The University of Nalanda c13.198

c13.198

I-Tsing dismisses the subject with the words “after this, they can follow whatever occupation they like.”[1] This remark, perhaps, refers to those students who were not given some substantial reward such as grants of land but mere titles ‘Pandita’, etc., akin to our modern B.A. and M.A. degrees which would not immediately fetch any material value. Such students had to hunt for jobs. But then the task of securing a job was not so difficult as it is now. A pandit would easily get a post of a private tutor to a prince or the son of a noble. While, for those who were not Buddhists but merely had taken advantage of Buddhist institutions, which enabled them to get the best education, posts such as caste-system and hereditary professions offered, were open.