The University of Nalanda c18.46

c18.46

In monastery buildings, we only select some of the details of construction, for, otherwise, they have nothing peculiar about them, majority of them being rectangular having cells and verandahs. Among these manifold details of construction, we begin with the bricks. The bricks discovered at Nālandā are so big as 15" by 10" by 3", quite a contrast to our modern ones that A. S. R. has a special comment on them.⁴ Even if there were no other evidence, perhaps the bricks would have enabled us to place Nālandā in the later Gupta period, for they are the exact prototype of similar bricks found in buildings which are known to be Gupta.