The University of Nalanda c8.3

c8.3

IN Part I of this Chapter we saw that circumstances were favourable for the rise of a University. In this Part we have to see how a Buddhist *vihāra* came to be a University. For Nālandā, though a University was, nevertheless, a monastery. And the question naturally asked is: How could a monastery be a centre of learning? For a proper understanding of this question we must, needs, first, know what a Buddhist monastery was, and how it came into existence.