[HN Gopher] Nalanda University flourished for more than seven ce...
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Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries
Author : bobosha
Score : 122 points
Date : 2023-03-03 13:08 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| xony wrote:
| [dead]
| ugh123 wrote:
| Bare with me here:
|
| Why is it that articles need to start with lines like
|
| > "The winter morning was cloaked in thick fog..."
|
| and postpone the _actual information_ pertaining to the title?
| Instead, we have to sift through irrelevant story-like content to
| get to the meat of the information and facts.
|
| Will one promise of tools like ChatGPT and their successors be to
| summarize-away this fluff?
| msla wrote:
| > Bare with me here:
|
| Most people would pay money to ensure I don't.
|
| > Instead, we have to sift through irrelevant story-like
| content to get to the meat of the information and facts.
|
| Because journalists are frustrated novelists, and editors think
| the "human interest" angle sells.
| nothrowaways wrote:
| 9 million books and 10k students - Unrealistic.
| kshacker wrote:
| Why? Books need not be unique books. There could be variations
| of the same book. For example, many books / scriptures were
| still being reconciled as recently as 100 years back and there
| are so many versions of ramayana available from one corner of
| Asia to another corner, that I would expect a respectable
| university to try to look at the variations and do some kind of
| lineage analysis. And also book may not imply a 1000 page book,
| it could also mean an 8 page manuscript.
|
| Does 9 million sound big, sure? But in the absence of other
| information, maybe we can debate the quantum of overstatement
| rather than just assuming that since we can't explain it,
| everything related to it may be fake.
|
| And last point, maybe there were 9 million books. What's a
| university if it does not have more than one book per student
| especially if they built that library over 700 years. Maybe
| each student had an annual journal which is classified as a
| book.
| 22SAS wrote:
| [flagged]
| sbmthakur wrote:
| Is BBC following Hindu nationalist propaganda?
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Actually a fair bit of the BBC article appears to have been
| derived from Wikipedia.
| lazyninja987 wrote:
| [dead]
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| that is what most want us to believe or argue about. :)
| 22SAS wrote:
| The author could be a nationalist bloke. I have seen a lot
| of nationalistic nonsense come from Bengalis.
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| 'could be' many things. :) But what centrists should do
| is research and allow research to happen. Not silence.
| rewriting history is not shameful.
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| everything is propaganda. Including painting nationalists as
| those behind these articles. :)
|
| Unfortunately no one wants to research because many tame any
| research as rightwing propaganda.
|
| No research has been done as to how an 80ton stone was moved
| 100s of km and lifted 20 stories up to build temples for
| example.
| steponlego wrote:
| Why wouldn't Hindus have a country? Muslims got two in the
| partition.
| 22SAS wrote:
| What does my post have to do with Hindus having/not having
| a land of their own?
| steponlego wrote:
| It seems extremely obvious if you just think for a
| second. Are you aware that British India was partitioned
| along ethno-religious lines? I'm a little shocked that
| you're so confused...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I guess Nepal is chopped liver then?
| vinay427 wrote:
| Assuming you mean Pakistan and Bangladesh, the latter was
| not formed in the partition and was a province of Pakistan.
| shaan7 wrote:
| Why exactly should there be a country based on which
| nonexistent god they believe in?
| steponlego wrote:
| Are you aware that there are many dozens of such
| countries?
| shaan7 wrote:
| Yes, hence the "should". Just because something exists
| doesn't mean it is always justified or sensible.
| tw600040 wrote:
| It's like weapons policy. If country A is going to have
| them country B will be foolish not to have them.
| steponlego wrote:
| Who are you to judge them though? Seems like a
| colonizer's attitude.
| shaan7 wrote:
| I am not in a position to judge them. I am asking _you_
| why you believe religion is a good basis to define a
| country.
| steponlego wrote:
| I'm a Christian, it's right in our Bible. God divided the
| nations. For most of the history of nations, division
| along ethnic and religious lines wasn't controversial and
| was in fact the default. You'll find large numbers of
| Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, and Buddhists among others
| who agree. Perhaps, the vast majority of all of them.
