Destination Nalanda

I can't resist myself from sharing this information about one of my favorite destination - NALANDA. It is one of those few places in the world where you can feel history. Be it walking past the ruins of the Nalanda University spread over an area of 14 hectares of land, or walking past the stupas and monastries where Buddha and his monks lived. You get a feeling of being in face to face with History.

Have you visited Nalanda? Did you experience the same feeling of inherent enlightenment there?

Ruins of NalandaUniversity

Spread over an area of 14 hectares of land, the university was built in the Kushana style of architecture, but the impact of the Pala dynasty is widely evident throughout. Over two thousand teachers and ten thousand students crowded its portals. Kings and Emperors built Monasteries here.

There was a college of fine arts which was endowed by the Gupta Emperor Kumaragupta. The remains excavated at Nalanda reveals Stupas, a large stairway, decorated panels, lecture halls, dormitories for the monks and students, and metal idols of the Buddha.

The main monuments found at Nalanda are the Viharas or Monasteries, Chaityas, Stupas, Votive or Commemorative. There are remains of temples with high standard of sculpture depicting household scenes, dancers, and floral motifs.

This university was totally built in red clay bricks. This university attracted scholars from all over the world. Even Chanakya or Kautilya was once a student of this university. This university was the seat of knowledge for the world. Today only the memories of those glorious days remain preserved in the ruins. Among the ruins one still recognizes the different sections of the place. Particularly the place of worship and the hostels are very distinct. Beautiful lawns surround the whole area.

Amongst the numerous stupas, some of them were built one over the other twice, even thrice, on the same spot. The main stupa is the result of seven successive accumulations of the shrine-chamber on the top, can be approached by the staircase of the sixth period. It presumably contained a colossal image of the Lord Buddha, as the pedestal there would indicate. It derived its name from Na-alam-da, meaning Insatiable in Giving, one of the names by which the Lord Buddha was known.

A row of monastery sites lies from south to north. Almost all of them are of the same pattern. The monastery consisted, as usual, of a number of monk's cells with wide verandas in front, originally set round an open quadrangular court, but later separated from it by a high wall. It was originally a building of two, or probably more storeys, as is apparent from the existence of stairs in the south-east corner. In the courtyard there used to be Lord Buddha's shrine and a well in each monastery.

Thank you so much Ashwini for leading us to the marvelous insight into this great heritage of India. I'm definitely considering adding Nalanda into my list of tours. Can you please share information as to how to reach Nalanda and which is the best time to visit.

Thanks Again.

The best time to visit Nalanda is October to March.

How to reach Nalanda

By Road
Nalanda has a good network of roads, which connect it with other major cities of the state including Patna, Bodhgaya, Rajgir, Delhi, Kolkata are linked to Nalanda by road

By Rail
The nearest railhead is Bakhtiyarpur at the distance of 38 Kms from Nalanda. Being centrally located on the Delhi-Howrah (Kolkata) main line, most of the trains pass through this station. The other nearest stations are Rajgar Rly Station 12 km away; and Gaya 65 km away.

By Air
The nearest airport from Nalanda is at Patna which is 90 kms away. As Patna is the capital of Bihar there are regular flights through and from cities like, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Bangalore.

Thank you Poonam for the detailed information. I'll surely visit Nalanda during the Christmas Holidays.I'm sure the weather will be great then. It'll be great if you can post some info on the other places we can visit along with Nalanda (which of course will be my centre of the trip).

hi

great information regarding Nalanda.....thanks very much for sharing...

Many a times people question if our Government is doing enough to preserve the tradition of the great educational heritage of NALANDA. Well, an effort in that direction has been made through Nav Nalanda Vihar.

Nav Nalanda Vihar was established in 1951 to keep alive the ancient tradition of spreading knowledge. The government of Bihar had set up this institute that teaches Pali very close to the ancient Nalanda university. In the institute, Indian as well as foreign students study and do research work on Buddhism and Pali, which was a widely used language in the ancient times.

That's a bounty of information . Truly, we are so unaware of the great places in Bihar. I hope the government of Bihar should take steps to promote these heritage locations. I'm not quite sure how well conserved Nalanda is but, I really wish to visit it. I'm really curious to see the ruins of the Nalanda University. Isn't Nalanda the institution where Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang studied. I remember reading that in school. Sorry don't remember clearly....

Thank you poonam and ashwini for sharing this information on Nalanda. Can anyone post some pictures of Nalanda please.

Do you know Nalanda has been connoted as one of the Seven Wonders of India ? In a nationwide pioneering campaign organized by NDTV in association with the Tourism Ministry's Incredible India, Nalanda along with 6 others were felicitated.

The ruins of Nalanda University show the status of the education infrastructure during Buddhism period. It is wonderful place and amazing technology used for education, hostel, sun bath in closed bath room and the long cooking burner in the kitchen. In short, this place of study is very calm and peaceful. It is high time that we must renovate and preserve its antiquity which is unique in many ways.

Here is a picture from ruins of the Nalanda.

This is really inspiring. Thank you all for sharing this information on one of India's greatest heritage sites. And many thanks for the picture too Ranjani. I'd love to more about how the Nalanda university operated then...

Was the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang a student of Nalanda? I read it somewhere long ago...not sure...