Sacred Places of The Buddhists (8)

Nalanda University, Bihar, India

A documentary film by BOGDAN-FLORIN PAUL | OCTOBER 13, 2025

The famous Nālandā University, or Nālandā Maha Vihara, as it was known at the time, was the first international residential university in the world.

Founded in about 427 CE, and preceding by more than six centuries the oldest universities in the West like Oxford, Bologna or Cambridge, in its hayday the Nalanda University had about 2,000 teachers and 10,000 students; its campus covered an area of more than 14 hectares, or 34 acres.

The campus included a huge library consisting of three distinct buildings which housed over 9 million volumes, eleven monasteries (viharas), six temples — includind a huge stupa called Sariputra Stupa built over the remains of Buddha's foremost disciple —, and countless smaller stupas.

Nearby, outside the main campus, there were 60 additional viharas that also housed other students and professors of the university.

For about eight centuries, this was the most important center of scholarship and learning, both in India and in the whole world.

Its students came from the Indian kingdoms of the time, and also from distant countries like China, Korea, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia. Nalanda Maha Vihara was what we would call today an International University.

The subjects studied here included Buddhist scriptures, from both Mahayana and Theravada schools, and also the Vedas, logic, Sanskrit grammar, Samkhya, the art of debate, mathematics, astronomy, metaphysics and medicine.

To be admitted to study here, candidates had to take an oral exam based on the Tripitaka, a huge canonical collection of Buddhist sutras. Reportedly these exams were so strict that only about 20% of candidates were admitted.

To study, or to have studied at Nalanda University was a matter of great prestige.

Even its ruins are magnificent and awe-inspiring.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the ruins of Nalanda are one of the most important sites to visit in India today.

Watch this episode of the documentary film "Sacred Places of the Buddhists" to see what Nalanda looks like today, and to learn more about the unique history of this place.

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