Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c32.s1.28

c32.s1.28

**Standard of Scholarship.** When the Entrance Examination was such a hard, and thoroughly sifting, process, the quality of the material to be handled and fashioned by the University was assured. The academic life was lived there at a very high level, both on its intellectual and moral side. The students of Nālandā "were looked up to as models by all India", as observed by Hiuen Tsang (ib.). They were all ideal Buddhists "in the strictness with which they observed the precepts and regulations of their Order" (ib.). According to the *Life* (p. 112) "the priests dwelling here are, as a body, naturally or spontaneously dignified and grave, so that during the 700 years since the foundation of the establishment, there has been no single case of guilty rebellion against the rules". Their intellectual life corresponded to an equally strict standard and attained an equally high level of efficiency and success. A picture of that life is thus drawn by Hiuen Tsang: "In the establishment were some thousands of Brethren, all men of great ability and learning, several hundreds being highly esteemed and famous; learning and discussing they found the day too short; day and night they admonished each other, juniors and seniors mutually helping to perfection." The average standard of intellectual equipment and learning of the Nālandā students is thus indicated by our pilgrim: "If among them were any who did not talk of the mysteries of the Tripiṭaka, such persons, being ashamed, lived aloof" (ib.).