[Buddha-l] Nalanda's destruction

[Dan Lusthaus]

Dear Lance,

It wasn't clear which "claim" you were asking to have verified -- whether 
there was a group aggressively engaged in international fund-raising, 
whether the fund-raising is trading on the name "Nalanda" with or without an 
interest in reestablishing something resembling the original curriculum 
(that, btw, was attempted in early 20th c China by Ouyang Jingwu and his key 
students, such as Lu Cheng), or whether their interest tends more toward 
Islamic studies than Buddhist studies -- now it's clear you were interested 
in the latter.

Not surprisingly, there is little online that makes that explicit, though it 
was more than obvious when they spoke here, demonstrating they knew (and 
cared) little about the Buddhist history of Nalanda (e.g., evoking 
Xuanzang's name, but getting basic details wrong), and were re-envisioning 
it for its "current" cultural niche, which, as we know, does not include a 
Buddhist population in the area. They pay nominal lipservice to Buddhism in 
order to pretend there is something more than a geographical link between 
what they are doing and the historical Nalanda. So one has to practice some 
hermeneutic decoding with the online information in order to see what was 
more obvious from the in-person discussions.

What they acknowledge interest in reflects their donors. Singapore has been 
a major contributor, and Hong Kong as well, so we see a great deal of 
"interest" in SE Asia -- establishing Chinese historical influence in the 
area, and no doubt new economic opportunities as well. For instance, click 
the so-called NSC Buddhist Lodge Lecture series on the Nalanda U website, 
and you come to this page:

http://nsc.iseas.edu.sg/upcoming_events.htm#buddhist
Its "Buddhist" content would barely past muster for a buddha-l posting. That 
this is designed as a platform for Singapore and Malaysia should not go 
unnoticed.

A project such as "India-China Interactions during the Late-Qing and 
Republican Periods"
http://nsc.iseas.edu.sg/projects.htm#religious
will also devote most of its attention to things other than Buddhism. (There 
were Chinese at that time interested in Buddhism and India, but little 
"Buddhism" outside academic and Theravada circles at that time in India. 
This focus is evokes a nostalgia in certain Chinese for patronage and 
investment in India.)

"Buddhist History and Archeology in Southeast Asia" (same url) is a cover 
for Chinese economic exploration.

The proposed academic agenda does explicitly list Buddhist Studies
http://www.nalandauniv.edu.in/school.html
slightly qualified -- "Buddhist Studies, Philosophy and Comparative 
Religion," which, when they talk about it in person, turns out to have its 
emphasis on the "comparative" approach, with an ecumenical outlook 
specifically focused on the situation of Islam in Asia. This webpage is 
designed to disallow copy-paste, so you will have to look for yourself. The 
third full paragraph is code for the Islamic outreach (as well as 
invitations/concessions related to their international fund-raising), as is 
the fifth of the seven "areas" they announce, "International Relations and 
Peace Studies." That, in any case, is how they themselves basically 
presented their proposal. It is also noteworthy that the Buddhist Studies, 
Philosophy, etc. program is not included in "phase-1"; it is on the agenda 
to encourage contributions from Japanese, etc. contributors, though, so far, 
the larger investors, as far as was the case when they were here, were from 
Singapore and Hong Kong, with attempts to get more Chinese participation.

What the sites I posted in the previous message demonstrate, was how an 
international fundraising campaign based on the namesake of a long defunct 
site operates.

The Nava Nalanda Mahavihara link was included by accident -- pasting too 
quickly. Apologies for the confusion.

Dan