Buddhist spectrum

Nalanda University: It's timeAsia paid back the 'knowledge' debt

Mahendra Ved, The New Straits Times, Feb 18, 2008

New Delhi, India - It is payback time for the world community, especially East and Southeast Asia, for what it received by way of knowledge from an ancient Indian university that is in the throes of revival as an international seat of learning.

It is heartening to note that there is some rallying for the Nalanda International University after a decade-long effort. Former Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, as its Visitor, heads a nine-member team that has renowned scholars, including Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen.

Originally founded in 427 AD, the university was destroyed in 1197 AD. During its 750 years' chequered life, it attracted students and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey.

Before Oxford, Harvard, Yale and others, Nalanda was acclaimed as the greatest university in the world. Devoted to Buddhist studies, it also trained students in fine arts, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, politics and the art of warfare.

The university was an architectural and environmental masterpiece - eight separate compounds, 10 temples, meditation halls, classrooms, lakes and parks, a nine-storey library, dormitories for students - housing nearly 10,000 students and 2,000 professors.

The name probably comes from a combination of nalam (lotus, the symbol of knowledge) and da, meaning "to give", so Nalanda means "Giver of Knowledge". And that is exactly what the university did.

The revival idea was mooted in the late 1990s. Unesco was approached and senior Indian politician George Fernandes, who represents Nalanda in parliament, appealed to the Japanese for help.

Others joined in 2006 as Kalam, then the President, seized the initiative. After the Bihar legislature enacted The University of Nalanda Act 2007, a "Nalanda Mentor Group" was formed.

Besides Sen, the mentors include Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo, Harvard historian Sugata Bose, Indo-British academician and writer Lord Meghnad Desai and scholars and experts from Japan and China.

Meeting in Singapore last November and in Tokyo in December, they agreed that Nalanda should be "an international university enjoying academic autonomy. It would be a secular academic institution".

The Mentor Group underlined the importance of the project in the context of "an Asian renaissance" and finalised details of the university that would be guided by "a global philosophy while maintaining local relevance".

According to the blueprint, it will have schools in Buddhist studies, philosophy and comparative religion; historical studies; international relations and peace studies; business management and development studies; languages and literature; and ecology and environmental studies. Its vistas would be expanded to cover neurosciences and touch on the frontiers of scientific research.

The Mentor Group also endorsed a proposal to establish a research-and-teaching entity in Singapore, to be called the Srivijaya Centre, which would work in co-operation with the Nalanda University.

A framework for the proposed university will be finalised for discussion at the next East Asia Summit in Thailand.

The Nalanda University, which is being set up at its original location, a 180ha plot of land 100km from Bihar's capital Patna, will initially have an international faculty of 46, to be expanded to 582 by the end of the 10-year project.

Visualised as a bridge between South and East Asia, the university will be built at a cost of Rs. 6.3 billion (RM505 million).

In Singapore, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended a reception hosted by his counterpart, Lee Hsien Loong, on the occasion of a special exhibition on Nalanda.

He used the occasion to launch an appeal to Asean and to the European Union for material and intellectual help. Among the 116 previous artefacts, the exhibition featured bone relics from the only known archaeological find that can be linked directly to Lord Buddha.

Symbolic of the appeal for help was the Nalanda Copper Plate, which represented the royal patronage that the original Nalanda University received from the kings and nobles of yore.

What has begun is but a tenth of what was a campus that spread across 16 sq km as per the records of Hieun Tsang, the famous Chinese scholar who visited Nalanda in the 7th century.

So far, hardly 1.6 sq km of the ruins of the university have been excavated. To facilitate this, the National Remote Sensing Agency conducted a ground-penetrating radar survey to trace the location of the buried ancient structures.

Questions persist even as the project gathers momentum.

Why was the ancient university destroyed, not once but thrice? Why were hapless scholars attacked and libraries burnt? The answer lies in man's cruelty to man as he chases - half-heartedly and insincerely - that mirage called peace. Violence seems endemic to our civilisation, whatever the cause, conquerors then were no different from what one sees today. Perhaps, so were their justifications.

