The University of Nalanda c8.58

c8.58

It is interesting to compare the changes which the monasteries of Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries underwent with those of pre-Christian and post-Christian India. Both in Europe as well as India monasteries had become Temples of Learning. But, whereas in Europe, educational activity passed out from the hands of the monks to those of secular clergy, with the spread of knowledge in the outside world, in India the monks were a little fortunate in retaining it. They saw, as we noticed above, what was coming, and they responded to the growing need. Therefore, instead of being swept away totally by the on-coming wave of reforms, they deemed it wiser to relax the rules of their order. The doors of the Buddhist Sangha which were open before only to those who had forsaken the world, were now thrown open to the students as well, who, if they chose, were at liberty to leave the monastery and embrace once more the life of a householder, after their education was over. It is in this transformation of the monasteries that we find the seeds of the University of Nālandā.