The University of Nalanda c9.29

c9.29

Now this Nala was one *yojana*, *i.e.*, seven miles from Giryek (old Rājagṛha) and the same distance from the new Rājagṛha; and as Nālandā was also one *yojana* from Rājagṛha one is tempted to identify Nala with Nālandā. But we learn from Fa-hien himself that Nala was the place where Śāriputra was born and had died. And it appears that this Nala was no other than Nālaka, where according to *Sudassana Jātaka*,³ Śāriputra was born. It is thus clear that Fa-hien's Nala was not Nālandā as alleged, but Nālaka, an unimportant village, *nalagrāma*, as the *Jātaka* expressly calls it. From this it follows that because Fa-hien did not visit Nālandā, he did not give us a good account of the place. And the reason why he does not give the correct name of Nālandā, was that he did not visit Nālandā at all. For had he really visited it, we are unable to understand, why he should not give us the correct name of Nālandā, when the place was known for centuries after Buddha by that name. Why do not Hiuen Tsiang and I-Tsing make any mistake in giving the correct name of the place? It cannot be said that Nālandā had become so insignificant that it had lost its original name when Fa-hien visited it and that it again recovered its original name when Śakrāditya and his suit happened to see it and think of building monasteries there. On the contrary, the very fact that Śakrāditya (Kumāragupta I) thought of erecting saṅghārāmas at Nālandā speaks in favour of Nālandā. The great temple by Aśoka, and other smaller ones by Brāhmaṇa Suviṣṇu, and the fact that in Nālandā Buddha had passed many happy days in the vast and rich house of Lepa—all these—must have attracted Śakrāditya to Nālandā. We cannot therefore, agree with those scholars who say that the tradition of Suviṣṇu building 108 temples is not authentic, because Fa-hien who visited India for the first time in 404 A.D., calls it simply the village of Nala.¹ For, as we have already shown, the village visited by Fa-hien was probably Nālaka and not Nālandā. To the objection that Nālandā, if it was famous when Fa-hien toured through Magadha, containing as it did 108 temples and a great temple of Aśoka, why should not Fa-hien mention them, we reply that the argument from silence is no objection. Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to Chandragupta's court, for instance, shows such surprising ignorance about the Mauryan India that if we were to believe in him we shall have to unlearn much of what we know of that period.