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Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

bbc.com

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Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#111

Post by Bang2Bay »

throwaway280382 wrote: post #90
screye wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time and again Indians prove themselves to be the most self-hating community of them all. Not everything has an agenda. > Hindus were subjugated by Muslims and English Which is historically true. All of North India has zero temples or structures of historic importance that are more than a few hundred years old. A Bihari Hindu should not have to go searching in Tamil Nadu for signs that his ancestors achieved things o…

There is no self hate going on. What we are saying is that India was on par with rest of the world. Lets just have an objective assessment of its's past instead of white washing everything that is old. For example, we (collectively) do not know anything about drawbacks of Nalanda university. All we heard since childhood is that it is great

Do we need to find a blemish in something before enjoying its beauty/magnanimity/magnificence? :)

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#112

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

teleforce wrote: post #52
SeanLuke wrote: post #17

[dead]

Saying that proper university did not exist before 11th century is disingenuous at its best and propaganda at its worst. It's like saying there is no proper engineering existed before civil engineering (civilian engineering) while military engineering has existed since time immomerial. There were numerous institutions of higher learning or universities in Muslim Spain, Middle East and Italian Sicily that the latter w…

>There were numerous institutions of higher learning or universities

Those are not synonymous; and therein lies the problem with your assessment. There were many institutions of higher learning in the ancient world, with histories documented back to e.g. 21st c. BCE in China.

A university is not simply an institution of higher learning; the word implies a certain composition and structure, and that doesn't trace back prior to Bologna. There's no value judgment implied in that.

>Ever wondered why all degrees granting universities using Arabic styled robe during graduation?

Academic dress in the early universities (Bologna, Oxford, etc) imported styles typical of contemporary ecclesiastical dress, which has a (fairly) straight line history back to the 4th c. CE Nicene church, and those styles were mimicked by later universities. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at there.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#113

Post by Bang2Bay »

sremani wrote: post #87
throwaway280382 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

India has a rich history than far pre-dates 'hindus' from Indus Valley Civilization to this day. On top of it Nalanda as Buddhist institution of learning is being highlighted here. If you are going to define what is historical truth or propaganda based on who resides in the PMO of India, then you should just stay away from this subject.

hindus from rest of india have a great architectural marvels as well. not just the sindhu valley.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#114

Post by fwlr »

I remember being taught in school about the important Muslim contributions to science, philosophy, and mathematics. It has been interesting to learn over time that much of this was inherited from Indian scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians (and it has been disquieting to learn what “inherited” is a euphemism for).

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#115

Post by SeanLuke »

yrdmb wrote: post #110
SeanLuke wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So by your definition, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Coumbia, U Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, Oxford, Paris, Liepzig, Bordeau, Glascow, Istanbul, Granada, Strassburg, Moscow, Berlin Technical, Freiberg Technical, Cambridge, practically every major Italian university, and hundreds of others aren't universities? Just because Harvard had a religious school didn't mean it was as religious school. Since 1088, when Bologna coined th…

> So by your definition, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Coumbia, U Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, Oxford, Paris, Liepzig, Bordeau, Glascow, Istanbul, Granada, Strassburg, Moscow, Berlin Technical, Freiberg Technical, Cambridge, practically every major Italian university, and hundreds of others aren't universities? They weren't initially. They tranformed into modern universities in the 1800s. 'A 1643 publication defined the unive…

Wait, to be a university you now have to have accreditation? That's part of your definition?

> A 1643 publication defined the university's purpose

In 1643. Harvard had changed quite a lot well before 1810.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#116

Post by uptownfunk »

SeanLuke wrote: post #17

[dead]

>> "I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation."

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#117

Post by anaganisk »

throwaway280382 wrote: post #40
cjohnson318 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propaganda is a strong term that suggests an ulterior motive. What is the ulterior motive here for calling Nalanda a university?

[flagged]

Normally, I would agree with you, but in this context, I would say it's abad faith argument. 1. Hindus never claimed they were better than any race. They say they had an advanced understanding of science back in the days. which, in many cases, have archeological recorded evidence. 2. Northern India was plundered by invasions, which got looted of its wealth and knowledge, many temples were shut down. In those days temples played multiple roles. They played the role of banks, seed storage, schools, medical centers etc, and there were massive drives of indoctrination and destruction during that time. Which also has recorded evidence. Why do you think southern India has more Hindu cultural heritage than Northern India? There are multiple nations that have some kind of relation, ties or roots with Southern India. 3. There were several recorded attributions of scientific contributions made by Indian region scholars. 4. I read your other comment saying, we whitewashed Nalandas History, let me ask you this, why does a place of learning have drawbacks. Its a place of learning designed with a certain curriculum. You are always free not to join it if the curriculum doesnt suit you. Its like saying Havard has drawbacks because it doesnt offer Tamil Litterature degree. 5. There are several recorded interactions by scholars from foriegn regions for Nalanda. Calling Nalanda university an attempt of propganda is self hate and self depreciation. I call out propoganda always, see my comment history against govt moves, but this aint it.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#118

Post by fooker »

SeanLuke wrote: post #17

[dead]

>These were religious schools

Everything was, until very recently in history. That should not, by itself, matter.

But I agree that idea of an adult obtaining a degree after a fixed period of study is essential to the idea of an university.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#119

Post by mparkms »

ugh123 wrote: post #55

Bare with me here: Why is it that articles need to start with lines like > "The winter morning was cloaked in thick fog..." and postpone the actual information pertaining to the title? Instead, we have to sift through irrelevant story-like content to get to the meat of the information and facts. Will one promise of tools like ChatGPT and their successors be to summarize-away this fluff?

It's a travelogue, not a Wikipedia article. People read it for the fluff and prose.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#120

Post by CydeWeys »

stonogo wrote: post #97
nothrowaways wrote: post #2

9 million books and 10k students - Unrealistic.

Yale has 15k students and its library has a collection of 15 million. Cornell has 25k students and 10 million books.

How many of the books that Yale and Cornell have are hand-written on hand-produced paper and manually bound codexes?

The printing press is kind of a big deal.

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