|
| It might not sound that progressive but nobody ever told
| us what we're progressing towards, that's a whole
| separate problem though.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| You might want to Google "Ganga-Jamni tehzeeb" and
| "composite culture" and read a little and then get back
| to us here. And by the way my family lived that, it
| wasn't some academic thing historians cooked up.
| [deleted]
| seatac76 wrote:
| Did you even read the article? It seems well researched, if
| anything it alludes to the uncertainty inherent in
| determining with accuracy what happened centuries ago.
| MPlus88 wrote:
| [dead]
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I went to the university in Salamanca Spain, founded 1218.
|
| There were a lot of old buildings, but nowhere was there a
| Salamanca U t-shirt as a souvenir (and FYI, the Rome University
| sweatshirts aren't official--the biz school sells some polos, but
| that's it).
| tom-thistime wrote:
| Exactly. The BBC must show us a Nalanda U hoodie, _with_ a
| copyrighted logo, or else abandon these wild claims! Did this
| so-called 'university' even have a lacrosse team??
|
| Irony notice: this comment contains irony.
| badblade wrote:
| Destroy the past to enslave was the common tactic used in those
| days. Thats why it is so important to preserve the past even
| today.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| The word university means something. Nalanda University was never
| a university.
|
| Neither was Al-Qarawiyin in Morocco (until the 1960s).
|
| These were religious schools, or in some cases schools for
| limited higher education subjects, and before Bologna, there were
| plenty of them in Europe too.
|
| Bologna was the first multi-subject, public higher degree-
| granting institution in history. It _invented the term_
| "University" (from _universitas magistrorum et scholarium_ ).
| Claims that Nalanda or Al-Qarawiyin etc. were ancient
| "universities" is mostly propaganda which does not serve them
| well nor allow us to appreciate their important historical
| position.
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| This take, whether you realize it or not, is precisely how a
| Western-centric perspective misses large swaths of actual human
| history. The West did not invent the concept of a university.
| Like much of Western thought and society, it was quite late to
| the party from its Eastern counterparts. When you take a
| *modern* definition of the word "university" and compare it to
| facts about a *nearly 2 millennia old educational intuition*,
| you should expect at least some technical, minute, semantic
| differences.
| eddsh1994 wrote:
| Before people invented the word running, did they just walk
| fast everywhere?
| canadaduane wrote:
| Every university older than 100 years that I can think of
| evolved from a religious school at some point in its history.
| mzs wrote:
| NYU and its predecessor are counter examples.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| As are the land grant schools in the US, from the late
| 1800s. And UVA, founded in 1819.
| yrdmb wrote:
| > These were religious schools
|
| So were most of the world greatest universities - harvard,
| yale, oxford, etc.
|
| Modern universities as we know it ( secular, research based,
| etc ) started with the humboldtian model in the 1800s.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldtian_model_of_higher_ed...
|
| Neither Bologna, nor nalanda, are universities as currently
| defined.
| mahastore wrote:
| The word gravity means something. There was no gravitation
| before 1665.
| namaria wrote:
| > It invented the term "University" (from universitas
| magistrorum et scholarium)
|
| "Universal guild of (...)" was a pretty common preamble for a
| few centuries. It stuck for student guilds - because it all
| started as rich kids hiring tutors as a group. Whatever they
| were doing in Bologna in the 13th century is as far as the
| modern research university as what they did in Nalanda.
| screye wrote:
| > These were religious schools
|
| In an era where all philosophy, sociology & science was
| Religion, it sounds fairly comprehensive. All universities were
| religious. The west simply like to treat universities by and
| for Christian denominations as somehow devoid of religion.
