NALANDA UNIVERSITY

NALANDA UNIVERSITY

         

What is the oldest university in the world?---Nalanda  

          Bolgna-in1088,Paris in1091, Oxford -in1167,Cambridge-in 1209.Nalanda was violently destroyed in an Afghan attack led by the ruthless conqueror,Bakhtiyar Khiliji in 1193.Nalanda university was an internationally renowned centre of higher education in India,which was established in the early fifth century, was ending its continuous existence of more than seven hundred years as  oxford and Cambridge were being founded, and even compared with oldest European university Bologna,Nalanda was  more than six hundred years old, when Bologna was born.Nalanda would be  the oldest university in the world.

          Nalanda was an old centre of learning that attracted students from many countries in the world,particularly China and Tibet,Korea and Japan and the rest of Asia.Nalanda a residential university had at its peak 10,000 students studying various subjects. Chinese students in particular,such as Xuanzang and YiJing in seventh century,wrote extensively on what they saw and what the educational standards in Nalanda. Nalanda is the only non-chinese scholar was educated in the history of ancient China. Nalanda was a larger social culture belong

          Nalanda was a Buddhist foundation,as were Vikramshila and Odantapuri, and surely the central focus of these institutions were studies of Buddhist philosophy and practice.The point to remember here is that by the nature of the philosophy of Buddha,whose on enlightment, there was a basic epistemic and ethical curiosity in the tradition of intellectual Buddhism that sought knowledge in many different fields. Some of the fields were directly related to Buddhist commitments,such as medicinee and health care.

         

Ref: words from Amartya Sen's keynote address at the 98th indian Science Congress in Chennai on Jan4,2011.Dr Anartya Sen,who won the Nobel prize in economics in 1998 and was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1999, is professor of economics in U.S and chairman of the interim governing Board of Nalanda University.

Prof.John Kurakar