The University of Nalanda c17.105

c17.105

Hiuen Tsiang seems to make a distinction between a "*saṅghārāma*" and a "*vihāra*". This distinction is difficult to make out. We have taken "*vihāra*" to mean a "Temple" and a "*saṅghārāma*", as it literally means, place where the *saṅgha*, the students, stayed, something like our present day college-hostel, with this difference that the former was much more than a hostel. In fact, a *saṅghārāma* stood for a hostel, a college and a chapel at the same time.