|
| > Bologna was the first multi-subject, public higher degree-
| granting institution in history. It invented the term
| "University"
|
| You can use this self-fulfilling characterization for any topic
| to establish faux-authoritativeness. See -->> Stand up comedy
| was invented in the US. Rakugo[1] may have been invented
| before, has a single performer who weaves an original story
| through comedic scenarios, but they don't stand up. And after
| all, if they aren't standing up, is it stand up at all ? The
| limitations of one institution give it identity, while the
| limitations of the other render if unworthy. Hypocrisy at its
| finest.
|
| Nalanda was a university in the spirit of what it means for an
| institution to be a university.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakugo
| vishalchandra wrote:
| In a similar way it's possible to quibble over the definition
| of the word democracy.
|
| If the ability of women to vote is considered essential for
| democracy, then the world's oldest democracy is New Zealand and
| not the US.
|
| But rather than going by dictated definitions, if we go by
| popular perceptions of the words, then Nalanda is a university
| and US became a democracy before New Zealand.
| calt wrote:
| What is the meaning of University, and why don't these old
| "universities" meet the criteria?
| naravara wrote:
| Western academia has a bias towards defining religious
| institutions out of consideration as true academia. You see
| this in philosophy departments too where philosophers love to
| argue that Eastern philosophy is "more religion than
| philosophy" even though that statement is basically begging a
| whole host of questions about what religion and philosophy
| even is.
|
| Religion, as an element of society that is discrete from our
| understandings of just how stuff in the world works, is a
| conception that was pretty unique to Christian civilization
| (and specifically Protestantism at that) which became
| generalized due to Western European cultural and economic
| dominance.
|
| Most other times and places just didn't view them as being
| all that distinct. Their religious traditions didn't insist
| on strict separations between worldly pursuits and spiritual
| ones and often didn't really separate the formal institutions
| from each other. Most people would just adopt bits and pieces
| of all the various intellectual traditions from the priests
| and monks, but they'd adapt them into their personal or
| family practices. Normal people today would not try and
| identify themselves as "deontologists" or "utilitarians"
| today. They pick these ideas up from the nerds and applied
| them to their lives, but it wasn't really important for them
| to identify as one or another the way we insist folks split
| hairs as to whether they're Christian or Buddhist or Taoist
| or whatever now. These were intense (and sometimes violent)
| arguments among the intelligentsia, but not so much outside
| of that.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > Western academia has a bias towards defining religious
| institutions out of consideration as true academia.
|
| My alma mater offers a BA in Theology and Religion: https:/
| /www.exeter.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/theolog...
|
| Oxford has a Faculty of Theology and Religion:
| https://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/
|
| Cambridge (the original one) has a Faculty of Divinity:
| https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/
|
| Perhaps what you say is true of lesser institutions.
| namaria wrote:
| It was common in medieval Europe to name civil associations
| as "Universal guilds". It just means it was The Guild for
| that trade at that city.
| [deleted]
| SeanLuke wrote:
| The University of Bologna, where the word University came
| from, was:
|
| 1. A higher-education degree-awarding school
|
| 2. Offering publically recognized, official secular diplomas:
| originally they were grammar, rhetoric, logic, and different
| kinds of law, in addition to theology.
| Anglican34 wrote:
| [flagged]
| jltsiren wrote:
| Medieval universities were in many ways similar to the higher
| education part of medieval madrasas. Both started as religious
| schools that expanded to teach a wide range of subjects. The
| difference is that the university tradition thrived because
| Europe prospered, while the madrasa tradition stagnated because
| the Islamic world fell behind.
|
| The real question is a matter of definitions. Is a university a
| insitute of higher education that follows the university
| tradition? Or is it any institute with a similar role in the
| society, regardless of its traditions?
| [deleted]
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| If they called it an academy, would that be better?
