Monasteries
Cells around courtyards.
Slbhushan — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Uphogaphy — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Slbhushan — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Muktinath gupt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Slbhushan — CC BY-SA 4.0
The ruins of Nalanda Mahavihara, a great Buddhist monastery of ancient Magadha in today's Bihar, lie about 12 km in a straight line north of the town of Rajgir. Nalanda is widely considered one of the greatest centres of learning in the ancient world, and the excavated site has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016. It was founded around 427 CE by the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta I and flourished for almost a thousand years, until around 1400, with support from Buddhist and non-Buddhist patrons from India and from as far away as Java. Scholars and students lived and studied here, and some historians describe it as one of the world's first residential universities, though others question the comparison. The site today is a wide field of red-brick ruins: rows of monastery buildings with small cells around open courtyards, wells, stairways and thick walls, and the large stepped mound of a stupa rising above lawns and tree-lined paths. Walking through the courtyards gives a sense of the scale of the old campus. Entry is paid. Allow about two hours, go early in the morning in the cooler months, and combine the visit with Rajgir.
Cells around courtyards.
A large stepped mound.
Extensive ruins.
Bihar, India
About two hours.
A great centre of learning; historians debate the term.