Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c32.s1.3

c32.s1.3

**Nālandā as known to Fa-Hien.** Nālandā, when Fa-Hien visited it, was called Nāla and was known as the place "where Śāriputta was born, and to which also he returned, and attained here his *pari-nirvāṇa*. Over the spot (where his body was burned) there was built a tope" which Fa-Hien found "still in existence" (p. 81, Legge's ed.). This is all that Fa-Hien could record about the condition of the institution in the fourth century which within the next three centuries grew up to be the greatest centre of Buddhist learning, as observed and described by Hiuen Tsang who stayed there for the total period of about five years. There is, however, a view that Fa-Hien did not at all visit Nālandā, and that the village, Nāla, which he had visited as the birthplace of Sāriputta, is called Nālaka or Nalagrāma in the Sudarśana Jātaka.