The University of Nalanda c13.100

c13.100

Now this dress was evidently ecclesiastical or religious, for, it was primarily the dress of the priests and Bhikkhus. I-Tsing also calls it a religious garment.² But, we may call it academical as the students also put on the same dress. Whether there was any head-dress for the students, we cannot definitely say. Vinaya Texts, at least, are silent on this point, and hence, Dr. Vidyabhusana³ concludes that "in the early Buddhist Church, monks (and so also the students) were not allowed to wear any head-dress." However, "With the introduction of Mahāyāna," continues the same writer, "in the first century A.D. by Kaniṣka, a great change was effected in the dress of monks, and caps of various shapes were invented."⁴ Then he proceeds to describe a picture of Ācārya Diṅnāga, who was a great logician and a distinguished professor of Nālandā. This picture therefore gives a good idea about the dress of the Nālandā professors. The picture represents Diṅnāga with a cap having a pointed peak and long lappets. In Tibetan it was called Panchen-shwa-dmar or ‘Pandita's red cap’. The length of the lappets of the cap was in proportion to the rank of the wearer. If, as Dr. Vidyabhusana says, that a Pandita's cap was perhaps a distinctive badge of the scholars of the Nālandā University¹ then we can at least infer that the students must have had some kind of head-dress and possibly similar to that worn by Ācārya Diṅnāga.