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Sure? There are lots of resonable terms. And I don't want to
| denegrate Nalanda nor its historical import. But Bologna
| invented the concept and coined the term to specifically
| describe a new kind of institution with certain critical and
| (for the time) novel characteristics which carry on in modern
| universities. I think describing Nalanda as a university is
| like saying the Blue Mosque is a cathedral. It's an
| impressive an important religious building in of itself: but
| it's not a cathedral.
| throwaway2729 wrote:
| This is just whitewashing history.
| kumarm wrote:
| From the article:
|
| They gathered here to learn medicine, logic, mathematics and -
| above all - Buddhist principles from some of the era's most
| revered scholars.
|
| How is that not multi-subject?
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| Propaganda is a strong term that suggests an ulterior motive.
| What is the ulterior motive here for calling Nalanda a
| university?
| SeanLuke wrote:
| You can't think of one?
| weakfish wrote:
| Burden of proof is on you.
| throwaway280382 wrote:
| Right wing hindu propaganda that "hindus/indians were better
| than other people but were subjugated by muslims and
| English". Current administration in India is part of the
| right wing.
|
| Source: My biases as an Indian
| rvense wrote:
| And what's funny is that not even this concept did the
| Indians invent themselves, it's just a blatant rip-off of
| the Arab tradition of blaming everything on the Mongols
| sacking Baghdad! /s
| sremani wrote:
| India has a rich history than far pre-dates 'hindus' from
| Indus Valley Civilization to this day. On top of it Nalanda
| as Buddhist institution of learning is being highlighted
| here.
|
| If you are going to define what is historical truth or
| propaganda based on who resides in the PMO of India, then
| you should just stay away from this subject.
| screye wrote:
| Time and again Indians prove themselves to be the most
| self-hating community of them all. Not everything has an
| agenda.
|
| > Hindus were subjugated by Muslims and English
|
| Which is historically true. All of North India has zero
| temples or structures of historic importance that are more
| than a few hundred years old. A Bihari Hindu should not
| have to go searching in Tamil Nadu for signs that his
| ancestors achieved things of significance.
|
| > Indians were better
|
| It doesn't come from a place of malice. But, as a people
| that have been beaten down. It does help to know that your
| civilization made significant contribution to shaping the
| world as we know it. A Muslim doesn't have to wonder, the
| Taj Mahal & Red fort are the 2 crowning jewels of India.
| India could vanish tomorrow & both Muslims + Christians
| would still have a flattering model of what their people
| had achieved in the rest of the world. Hindus are grounded
| in India, and (mostly) India alone. Great contributions of
| pre-invasion Indians do not have compete with the
| architectural wonders that later rulers built. Both can co-
| exist.
|
| The large majority of Indian Muslims & Christians trace
| their cultural & ethnic origins to the populace that
| inhabited this land for the last (at least) 4000 years.
| There needn't be cognitive dissonance to acknowledge the
| achievements of of the common ancestor as part of a unified
| Indian identity.
| throwaway280382 wrote:
| There is no self hate going on. What we are saying is
| that India was on par with rest of the world. Lets just
| have an objective assessment of its's past instead of
| white washing everything that is old.
|
| For example, we (collectively) do not know anything about
| drawbacks of Nalanda university. All we heard since
| childhood is that it is great
| [deleted]
| MPlus88 wrote:
| [dead]
| lazyninja987 wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| ripvanwinkle wrote:
| >> They gathered here to learn medicine, logic, mathematics and
| - above all - Buddhist principles from some of the era's most
| revered scholars. As the Dalai Lama once stated: "The source of
| all the [Buddhist] knowledge we have, has come from Nalanda."
|
| Wouldn't the above qualify as multi-subject
| cafed00d wrote:
| If you're suggesting that the University of Bologna was secular
| (not religious) in the 11th century, then that is misleading.
|
| > then hired scholars from the city's pre-existing lay and
| ecclesiastical schools to teach them subjects such as liberal
| arts, notarial law, theology, and ars dictaminis (scrivenery)
|
| > The university is historically notable for its teaching of
| canon and civil law
|
| Please note the phrases _.. ecclesiastical schools .._ & _..
