Education in Ancient India c7.s3.19

c7.s3.19

Library Facilities: The Nālandā authorities had realised that a monastery without a library was like a castle without an armoury. The University was maintaining a splendid library to meet the needs of the hundreds of teachers and thousands of students that were engaged in the study of different sciences. One of the reasons why Chinese scholars used to spend months together at Nālandā was to get true copies of the sacred texts and other works of Buddhism. I-tsing got copied at Nālandā 400 Sanskrit works amounting to 5,00,000 verses. Significantly enough the library quarter was known as *Dharma-gañja* ‘Mart of Religion.’ It was located in three splendid buildings appropriately called *Ratna-sāgara*, *Ratnodadhi* and *Ratnarañjaka*.⁴