The University of Nalanda c13.121

c13.121

Though the provisions of food at Nālandā were supplied by the householders from the adjacent villages and the students—*Bhikkhus* as well as *Brahmacārins*—as the biographer of Hiuen Tsiang says, were abundantly supplied and so did not require to ask for the four requisities, *viz.*, clothes, food bedding, and medicine,⁵ still we learn from I-Tsing that both kinds of students above mentioned had to pay for their own subsistence.⁶ From other sources we learn that the students had to go for alms every day.⁷ We have, thus, three statements as to the way in which the students were provided, each totally contradicting the other. If, as I-Tsing tells us, the student had to pay for his own maintenance, it will give rise to another query as to the standard of living of the student. I-Tsing’s statement, however, is opposed to all that we know about Hindu or Buddhist system of education. Nowhere, in any Hindu work do we come across a single reference that tells us that the student had to pay for his own livelihood. All that we learn from these works is that the students either begged not only for themselves but even for their teachers or, as Hwui Li tells us, they were maintained by rich citizens or kings.¹