Nalanda: The university that changed the world (2023)

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230222-nalanda-the-university-that-changed-the-world

by priyankanath • 2 years ago

78 25 2 years ago

bobosha• 2 years ago

The article is great but should have covered some of the other universities across the subcontinent: Nalanda, Vikramshila, Takshila etc were the ancient world's equivalent of Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, Harvard.

dvfjsdhgfv• 2 years ago

Vikramshila

I saw this spelling somewhere before - why do some people use it instead of the more official Vikramashila (Vikramaśilā)?

akprasad• 2 years ago

In Hindi and some other Indian languages, it is common to drop the last short “a” of a Sanskrit word, hence Ram for Rama, Vikram for Vikrama, etc.

ppterodactyl• 2 years ago

Hindi pronunciation of Sanskrit words makes it so (what's called schwa deletion).

sachkris• 2 years ago

Also, Taxila/Takshila here in Sanskrit is तक्षशिला (takṣaśilā).

ummonk2• 2 years ago

Because North Indians drop the trailing schwa (including in parts of compound woods). Annoyingly enough, a lot of them will insist you’re pronouncing it “wrong” if you don’t drop the schwa in your own pronunciation.

pankajdoharey8• 2 years ago

Over 100 Buddhist universities have been found across India Pakistan Bangladesh Afghanistan etc .. How many do you think they should cover? Also several Mahaviharas exist which are now serving as X-ishwara temples, where votive stupas are being worshipped as Shivas ling (phallus). The whole of India was a major buddhist educational hub. Nalanda was the most famous because several chinese travellers have studied in it, which makes it very important. As there notes is our source to determine Indias Buddhist past.

cscurmudgeon4• 2 years ago

Any evidence of the linga claim.

poindi• 2 years ago

I want to respond regarding the lingam statement

Like we can save data on a SD card, people tried to save positivity in a object, so that it can be shared with everyone, ling/lingam is made from a particular material and have a particular shape, the shape its just an oval, like a planets orbit around its star, even if you observe Buddhist stupa is bigger version of the same..

There are elaborate processes of how to install positivity in that, prana pratista or mantra pratista

I have no scientific data on how to save positivity in an object , As a Vipassana meditator I feel my meditation session is very smooth when sitting around few Linga

Ling in Sanskrit refers to a thing, like female and male are referred to as Stri-Ling (woman kind, not women phallus) and Purusha-Ling(man kind)...

So Shiv-Ling mean It is representation of Shiva or what ever

pankajdoharey8• 2 years ago

Bogus article, if Guptas were so called hindu why were they not building any Brahmanical Temple or University? Why not a single Brahman University ever been found. There are several such gaps in Indian history, it needs to be relooked at with evidence.

cscurmudgeon4• 2 years ago

1. https://www.worldhistory.org/Gupta_Architecture/#:~:text=CC%....

2. The Hindu-Buddhist schism is a recent one and partly enlarged due to political reasons. Buddhism was considered another atheist school within Sanatana Dharma.

https://amp.scroll.in/article/1058543/the-idea-that-buddhism...

pankajdoharey8• 2 years ago

What is Hindu Buddhist? Why does Brahman seek evidence for its existence in Buddhist Evidence? This happens only when the other is the illegal occupier such as Hagia Sophia.

__rito__• 2 years ago

Brahmin education system was exclusive to Brahmin and Kshatriyas.

Vedas were taught only to Brahmin males for most of history. And higher philosophy such as Advaita Vedanta were taught only to Brahmins.

There exist many Brahminical schools in India even today where you can gain admission only if you are born to a Brahmin family.

Buddhists paid no attention to caste, and after long interview and/or written tests, people from any caste could gain entrance to Buddhist higher education institutions.

And many Hindu kings, not only Guptas, nurtured and sponsored Buddhist higher ed. institutes and higher officials of their administrations almost always were exclusively gradutes of such institutions.

pankajdoharey8• 2 years ago

Evidence of schools universities and exietnce of the brahman and its language and literature at the time?

ummonk2• 2 years ago

The Guptas built plenty of Hindu temples. You should stop reading weird neo-Buddhist pop history.

pankajdoharey8• 2 years ago

Evidence of the word hindu or brahman and that the temple is built for the Brahman of Hindu ? Any inscription ? Claims arent facts.

dang• 2 years ago

Discussed at the time (of the article):

Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35009063 - March 2023 (265 comments)

nashashmi• 2 years ago

Since 2013 and onwards, there is a spread of disputed information that Turkic Muslim Conquerors in 1190 burnt down Nalanda University. This was disputed by a historian on x.com: https://x.com/tishasaroyan/status/1719220845502173378?s=46&t...

My research into this traces the earliest mention of Bakhtiyar Khalji attacking Nalanda to be in a book published in 2002 that cites evidence obtained in 2001. https://vvgnli.gov.in/sites/default/files/Golden%20Age%20to%...

For Hindi speakers, there is a video disputing the details of Nalanda being burnt by Khalji. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9PZ3wyX5AY. English Transcript is available.

Overall premise of the video is that Nalanda's decline was over several years and could have been led from house fires using open lamps.

echelon_musk• 2 years ago

I've been reading my way through the Visuddhimagga so this story is a pleasant surprise!

Nalanda: The university that changed the world (2023)

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