| teaching of canon .._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Bologna
|
| It seems reasonable religion (as we define it today) & culture
| were intertwined to a far greater degree in 10th-15th century
| Europe in ways similar to Nalanda & Al-Qarawiyin in their
| times.
|
| It does not seem simple to define exactly when all these
| institutions passed that rubicon that separates "religious
| schools" from what the word "university" means.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Please note all the other phrases in the fragments you're
| quoting - Bologna is not a religious school (which is
| different from being a secular, non-religious school, that
| would be a false dichotomy) because there theology was just
| one of the disciplines as it also included a multitude of
| topics in addition to religion, in contrast to the many
| contemporary religious schools around the world which taught
| only priests.
| cafed00d wrote:
| > Please note all the other phrases in the fragments you're
| quoting - Bologna is not a religious school ..
|
| Those fragments are simultaneously true for Nalanda or any
| other school too.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Nalanda covered many non-religious topics as well?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _If you 're suggesting that the University of Bologna was
| secular (not religious) in the 11th century, then that is
| misleading._
|
| I interpret " _religious school_ " as a school that teaches
| religion (a 'madrasa' in Islam).
|
| It seems that Al-Qarawiyin was mostly that during most of its
| history though not only (and it was founded as a mosque):
|
| " _Among the subjects taught around this period or shortly
| after were traditional religious subjects such as the Quran
| and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), and other sciences like
| grammar, rhetoric, logic, medicine, mathematics, astronomy
| and geography._ " [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_al-Qarawiyyin
| teleforce wrote:
| Saying that proper university did not exist before 11th century
| is disingenuous at its best and propaganda at its worst.
|
| It's like saying there is no proper engineering existed before
| civil engineering (civilian engineering) while military
| engineering has existed since time immomerial.
|
| There were numerous institutions of higher learning or
| universities in Muslim Spain, Middle East and Italian Sicily
| that the latter was at the time under Muslim rule before
| Norman's conquest. The latter universities in Sicily then
| spilled over to the rest of Italy as many degree granting
| medical schools and other schools were established including
| the infamous Schola Medica Salernitana [1]. The irony is that
| in the English Wikipedia entry mentioned it as the first of its
| kind even though it's probably another copycat as it's jointly
| founded by the Christian, Jews and Muslim scholars at the time.
|
| Ever wondered why all degrees granting universities using
| Arabic styled robe during graduation?
|
| English and France are even more honest by using the word
| Bachelor and Baccalaureat, respectively as their degree names
| with both of the words literally mean degree granting in
| Arabic.
|
| [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schola_Medica_Salernitana
| dandellion wrote:
| > Ever wondered why all degrees granting universities using
| Arabic styled robe during graduation?
|
| I always assumed that's an American thing. I'm from southern
| Europe, I've graduated from university, and I've never seen
| anyone do the graduation with hats and capes, I've only seen
| it in Hollywood movies.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| > Ever wondered why all degrees granting universities using
| Arabic styled robe during graduation?
|
| i believe you mean "monastic robes"; parts of the regalia
| retain liturgical names. (like "stole").
|
| european universities retain a distinct monastic connection
| because that's where many of them arose: monks teaching the
| wastrel children of the rich to be marginally more civilized.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastic_school
| mzs wrote:
| https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=baccalaureus&old.
| ..
| thebradbain wrote:
| http://www.salaam.co.uk/new-light-on-the-origin-of-the-
| term-...
|
| http://www.wata.cc/forums/archive/index.php/t-16001.html
| teleforce wrote:
| Please check this discourse on the matter, perhaps someone
| can further research on original etymology of the Bachelor
| word [1].
|
| I have read before about the origin of the convocation robe
| from the fruits gown but it's rather comical IMHO. The more
| plausible explanation is that they want to copy the learned
| people at the medieval time, i.e. Arabic speaking people,
| during the European dark ages by imitating the Arabic
| styled robe with the robe and the turban. It is very
| similar today when all the people in the corporate
| boardroom meeting are expected to wear two piece suits in
| order to look professional.
