The University of Nalanda c10.159

c10.159

From references in Tibetan works to Nālandā as a great centre of Tāntric studies, or to a person as a professor of Tantra at Nālandā,¹ and also from a number of books, evidently Tāntric, ascribed to the pandits of Nālandā in the Chinese,² it would appear that Tantra was, perhaps, a very popular subject with the students as well as professors in the Nālandā University.³ Now it would have been sufficient only to have observed that Tantra was taught at Nālandā, and to have mentioned a few books written by the Nālandā pandits, were it not for the fact that Tantra and the whole cult which goes under the name of Tāntrism is even after the publication of many works on it, regarded as "gibberish".⁴ For references, as the one above quoted, cast a slur, even though incidently, on the education that was given by the Nālandā University. In order, therefore, to decide or to come to any conclusion on the value of Nālandā education it is thought desirable to give a short history, and nature of the Tantras or better of the cult, that goes under the name of Tāntrism or Tāntricism.