Nalanda, India

Books by
Usha Alexander

Books by
Namit Arora

Nalanda, Bihar, India (Overview, site map)

"By the mid-first millennium CE, Chinese pilgrims began to arrive on perilous journeys to India. They came seeking Buddhist scholarship and authoritative texts. I present highlights from the surviving records of three of them—Faxian, Xuanzang, Yijing—that provide us vital portraits of Indian social and religious life between 400–700 CE. The 'first and chief difference between India and other nations', wrote Yijing, 'is the peculiar distinction between purity and impurity'. They described ongoing tussles between Brahmins and Bodhisattvas. These Chinese monks' records, translated in the nineteenth century, helped rediscover India's Buddhist antiquity (after Buddhism declined and vanished from India, its texts, monuments and even the Buddha himself were forgotten by the Indians).

"One such rediscovery was Nalanda Mahavihara, a Buddhist monastery in Bihar often considered the first university in the world. Between the fifth and thirteenth centuries, monks from across Asia came here to learn grammar, logic, philosophy, theology, astronomy and medicine. I wander its tranquil ruins and attempt to conjure up the lives of its monks in the seventh century. I introduce their famous teachers and their notable theories, examine the university's financing and more. In the late first millennium, both Indian Buddhism and Nalanda declined for reasons surprisingly different from those peddled in popular histories. I reflect on the stark contrast between Bihar's illustrious past and its dismal present."

—From the Introduction of Namit Arora's Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization.

Official ASI info panel

Entrance area (1, 2)

Entering the Mahavihara

Monastery 5 (info)

Monastery 5 (more)

To inner courtyard (info)

Inner courtyard

Great Monument area

Great Monument / Temple
3 mound (1915�16)

Temple 3 (1915�16)

Monastery 1B (1917�18)

A recent dig (2015)

M numbers indicate monasteries, T numbers indicate temples (Map Source: Wikipedia)

Monastery 1 (info)

Sunrise facing
entrance (more)

A passageway

Indoor plumbing in a room

Another passageway

Wall niches inside a room

Original plaster

Wall plaster / door detail

Covered podium? (more)

Podium from the
other side (more)

Different structures date
from different centuries

Cool doorway design
(more)

A well in the monastery
(interior of the well)

Wall inside a cell (more)

Bricks damaged by
an intense fire (1, 2)

Debating on stage!

Monastery 1A

Monastery 4

Entrance

Passageway (more)

Monastery 6

A water well

A shrine on the right

A community oven

Great Monument,
aka Temple 3 (info)

A shrine atop it once had
a Buddha image (more)

Multiple stairways from
different phases (1, 2, 3)

Temple #3 wall detail

Monastery 8

Courtyard

Gateway

Ancient structures

Monks rooms, one or two
monks per room

Pillared pavilion around a
central courtyard

A large cell, perhaps for a
senior monk

Creepers bursting through
(inside a room)

Balcony around courtyard

Covered balcony (more)

pillar stubs (more)

Monks rooms

Monastery 1

Monastery 7

Monastery 8

Monastery 9

Monastery 10

Pillars around courtyard

A shrine in the center

Another shrine to the right

Monastery 11

Monastery 11 courtyard

Path between temples
and monasteries

Sri Lankan pilgrims

Temple 12

Stairs to upper level

Central structure

Small votive stupas (1, 2)

Temple 2

Sculptured panels (more)

Dates from 7th cent. CE

Depicting Buddhist stories

Amorous couple etc.

Musicians (more)

Musicians

Amorous couple etc.

All pictures in this shaded inset are from July 2006

Approaching the ruins ▒

Monastery 4 ▒

View from the upper floor

Many of the 108 monasteries that once existed here have two or more floors, with 30 or 40 rooms per floor. Only 11 monasteries have been excavated so far. Many of the rest are thought to lie buried under the surrounding villages.

Steps & passages (more)

Well inside monastery 4

Each monastery had a well, often with an octagonal cross-section.

Monks' rooms

Monastery 4 entrance (more)

Shrine across Monastery 4

Across each monastery was a chaitya, or temple, with an image of the Buddha.

A monk's room

Passageway (more)

The local guides say that this is where the visiting scholar Hiuen Tsang meditated, in a dark corner at the end of this corridor (the end where the photographer stands).

Wood fired ovens

These ovens apparently served multiple needs -- cooking ovens, smelting copper, and other laboratory work.

Bathroom with drains

Not a toilet but a bathing / washing place. Well-designed open drains are a common sight in these monasteries.

Catwalk between
Monasteries 1 and 4

Adjacent monasteries were connected by these catwalk like constructions. A narrow corridor between monasteries (this one used as the main entrance to the ruins) is typical.

View of Temple #3 from
Monastery 1

One monk per room,
up to 40 rooms per floor

Monastery 1 courtyard
and grain storage (left)

Temple 12 (more) ▒

Temple 12 steps etc.

Brickwork sample

View from temple 12

Monastery 8 (more) ▒

Monastery 9 ▒

Octagonal well

Podium in Monastery 9

Each monastery had one. It housed a Buddha image and/or was used as a lectern by the teachers.

Former monks' quarters

University corridor (1, 2)

Area near Monastery 4

Temple 13

'Great Monument', or Temple 3 ▒

"This temple is a huge solid structure standing in the middle of a court surrounded by a number of small votive stupas ... [excavations have revealed that a] small original structure was enlarged by later temples built over and around the ruins of earlier ones, the present mound being the result of seven successive accumulations. The three different staircases that can be seen to the north belong to the fifth, sixth and seventh periods respectively ... The fifth of these successively-built temples is the most interesting and the best preserved. It has four corner towers, of which three have been exposed, and was decorated with rows of niches containing well-modeled stucco figures of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas ... The votive stupas sometimes contain in their core bricks inscribed with sacred Buddhist texts. The inscriptions belong to the sixth century A.D., so that it is possible to ascribe the fifth temple to that period. The same period is indicated by the stucco figures, which are fine specimens of Gupta art. Considering the huge accumulations over which the fifth temple was built, it seems that the foundation of the original structure must have been laid at least two centuries earlier.

[--Nalanda, by the Archaeological Survey of India]