The Nalanda university of ancient India

Ajay0 · Mar 7, 2023

Informative article on Nalanda university which came up in ancient India...

Nalanda: The university that changed the world

Founded in 427 CE, Nalanda is considered the world's first residential university, a sort of medieval Ivy League institution home to nine million books that attracted 10,000 students from across Eastern and Central Asia. 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."

In the more-than seven centuries that Nalanda flourished, there was nothing else like it in the world. The monastic university predates the University of Oxford and Europe's oldest university, Bologna, by more than 500 years. What's more, Nalanda's enlightened approach to philosophy and religion would help shape the culture of Asia long after the university ceased to exist.

But perhaps Nalanda's most profound and lingering legacy is its achievements in mathematics and astronomy.

Aryabhata, considered the father of Indian mathematics, is speculated to have headed the university in the 6th Century CE. "We believe that Aryabhata was the first to assign zero as a digit, a revolutionary concept, which simplified mathematical computations and helped evolve more complex avenues such as algebra and calculus," said Anuradha Mitra, a Kolkata-based professor of mathematics. "Without zero, we wouldn't have computers," she added. "He also did pioneering works in extracting square and cubic roots, and applications of trigonometrical functions to spherical geometry. He was also the first to attribute radiance of the moon to reflected sunlight."

This work would profoundly influence the development of mathematics and astronomy in southern India and across the Arabian Peninsula.

The university regularly sent some of its best scholars and professors to places like China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Sri Lanka to propagate Buddhist teachings and philosophy. This ancient cultural exchange programme helped spread and shape Buddhism across Asia.
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