The University of Nalanda c9.118

c9.118

It must be evident to the reader that an effort has been made to fix the date only of the *saṅghārāma* (as Hiuen Tsiang calls it) built by Śakrāditya, *i.e.*, Kumāragupta I. The reason for this is obvious. Nālandā as a University came into existence only in the reign of the early Guptas; that is to say Kumāragupta and others. It is not till this period that anything like a stream of scholastic pilgrimage begins to flow towards Nālandā, when it was recognised as an educational centre. Before this, Nālandā might have been and very likely it was, in the times of Nāgārjuna in the second century A.D. and even in still remoter times—in the days of Buddha, a great religious as well as an educational centre. But as our knowledge of this period is scanty and that too not based on purely historical material we have sketched the history of Nālandā from the times of Kumāragupta I.