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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

#121

Post by bnralt »

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…

I don't think anyone disputes that there were religious centers of learning that occurred earlier. But in cases where these institutions are Christian, people seem fine saying that they were monasteries and not universities. Monastic intellectual tradition is well known. But with many non-Christian intellectual religious centers, people seem intent on using the term "university."

Using different standards for Christian and non-Christian intellectual monasteries is strange. It doesn't make sense to call the latter universities and then turn around and act like the former weren't. For instance, from the article:

> The monastic university predates the University of Oxford and Europe's oldest university, Bologna, by more than 500 years.

If Nalanda counts as a university, then Europe certainly had universities older than Bologna. Or perhaps those institutions shouldn't count, and neither should Nalanda. I personally don't care which definition is used, as long as it's used consistently. But we seem to be dealing with definitions that change mid-sentence to accommodate whatever conclusion the author wants.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#122

Post by SeanLuke »

bradchris wrote: post #61
SeanLuke wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It depends on how you define a university. I think the institution that invented the term probably gets to define it. And that is the University of Bologna.

So what about Bachelor and Baccalaureate both being words that have their pre-Latin roots in Arabic: Bihaqq Al-riwayatt (“the right to restate the learning to somebody else“). Or the fact that ceremonial graduation garb in the EU and US, from the robes to the caps, is also based in Arab tradition. The medieval Enlightenment and subsequent Renaissance was huge for Europe, yes, but just as important to realize today is…

> So what about Bachelor and Baccalaureate both being words that have their pre-Latin roots in Arabic

What evidence do you have for this extraordinary claim?

> Or the fact that ceremonial graduation garb in the EU and US, from the robes to the caps, is also based in Arab tradition.

This is also an unfounded claim. University garb is derived from monstic order garb, which in turn is from early Nicean period monk tradition. This long predates your source.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#123

Post by brigandish »

CydeWeys wrote: post #120
stonogo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

The printing press allows magnitudes greater than that but it doesn't limit the number that can be written by hand, especially over hundreds of years, at an institute dedicated to study.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#125

Post by Symbiote »

brigandish wrote: post #123
CydeWeys wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

The printing press allows magnitudes greater than that but it doesn't limit the number that can be written by hand, especially over hundreds of years, at an institute dedicated to study.

Copy out a short novel, by hand, using a quill pen, and then decide what the limit is for handwritten books.

By the way, you also need to make the quills, ink and paper by hand, and work with natural light and no eyeglasses.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#127

Post by pasquinelli »

Towaway69 wrote: post #58
SeanLuke wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It depends on how you define a university. I think the institution that invented the term probably gets to define it. And that is the University of Bologna.

Won't that imply that "humans" didn't exist until the term "human" was invented?

a term defined is different from a thing existing.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#128

Post by bnralt »

Symbiote wrote: post #98
bradchris wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what about Bachelor and Baccalaureate both being words that have their pre-Latin roots in Arabic: Bihaqq Al-riwayatt (“the right to restate the learning to somebody else“). Or the fact that ceremonial graduation garb in the EU and US, from the robes to the caps, is also based in Arab tradition. The medieval Enlightenment and subsequent Renaissance was huge for Europe, yes, but just as important to realize today is…

> Or the fact Muslims are just as capable as Christians at promoting theories with very little evidence to support their arguments. Both of your assertions are unproven theories, with the evidence against them: bachelor originally meant a young knight who followed another (though the etymology before that is uncertain), and academic robes derive from similar (European) mediaeval clerical and secular clothing.

There's a scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the father says that the etymology of all English words can be traced back to Greek[1]. When someone challenges him with the word "Kimono," he pauses for a second, and then concocts a semi-plausible sounding explanation about how the word evolved from a Greek word.

A comedy, but I think it does reflect how a lot of people can be so impressed by their own culture that they end up spinning fictional narratives about it. For example, I was surprised to find that a common myth among Germans was that the USA almost had German become its official language, and German only lost out by a single vote.

Pride in one's culture isn't a bad thing, but too much of it can definitely lead people to believe some very questionable claims.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXt0VCPKfQ4

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#129

Post by scythe »

jltsiren wrote: post #10
mettamage wrote: post #4

Wait, so is this the oldest university then? Because a quick Google says "The Jagiellonian University is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in continuous operation in the world. It is regarded as Poland's most prestigious academic institution." Ugh... ChatGPT says "The University of Bologna…

It depends on how you define a university. Medieval European universities are often considered the first true universities, because they are direct ancestors of modern universities, and their traditions have survived and evolved into what we see today. There were earlier institutes of higher education all around the world (including Europe), but those traditions have not survived.

Usually the medieval European universities are distinguished by not being primarily religious institutions, although there have been objections to this definition. Otherwise, several older madrasas remain in operation, the oldest being the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco (847), which is listed as the world's oldest university by e.g. the Guinness Book of World Records:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_al-Qarawiyyin

Surprisingly, there are some schools for adolescents in England which are even older, the oldest dating to 597:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_School,_Canterbur...

That the oldest continuously operating institutions in the world are mostly in England (schools), Japan (hotels) and the desert mountains of North Africa (madrasas and St. Catherine's Monastery) is likely a consequence of "splendid isolation". Nobody is quite sure how old the government of Haida Gwaii is.

Re: Nalanda University flourished for more than seven centuries

#130

Post by LudwigNagasena »

bnralt wrote: post #128
Symbiote wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or the fact Muslims are just as capable as Christians at promoting theories with very little evidence to support their arguments. Both of your assertions are unproven theories, with the evidence against them: bachelor originally meant a young knight who followed another (though the etymology before that is uncertain), and academic robes derive from similar (European) mediaeval clerical and secular clothing.

There's a scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the father says that the etymology of all English words can be traced back to Greek[1]. When someone challenges him with the word "Kimono," he pauses for a second, and then concocts a semi-plausible sounding explanation about how the word evolved from a Greek word. A comedy, but I think it does reflect how a lot of people can be so impressed by their own culture that…

> There's a scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding

And there is linguistics, a science that studies language including etymology.

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