The University of Nalanda c11.153

c11.153

The pandits believed in the maxim "honour where honour is due." And in accordance with this truism a distinction was made between the learned and the unlearned. The former were given the best rooms in the monastery, besides servants were asked to wait upon them. Again, if they gave daily lectures they were freed from the business imposed upon the inmates of the monastery,¹ whereas an ordinary priest was given just the treatment he deserved. Though food and lodging were supplied to him, all the other amenities that were shown to the revered and the learned were withheld from him. "He was regarded as a mere priest."²