Education in Ancient India c7.s3.5

c7.s3.5

The Lay-out and Buildings: Excavations have shown that Nālandā University covered an area at least one mile long and half a mile broad. Monastic buildings and stūpas attached to them were built according to a concieved plan; they were all arranged in a row and not huddled together in any haphazard fashion. The central college had seven halls attached to it; besides there were 300 smaller rooms for the lecturing work. The buildings were superb, several storeys in height. Hwui Li's statement that the upper rooms towered above the clouds and enabled a spectator to see how they changed their shape is of course an exaggeration, but it has now received an unexpected corroboration from a contemporary record which also avers that the tops of the buildings at Nālandā touched the clouds.² We may therefore take it that the towers and turrets of the colleges, temples and monasteries at Nālandā must have been of impressive height. There were also deep and translucent ponds covered with blue lotuses, which added to the beauty of the place and supplied water and flowers to the establishment. The whole colony was surrounded by an encircling wall with a door in the southern side.¹