Bookstrapping - Nalanda: How It Changed The World by Abhay K

How groundbreaking was Nalanda, really?

Of all the reasons that a place of learning might achieve prominence, location is NOT the first one that comes to mind! But Nalanda situated near the Magadha capital of Rajagriha, had this massive advantage, stresses author Abhay K in his book, Nalanda: How It Changed The World.

The location was blessed by the great Gautama Buddha who visited Rajagriha, spent time at the Pandava Hills, begged for alms in its streets and meditated there. He also gave some of his most important sermons there. Naturally many disciples of the Buddha emanated from Rajagriha making the place known for its scholarly culture and giving Buddhism wings. And yet, Buddhism died a natural death in India over time, losing out to Brahminism. Curiously enough, other than history buffs, here’s a book every marketer must read; to understand the age old principle -‘differentiate or die!’

Here are our five Bookstrapping insights:

1. Nalanda was never a university built with a blue print. It was initially a stupa in honour of Sariputra, the scholar. Then it became a Vihara for Buddhist monks and finally it evolved into a University (Mahavihara) in the 5th century of the common era. Even after this, monasteries and temples and libraries kept getting added and Nalanda became the seat of great scholars across myriad disciplines. Wow!

2. Talking about his journey to write this book, “Writing Nalanda was like the flow of a river,” says author Abhay K. “When a river starts from the mountains, its currents carry immense force, and along the way the river gathers a lot of material and meanders here and there and then flows calmly before merging into the ocean.”

3. The idea of a ‘university' in the modern sense is recognized as having arrived in the European world via the Arabs; but where did the latter get it from? Archaeologists believe that the medieval Central Asian Islamic colleges called the Madrasas are nothing but an Islamicized form of central Asian Buddhist colleges called the Vihara. The square-rectangular courtyard structure of the Buddhist viharas is considered to have inspired the courtyard structure of colleges and universities across the world, including Oxford and Cambridge.

4. Aryabhatta was one of many greats who studied at Nalanda. This is the man who assigned a place to zero and calculated the exact length of the solar year, a thousand years before Copernicus and Galileo. The scholars at Nalanda also had a profound influence on China - with the celebrated Xuangxang and Yijing leaving written evidences of Nalanda’s glory. Author Abhay K remarks that other countries where translated Buddhist works from the Nalanda period are found are Bhutan, Nepal, Japan, Mongolia, Siberia, Kalmykia and Tibet.

5. The author offers a good range of explanations for Nalanda’s decline - foreign invasions, the resurgence of Brahminism and the decline of patronage to Buddhism.

Abhay K is a poet. His prose is disarmingly simple. And its simplicity is his gift to this present generation. But its Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s quote that delivers the final blow, “When the Brahminical faith inculcated universal love and and devotion to God, proclaiming Buddha to be an avatar of Vishnu, the death knell of Buddhism in India was sounded.”

Differentiate or die?

Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ Asia's first reading coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta.