The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c8.s1.t9.2

c8.s1.t9.2

The celebrity of Nuddea as a school of Hindoo learning is wholly unconnected with any notion of peculiar sanctity as in the case of Benares. Its character as a university was probably connected with the political importance which belonged to it about the time of the Mahomedan invasion, as it seems to have been for a time the capital of Bengal. The princes of Bengal and the latter rajahs of Nuddea endowed certain teachers with lands for the instruction and maintenance of scholars, and the support thus given to pundits and pupils attracted a number of Brahmans to settle there, and gave a reputation to the district. The loss of all political consequence and the alleged resumption of most of the endowments have very much diminished the attraction of the site, but it still continues a place of learning and extensive repute.