Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c32.s1.70

c32.s1.70

**Foreign Scholars at Nālandā.** We may now refer briefly to the movement of scholars of foreign countries to Nālandā in search of the learning of which it was then known as the only and most important centre in Asia. We have already related how this movement began with Fa-Hien and went on expanding under the stimulating successes attending the Missions of Hiuen Tsang and I-tsing. We have also seen that Fa-Hien did not visit India alone but with a company of scholars whom he names as Hwuy-king, Tao-ching, Hwuy-ying, and Hwuy-wei, while, on his travels in India, he met "a Tartar who was an earnest follower of the Law", and out on the same mission as his, and then another band of five pilgrims in pursuit of the same religious purpose (see *ante*). Again, we learn from I-tsing that, after Hiuen Tsang's visit, and before his, in the interval of about forty years, as many as fifty-six scholars visited India from such foreign countries as China, Japan, and Korea [*JRAS.*, xiii, *N.S.*, p. 556], most of whom came to Nālandā for study. Some of them also came by the sea-route *via* Tāmralipti and the others by land *via* Khoten, Tibet, and Nepal, undaunted by the difficulties of that route. A brief account may be given of these earnest foreign seekers after India's learning.