|
| [1] About the etymology of Bachelor:
|
| https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/160839/about-
| the...
| wahern wrote:
| That's only more plausible if you're entirely unfamiliar
| with Christian clerical and liturgical garments.
| Traditional Christian religious garments are rooted to a
| large extent in the Mediterranean, especially Greece, the
| Levant, and North Africa, but none of those places would
| be centers of Arabic culture until centuries later. To
| the extent they're influenced by Arabic culture, the link
| probably goes _both_ ways. There 's a shared history,
| after all; shared at a time when what would become modern
| European and Arabic cultures were minority cultures at
| the periphery of far more ancient empires.
| yumraj wrote:
| > Bologna .... It invented the term "University" (from
| universitas magistrorum et scholarium).
|
| So, if something meets the requirements before a _word_ was
| coined to describe a set of those requirements cannot be
| retroactively called that?
|
| So, for example Mathematics before the word _Mathematics_ was
| coined is just mumbo jumbo. Got it!
| vishalchandra wrote:
| Nalanda was multi-subject and other than theology, they also
| taught medicine, mathematics, astronomy, meta physics, grammar,
| etc. That sounds like a university to me.
|
| You can always try to create definitions to suit your preferred
| narrative. But Nalanda was multi-subject beyond teaching
| religion.
| mettamage wrote:
| Wait, so is this the oldest university then?
|
| Because a quick Google says "The Jagiellonian University is a
| public research university in Krakow, Poland. Founded in 1364 by
| King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland
| and the 13th oldest university in continuous operation in the
| world. It is regarded as Poland's most prestigious academic
| institution."
|
| Ugh...
|
| ChatGPT says "The University of Bologna, located in Bologna,
| Italy, is considered the oldest university in the world, founded
| in 1088. It was initially established as a law school, but over
| time, it grew to include faculties of medicine, philosophy, and
| theology. The university played a significant role in the
| development of European higher education, and its model of
| organization and academic freedom has been emulated by other
| universities around the world."
|
| This seems to be a contentious topic.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Those sound like universities that are still in operation.
| Nalanda was destroyed about 800 years ago.
| jltsiren wrote:
| It depends on how you define a university.
|
| Medieval European universities are often considered the first
| true universities, because they are direct ancestors of modern
| universities, and their traditions have survived and evolved
| into what we see today. There were earlier institutes of higher
| education all around the world (including Europe), but those
| traditions have not survived.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| > It depends on how you define a university.
|
| I think the institution that invented the term probably gets
| to define it. And that is the University of Bologna.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Won't that imply that "humans" didn't exist until the term
| "human" was invented?
| Scarblac wrote:
| So what's their definition?
| SeanLuke wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University
| thebradbain wrote:
| So what about Bachelor and Baccalaureate both being words
| that have their pre-Latin roots in Arabic: Bihaqq Al-
| riwayatt ("the right to restate the learning to somebody
| else").
|
| Or the fact that ceremonial graduation garb in the EU and
| US, from the robes to the caps, is also based in Arab
| tradition.
|
| The medieval Enlightenment and subsequent Renaissance was
| huge for Europe, yes, but just as important to realize
| today is that a lot of it was taking heavy inspiration from
| other cultures and regions and "Europeanizing" it and then
| calling it their own (I.E. a cultural exchange)
| emmelaich wrote:
| That link you gave for Bihaqq Al-riwayatt was very
| interesting but not conclusive imho.
| guelo wrote:
| Language doesn't work that way.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| You may have gotten it confused it for a recently created
| university by the same name. Just putting it out there.
|
| https://nalandauniv.edu.in/
| ghaff wrote:
| Continuous operation is a key word--which indeed apparently
| applies the the University of Bologna--and according to
| Wikipedia it is the oldest continuously operating university.
| (It's apparently either 1088 or 1180-90 depending on your
| criteria--just a few years earlier than Oxford with the same
| criteria).
|
| ADDED: As others note "university" is also a key word though
| college would probably also serve.
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