[Buddha-l] Nalanda - BBC

[Thierry Dodin]

View this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22160989

My comment:

The destruction of the old Nalanda was the point of time when „the intellectual centre of gravity began to shift from East to West“, says the BBC report, and with that it catches what this project is all about.

The ’New Nalanda’ project is essentially an attempt by Asian elitist circles (notorious Hindu nationalists - all high cast - and ethnic Chinese propagators of ’Asian values’) to create a common ground of ’Asian nationalism’ by the appropriation of the Buddhist brand name Nalanda.

The Dalai Lama who is quoted and shown in this article as praising Nalanda (the old one, the tradition) has been systematically excluded from this ’New Nalanda’ project.

George Yeo has been trying to organise a trip of the Chinese chosen Panchen Lama to Singapore for years and he is also linked to the Shugden group there. (there are similar enormities with the other project leaders)

What defines a ’world class university’ is solid knowledge and research. However, that the designated vice-chancelor of this ghost university, the very articulate Madam Sabharwal, thinks the pits for fire offering in the Nalanda ruins are „fireplaces for conducting experiments and also cook food for the students“ shows she does not seems herself to be the sharpest knife in the academic drawer.

These are not the people who will shift the world’s ’intellectual centre of gravity’ back to ’the East’. which is probably why they need to use the name of Nalanda.



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Thierry Dodin, director
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