Sadly, if Nalanda was destroyed by violence, Kalam's visit to the project this month too triggered violence of a different type. Angry farmers stoned Bihar's Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, complaining of non-payment or not being compensated enough, for the land acquired to rebuild the university.

Nalanda poses a small but significant challenge to the world community, particularly to Asians. As the "Asian Century" gets under way, will they fund a project that will help them refurbish the cultural and spiritual well-being of their present and future generations?

Writing in The New York Times, Jeffrey E. Garten, former dean of the Yale School of Management, expressed doubts: "...the bigger issue is imagination and willpower. It is not clear that the Asian nations are prepared to unite behind anything concrete except trade agreements, either for their benefit or the world's.

"It appears doubtful that with all their economic prowess, and their large armies, they understand that real power also comes from great ideas and from people who generate them, and that truly great universities are some of their strongest potential assets."

Garten says, and I fully endorse: "I would like to be proved wrong in these judgments. How Asia approaches the resurrection of Nalanda will be a good test."

(Courtesy: Buddhist Channel)

Lumbini Master Development Plan

Rohan L. Jayetilleke

The Asokan Pillar set up by King Asoka to mark his pilgrimage to Lumbini in his twentieth regnal year in the third century BC (260 BC) is the first epigraphic evidence relating to the birth place of the Buddha.

An authentic historic document

Lumbini: Pushkarani pond before restoration.

After restoration.

It is the most noteworthy monument and an authentic historic document in Brahmi script of the birth place of Gautama Buddha in Lumbini. The English translation of the edict of King Asoka on the pillar reads as follows: "When King Devanampriya Priyadarshina had been anointed twenty years he came himself and worshipped (this spot) because the Buddha Sakyamuni was born here." (He) both caused to be made a stone bearing a horse and caused a stone pillar to be set up (in order to show) that the Blessed One was born here. (He) made the village Lummini free of taxes and paying (only) one-eighth share (of the produce). "Epigraphia Indica and D.C. Sircar, Inscription of Asoka 1967, P. 69".

King Ripu Malla (1312 AD) of Karnali, west Nepal visited Lumbini and left the mark of his visit engraved above the Asokan inscription - 'Om Mani Padme Hum Ripu Malla Ciranjayatu'. The association of Lumbini with the Buddha went slowly to oblivion and the place name gradually from Lumbini to Lummini changed to Rummindel and then to Rupendehi.

Thereafter General Khadga Shumsher, Governor of Palpa and eminent German archaeological surveyor of British India, Dr. Alois Fuhrer, discovered the Asokan Pillar in 1896.

As the pillar was discovered and the famous inscription deciphered, more and more people were interested in the archaeology and history of the site. P.C. Mukharji conducted an excavation in 1899 and identified the Nativity Sculpture (a stone slab with a feet impression, as well as some of the structural remains in and around Lumbini.) In 1930s, General Kaiser Shumsher carried out a large-scale excavations at the Sacred Lumbini complex and covered up the archaeological site with a view to strengthen the Maya Devi Temple.

Lumbini Development Trust

The Department of Archaeology, Nepal undertook the responsibility of conducting excavation, research and conservation since 1972. After the formation by the Nepal Government of the Lumbini Development Trust (LDT) in 1985, the development activities including the excavation, conservation and documentation of the Sacred Site are in steady progress. In 1990, LDT, DOA and Japan Buddhist Federation excavated the Maya Devi Complex.

The Maya Devi Shrine Complex is the heart of all monuments at this Sacred Site. The Complex also bears the testimony of several layers of construction over the centuries. The main object of veneration is the Nativity Sculpture at a depth of about 15 feet from the circumbulating pathway.

This stone conglomerate located deeply buried in the sanctum sanatorium pinpoints the exact location of the birth of the Buddha, which was discovered after meticulous excavation of the Maya Devi Temple site in 1996. The exact size of the Marker Stone is 70x40x10cm. This is now covered with a bullet proof glass.

