Our knowledge of Nalanda comes from three kinds of primary sources: archaeology, epigraphy (the study of inscriptions) and texts that survi...
Our knowledge of Nalanda comes from three kinds of primary sources: archaeology, epigraphy (the study of inscriptions) and texts that survived in foreign lands after Buddhism and its texts disappeared from India by the mid-second millennium. Our chief sources for Nalanda are the writings of Xuanzang and Yijing, who spent two to three and ten years there, respectively. They’ve left us a portrait of its life in the seventh century, including its physical spaces, practices and rhythms of daily life, finances, curriculum and other features of its monastic community.
Legends have long traced Nalanda’s origins to the Buddha himself. One that Xuanzang recorded in the seventh century CE speaks of a naga (serpent) named “Nalanda” who once lived in a pond in a mango grove, later the site of the Mahavihara. “Five hundred merchants,” he adds, “bought [the mango grove] for ten kotis of gold pieces and gave it to the Buddha,” who preached the law here for three months. From then on, it became a site of teaching and learning, and even Nagarjuna, the leading figure of Mahayana Buddhism and a “second Buddha” to some, was said to have taught here in the second century CE (though evidence for this is...
