History of Indian and Indonesian Art c8.s3.76

c8.s3.76

The famous centre of Buddhist learning at Nālandā, South Bihār, was founded by Narasiṁha Balāditya (467—473). Hsüan Tsang describes the great brick temple over three hundred feet in height, erected by this king, as resembling the tower at Bodhgayā, and says that it was exquisitely decorated and magnificently furnished. Nothing survives but the massive basement²; some of the niches on this basement representing fully developed curvilinear Nāgara *śikharas* may be later additions. Nothing at Nālandā, the most famous of mediaeval monasteries and centres of learning, antedates the fifth century, or postdates the twelfth.