The University of Nalanda c14.31

c14.31

Dīpaṃkara was born in A. D. 980, in the royal family of Gaur at Vikramanipur in Bengala, a country lying to the east of Vajrasama (Gayā). Under the sage Jetāri, he studied the five kinds of minor sciences, and thereby paved his way to the study of philosophy and religion. He acquired proficiency in the three pitakas of the four classes of Hīnayāna, in the Vaiśeṣika philosophy, in the three pitakas of the Mahāyāna doctrine, in the high metaphysics of the Mādhyamika and Yogācāra schools and in the four classes of Tantras. Having acquired the reputation of being a great pandit, in the Śāstras of the Tirthakas, which he studied till his twenty-fifth year, he defeated a learned Brahmin in Logic. From Rahula Gupta he mastered the mysteries of esoteric Buddhism. At the age of thirty-one, he was ordained in the highest order of Bhikṣus and was given the vows of Bodhisattva by Dharma Rakṣita.