Amazing news!
Nalanada Univesity will reopen in 2014.
Big deal !! What does it really mean?
Lets start with history
Growing up in India most folks when they learn history learn lots of useful and useless history
When was first war of Panipet fought? - who cares. They also had a second war of Panipet too.
It never registered in my mind what they were attempting to teach there.
One piece of history lesson that has always lingered in my mind is the chinese traveller XuanZang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanzang
This fellow was an intentional student/traveler who came to India from China . This guy was a residential studied in Bihar,India --- studying in Nalanda more than 2000 years ago and most of what we know about Indian history from that time comes from him.
Imagine Chinese telling Indians about what India was all about!!
Yes - that is history Chinese version!
He was also responsible to take Buddhism from India to China.
Now why is Nalanda Important?
I would ask you why is Harvard , Stanford ,MIT, Cambridge and Oxford important to history? It is because innovation,culture and progess dependent on it today. What about 1000s of years back . That is where Nalanda and Takshashila come to play.
I will write about Takshashila and what it had to do with Alexandar the great and Chankaya .
For now, stay with me in Nalanda.
It was India's previous President Abdul Kalam idea to reopen Nalanda and I respect him a lot for that
For non Indians remember India's prime minister is the elected seat of authority and President is a figure head - useless rubber stamp whose job primarily is to receive and dine with foreign dignitaries if Prime Minister is busy!
While APJ Abdul Kalam acted different and proved to be influential in not only helping India develop nuclear capability as the chief scientist but also a grand visionary!
Vision 20/20 for India for which he being a muslim sought out the blessing of every religious leader in India - from hindus to christians to the buddist!!
Thanks to APJ and the governments of India,Japan,Singapore and China the university to set to reopen in 2014. and guess who is the chancellor - Amartya Sen - the economics Nobel laureate from Harvard. The next set of leadership all coming from big universties including Harvard and Singapore university.
According to wikipedia
At its peak, the university attracted scholars and students from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Turkey, Greece, and Persia.The subjects taught included religion, history, law, linguistics, medicine, public health, architecture, metallurgy, pharmacology, sculpture and astronomy.
Persia = Iran for those of us who don't know the old name
(Fun fact - Prussia is the old name for Germany )
Amazing to know that. Indian students may not have to go to USA if they prefer to study in a world class university in the future and so can Chinese and Japanese students .This will create a new center of excellence. May be the Americans and Europeans will have a new elite university for which they can choose to apply if they want to .
I hope in the future a studious student might include Nalanda in his list of school applications along with Oxford,Cambridge,Harvard,MIT,Stanfort ,Princeton and all other elite universities.
Being an American of Indian Origin I would love to see greater collaboration between these universities just like how India's ISRO and USA's NASA work very closely ,collaboratively and competitively at times.
This time around there will not be Buddhism taught in Nalanda but more secular religious concepts just in line with India's secular ambition.
That is different from its past!!
Keep Learning
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran
Nalanada Univesity will reopen in 2014.
Big deal !! What does it really mean?
Lets start with history
Growing up in India most folks when they learn history learn lots of useful and useless history
When was first war of Panipet fought? - who cares. They also had a second war of Panipet too.
It never registered in my mind what they were attempting to teach there.
One piece of history lesson that has always lingered in my mind is the chinese traveller XuanZang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanzang
This fellow was an intentional student/traveler who came to India from China . This guy was a residential studied in Bihar,India --- studying in Nalanda more than 2000 years ago and most of what we know about Indian history from that time comes from him.
Imagine Chinese telling Indians about what India was all about!!
Yes - that is history Chinese version!
He was also responsible to take Buddhism from India to China.
Now why is Nalanda Important?
I would ask you why is Harvard , Stanford ,MIT, Cambridge and Oxford important to history? It is because innovation,culture and progess dependent on it today. What about 1000s of years back . That is where Nalanda and Takshashila come to play.
I will write about Takshashila and what it had to do with Alexandar the great and Chankaya .
For now, stay with me in Nalanda.
It was India's previous President Abdul Kalam idea to reopen Nalanda and I respect him a lot for that
For non Indians remember India's prime minister is the elected seat of authority and President is a figure head - useless rubber stamp whose job primarily is to receive and dine with foreign dignitaries if Prime Minister is busy!
While APJ Abdul Kalam acted different and proved to be influential in not only helping India develop nuclear capability as the chief scientist but also a grand visionary!
Vision 20/20 for India for which he being a muslim sought out the blessing of every religious leader in India - from hindus to christians to the buddist!!
Thanks to APJ and the governments of India,Japan,Singapore and China the university to set to reopen in 2014. and guess who is the chancellor - Amartya Sen - the economics Nobel laureate from Harvard. The next set of leadership all coming from big universties including Harvard and Singapore university.
According to wikipedia
At its peak, the university attracted scholars and students from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Turkey, Greece, and Persia.The subjects taught included religion, history, law, linguistics, medicine, public health, architecture, metallurgy, pharmacology, sculpture and astronomy.
Persia = Iran for those of us who don't know the old name
(Fun fact - Prussia is the old name for Germany )
Amazing to know that. Indian students may not have to go to USA if they prefer to study in a world class university in the future and so can Chinese and Japanese students .This will create a new center of excellence. May be the Americans and Europeans will have a new elite university for which they can choose to apply if they want to .
I hope in the future a studious student might include Nalanda in his list of school applications along with Oxford,Cambridge,Harvard,MIT,Stanfort ,Princeton and all other elite universities.
Being an American of Indian Origin I would love to see greater collaboration between these universities just like how India's ISRO and USA's NASA work very closely ,collaboratively and competitively at times.
This time around there will not be Buddhism taught in Nalanda but more secular religious concepts just in line with India's secular ambition.
That is different from its past!!
Keep Learning
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran
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