he studied under the mahavihara’s grand abbot, Silabhadra.
Xuanzang wrote that 500 merchants bought the land on which the mahavihara would eventually stand for 10 lakh pieces of gold and presented it to the Buddha, who preached there for three months. According to Xuanzang, the first vihara was built at the site in the 1st century BCE.
It would take another half a millennium for Nalanda to become the great hub of learning that it was. Chinese monk Faxian (also known as Fa Hien), who journeyed through Magadh in the beginning of the 5th century CE, did not even mention Nalanda mahavihara. In fact, the earliest archaeological evidence from the ruins of Nalanda — a coin inscribed with the name of Shakraditya (known in non-Buddhist sources as Kumaragupta I, the son of Chandragupta II “Vikramaditya”) — can be dated to between 415-55 CE, when Shakraditya reigned.
Xuanzang too recognised the contributions of Shakraditya and his successors. His biographer Huili wrote, “an old king of this country called Shakraditya…built this convent. After his death his son Buddhagupta continued the vast undertaking… Then his son Tathagata… and his son Baladitya… and his son Vajra…” (as translated by Samuel Beal in 1911).
By the time Xuanzang arrived in the 630s CE, Nalanda mahavihara was in its heyday — “priests, belonging to the convent, or strangers residing therein always reach to the number of 10,000, who all study the Great Vehicle (Mahayana Buddhism), and also… the Vedas and other books… Within the Temple they arrange every day about 100 pulpits for preaching, and the students attend these discourses without any fail, even for a minute”.
But Xuanzhang was not immune from exaggeration. Scholars who study him, by and large, agree that his writings are a “mix of the implausible, the hearsay and a firsthand account”. Available evidence does not corroborate his claim of 10,000 Nalanda residents, a figure that is still commonly cited.
Chinese pilgrim Yijing, who stayed in the mahavihara from 675-685 CE, mentions that “over 3,000” people lived in Nalanda. In Nalanda: Situating the Great Monastery (2015), historian Fredrick M Asher argues that the number of rooms that have been excavated in Nalanda, and their small size, is such that either far fewer monks lived there than what Xuanzang claimed, or the Nalanda site was many times larger than numerous excavations have discovered and what the pilgrim himself describes.
That being said, Nalanda was undoubtedly impressive for its time. In fact, much of Xuanzang and other pilgrims’ descriptions have been corroborated by archaeological excavations at the site.
Huili wrote: “The whole establishment is surrounded by a brick wall… One gate opens into the great college, from which are separated eight other halls, standing in the middle of the sangharama (monastery). The richly adorned towers, and the fairy-like turrets, like pointed hill-tops, are congregated together. The observatories seem to be lost in the vapours of the morning, and the upper rooms tower above the clouds.”
Xuangzang also described “deep, translucent ponds”, with the blue lotus and deep red Kanika flowers blooming on them; Amra groves spreading their shade all over; “pearl-red pillars, carved and ornamented”; and roofs which were covered with tiles “that reflect the light in a thousand shades”.
Yijing’s writings provide a very detailed account of life in Nalanda, which he describes as the “best overall monastery” in the west (of China). For instance, he gave a detailed account of monks’ daily bathing ritual.
“There are more than ten great pools near the Nalanda monastery, and there every morning a ghanti [bell] is sounded to remind the priests of the bathing-hour. Everyone brings a bathing-sheet with him. Sometimes a hundred, sometimes a thousand (priests) leave the monastery together, and proceed in all directions towards these pools, where all of them take a bath” (Yijing’s A Record of The Buddhist Religion, translated by J Takakusu in 1896).
He even describes detailed rules regarding how the underwear and bathing-cloth must be worn, how priests should change their clothes, and even on how they should exit the pool. “When a man is about to come out of the bathing-place, he should shake his body and emerge from the water very slowly lest he should take out some insects adhering to the cloth…. these rules are laid down in the Vinaya texts (of the Buddhist cannon),” Yijing wrote.
Yijing also gave a detailed description of the monks’ living quarters — viharas with a central hall and cells surrounding each.
“There are nine [cells] on each side. Each cell has a surface area of about 10 square feet. Although the doors are high, they are made as a single swinging door so that the monks can all see each other. At each of the four corners, there is a room built of brick. These are the cells of the learned and venerable monks” (translated from sinologist Edouard Chavannes’ original translation of Yijing’s memoirs, quoted in Mary L Stewart’s Nalanda Mahavihara, 1989).
Nalanda was built and sustained by wealthy patrons, from merchants to kings. In Education in Ancient India (2002), Sanskritist Hartmut Scharfe wrote that patrons were not limited to only Buddhists, with “the emblems on their seals show(ing) Lakshmi, Ganesha, Shivalinga and Durga”.
Royal patronage likely began with the Gupta dynasty in the 5th century CE. After the Guptas, Harshavaradhana of Kannauj (known in Buddhist sources as Siladitya) was the most notable patron. According to Xuanzang, who visited Nalanda during Harsha’s reign, “the king of the country respect(ed) and honours(ed) the priests, and remitted the revenues of about 100 villages for the endowment of the convent. Two hundred householders in these villages, day by day, contribute(d) several hundred piculs (unit of weight used in China, roughly 60 kg) of ordinary rice, and several hundred catties (roughly 0.6 kg) in weight of butter and milk… This (was) the source of the perfection of their studies.”
A gradual decline
Even though royal patronage continued into the reign of the Palas (8th-12th century CE), it witnessed a gradual decline due to a number of competing monasteries such as Vikramshila and Somapura came up during the Pala reign.
Socio-political changes also played a part in Nalanda’s decline. “In the eleventh century Islam replaced Buddhism as the greatest trading religion of Asia while the agrarian world within India was gradually lost to the Brahmins,” historian Pintu Kumar wrote in Buddhist Learning in South Asia: Education, Religion, and Culture at the Ancient Sri Nalanda Mahavihara (2015).
The Buddhism that did survive veered sharply towards more tantric and esoteric versions, which borrowed majorly from Brahmanical religion, not the Mahayana Buddhism that Nalanda propagated.
The invasions of the likes of warlord Bhakhtiyar Khalji (late in the 12th Century) were also responsible for Nalanda’s decay, albeit their impact is overstated in popular imagination. As Kumar points out, “It seems illogical that more than five-hundred-year-old traditions of Nalanda had all of a sudden met with their end by an attack”. In fact, he says, there is ample historical evidence that “the megamonastery of Nalanda continued as a functioning institution of Buddhist education well into the thirteenth century”.
