The University of Nalanda c13.3

c13.3

For a layman in this subject, it is simply difficult, we may say almost impossible, to imagine what a Buddhist student actually was. Accustomed as he is to see the majority of modern students returning home everyday in the afternoon he will be surprised to know that a Buddhist student passed eight to twelve years at a monastery¹ or a Gurukula. If the student was younger than the modern undergraduate, he is not to be confused with a modern schoolboy; when we are told by the *Vinaya Texts* and I-Tsing that he begged, that he did all the household duties of his preceptor², such as sweeping of the floor, we are not to suppose that he was a beggar, that he was merely a domestic servant. If we compare the dress of a modern University student with that of the Buddhist or Hindu student we find that the minimum a modern student requires is a *dhoti*, a shirt, a coat and a cap, apart from the dress of the students who dress in European style; whereas the minimum of the ancient student was:—a *dhoti* and an *uttarīya* or an upper garment if he was a Hindu; a robe, dyed yellow and made from rags collected from dust heaps if he was a Buddhist. The reader, as Rashdall says, will have to view things historically, and it may be that his imagination will be strained.