The Nativity Sculpture at the site dating back to the 4th century AD, depicts Queen Maya Devi holding the branch of a Sal tree, not the Sri Lankan variety, with her right hand, for support. Next to her is her own younger sister Prajapati Gotami, in supporting posture in the time of delivery standing. The newly born prince (later named Siddartha, and finally the Buddha) is standing upright on a lotus pedestal with two celestial figures receiving him.

The Pushkarini or Holy Pond, where Queen Maha Maya Devi had the ritual dip prior to the birth of the child, is on the southern side of the Asokan Pillar. In fact the Prince too was given his brahminical first purification bath from the Pushkarini Pond.

The Nativity sculpture

The Nativity Sculpture which was deposited on the ground was visited by childless married ladies or married pregnant ladies and in order to receive the blessings of the Maya Devi used to bathe the sculpture with milk, scented water of vermilion and scrape the statue and drink.

Thus the bas-relief sculpture has got wasted to the shape of a flak stone slab and in order to avoid this destruction, it is now placed at a higher point in the Maya Devi Temple, not possible to be approached. This ritual had been adopted by Indian Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Muslim and Christian ladies too. Now they drink some water from the Pushkarini Pond as an alternative.

Once in one of my several visits to Lumbini narrated this ritual to a Sri Lankan mother and advised her to take a bottle of water from the Pond, and back home give his childless daughter to drink. This she had done, later wrote to me her daughter was blessed with a son.

The then United Nations Secretary General (Burmese) U. Thant's pilgrimage to Lumbini in 1967 became a milestone in the recent history of the development of Lumbini. Deeply inspired by Lumbini's sanctity.

Master Plan of Lumbini

U. Thant discussed the matter with the then King of Nepal King Mahendra and suggested Nepal Government to develop Lumbini as an international pilgrimage and tourist centre.

In 1970, he also helped formation of an international committee for the development of Lumbini consisting of 15 member nations to support Lumbini through the United Nation's involvement. The world renowned architect Prof. Kenzo Tange of Japan was the task of designing a Master Plan for the Development of Lumbini.

In 1978, the Master Plan designed by Prof. Tange was finalised and approved by the Government of Nepal and Untied Nations. The UNESCO declared Lumbini as a World Heritage Site. In the meantime, the Government of Nepal was directly involved in the planning and development of Lumbini through the formation of the Lumbini Development Committee.

The committee acquired the necessary extent of land, relocated the existing village and commenced the task of creating basic infrastructure, including the forestation programme in the planed area, which has now become a green grove.

The Master Plan thus changed the face of Lumbini. In 1935, the Lumbini Development Trust was formed accordingly. Now the Trust is responsible for the implementation of the Master Plan and for the overall development of Lumbini.

The three zones

The entry fees charged are credited to Trust of doing development work.

The Master Plan covers an area of 1x3 sq miles, comprising three zones of a square mile each. The three zones, Sacred Garden Zone, the Monastic Zone and the New Lumbini Village are linked with walkways and canal. The main focus of Tange's design is the Sacred Garden located in the southern part.

The ultimate objective of the design is to create here an atmosphere of spirituality, peace, universal brotherhood and non-violence consistent with the time of the Buddha and Buddha's message to the world. The Sacred Zone shelters the ancient monuments at the centre in a freshly restored atmosphere of serene and lush green forest and water body surrounding the compels.

The Monastic Zone

The Monastic Zone is situated in the centre with the forest area, north of the Sacred Garden, divided by a canal. There are 13 monasteries on east and 29 on West Monastic Enclaves having 42 plots each allotted for new monasteries of Theravada and Mahayana Sects of Buddhism respectively.

A research centre, a library, an auditorium and a museum that provide facilities for research and study of Buddhism are located at the cultural centre. The northern part of the site is being developed for the New Lumbini Village. It is also a gateway to the outer world where visitors and pilgrims could find comfortable hotels and restaurants offering necessary facilities including board and to cook their own meals.

The other attractions are Nepalese and international monasteries and Viharas in and around Lumbini, representating different architecture and culture of Buddhist countries.

Any person interested in attending a meditation retreat at one of the above mentioned meditation centres could write to the Director, giving the name of the meditation centre, Sacred Lumbini Garden, Lumbini Nepal or visit website - www.lumbinitrust.org.