[Buddha-l] Nalanda ancient Buddhist seat of learning to rise again?

[Curt Steinmetz]

I heard about this a couple weeks ago. This would be good news if it 
weren't for the fact that Amartya Sen is behind it, which guarantees 
that the new Nalanda will be neither Buddhist nor a seat of learning. 
Otherwise I do not have any strong feelings on that subject.
Curt Steinmetz

JKirkpatrick wrote:
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/oldest-university-on
> -earth-is-reborn-after-800-years-2042518.html
>
> Nalanda, an ancient seat of learning destroyed in 1193, will rise
> again thanks to a Nobel-winning economist
> By Andrew Buncombe
> Wednesday, 4 August 2010
>
>
> During the six centuries of its storied existence, there was
> nothing else quite like Nalanda University. Probably the
> first-ever large educational establishment, the college - in what
> is now eastern India - even counted the Buddha among its visitors
> and alumni. At its height, it had 10,000 students, 2,000 staff
> and strove for both understanding and academic excellence. Today,
> this much-celebrated centre of Buddhist learning is in ruins.
>
> After a period during which the influence and importance of
> Buddhism in India declined, the university was sacked in 1193 by
> a Turkic general, apparently incensed that its library may not
> have contained a copy of the Koran. The fire is said to have
> burned and smouldered for several months.
>
> Now this famed establishment of philosophy, mathematics, language
> and even public health is poised to be revived. A beguiling and
> ambitious plan to establish an international university with the
> same overarching vision as Nalanda - and located alongside its
> physical ruins - has been spearheaded by a team of international
> experts and leaders, among them the Nobel-winning economist
> Amartya Sen. This week, legislation that will enable the building
> of the university to proceed is to be placed before the Indian
> parliament.
>
> "At its peak it offered an enormous number of subjects in the
> Buddhist tradition, in a similar way that Oxford [offered] in the
> Christian tradition - Sanskrit, medicine, public health and
> economics," Mr Sen said yesterday in Delhi................[more
> in article]
>
>
>  
>
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