The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c17.3

c17.3

Two more of its *alumni*, Gobharana and Mâtanga, in A.D. 67 carried Buddhist learning into China, and in the Gupta period crowds of Chinese students were flocking to its halls. Kâsî (Benares) also, in the Buddha's time, was as now a stronghold of Brahman philosophy. Nâgârjuna, the Brahman protagonist of Mahâyâna Buddhism, founded the university at Sûdhanya Kataka, on the head waters of the Krishna River. He himself resided at Nâlanda, the famous university of the Magadha country, near Rajgriha, which in the seventh century was attended by ten thousand learned monks and scholars. Hiuen Tsang, who lived there for five years, describes its towering monastic walls, resplendent with colour and sculpture; its eight quadrangles and lofty enclosing walls; its pavilions "like pointed hill-tops, its soaring domes and pinnacles which seemed to be lost in the mists of the morning." "From their windows," he said, "one could watch the movements of the