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Nalanda: The university that changed the world Share using Email Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin (Image credit: Tahir Ansari/Alamy) Nalanda: The university that changed the world (Credit: Tahir Ansari/Alamy) By Sugato Mukherjee 23rd February 2023 More than 500 years before Oxford University was founded, India's Nalanda University was home to nine million books and attracted 10,000 students from around the world. T The winter morning was cloaked in thick fog. Our car swerved past horse-drawn carriages, a mode of transport still popular in the rural reaches of the eastern Indian state of Bihar, the trotting horses and turbaned coachmen looking like shadowy apparitions in the pearly-white mist. After spending a night in the town of Bodhgaya, the ancient settlement where Lord Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment, I set out that morning for Nalanda, whose red-brick ruins are all that remain of one of the greatest centres of learning in the ancient world. Founded in 427 CE, Nalanda is considered the world's first residential university, a sort of medieval Ivy League institution home to nine million books that attracted 10,000 students from across Eastern and Central Asia. They gathered here to learn medicine, logic, mathematics and – above all – Buddhist principles from some of the era's most revered scholars. As the Dalai Lama once stated: "The source of all the [Buddhist] knowledge we have, has come from Nalanda." Ten thousand students from across Asia came to Nalanda to learn Buddhist principles from some of the era's most revered scholars (Credit: imageBROKER/Alamy) Ten thousand students from across Asia came to Nalanda to learn Buddhist principles from some of the era's most revered scholars (Credit: imageBROKER/Alamy) In the more-than seven centuries that Nalanda flourished, there was nothing else like it in the world. The monastic university predates the University of Oxford and Europe's oldest university, Bologna, by more than 500 years. What's more, Nalanda's enlightened approach to philosophy and religion would help shape the culture of Asia long after the university ceased to exist. Interestingly, the monarchs of the Gupta Empire that founded the Buddhist monastic university were devout Hindus, but sympathetic and accepting towards Buddhism and the growing Buddhist intellectual fervour and philosophical writings of the time. The liberal cultural and religious traditions that evolved under their reign would form the core of Nalanda's multidisciplinary academic curriculum, which blended intellectual Buddhism with a higher knowledge in different fields. The ancient Indian medical system of Ayurveda, which is rooted in nature-based healing methods, was widely taught at Nalanda and then migrated to other parts of India via alumni. Other Buddhist institutions drew inspiration from the campus' design of open courtyards enclosed by prayer halls and lecture rooms. And the stucco produced here influenced ecclesiastical art in Thailand, and metal art migrated from here to Tibet and the Malayan peninsula. VIDEO: Return of the world's oldest university (Credit: Mithun Pramanik/BBC Reel) But perhaps Nalanda's most profound and lingering legacy is its achievements in mathematics and astronomy. Aryabhata, considered the father of Indian mathematics, is speculated to have headed the university in the 6th Century CE. "We believe that Aryabhata was the first to assign zero as a digit, a revolutionary concept, which simplified mathematical computations and helped evolve more complex avenues such as algebra and calculus," said Anuradha Mitra, a Kolkata-based professor of mathematics. "Without zero, we wouldn't have computers," she added. "He also did pioneering works in extracting square and cubic roots, and applications of trigonometrical functions to spherical geometry. He was also the first to attribute radiance of the moon to reflected sunlight." This work would profoundly influence the development of mathematics and astronomy in southern India and across the Arabian Peninsula. The university regularly sent some of its best scholars and professors to places like China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Sri Lanka to propagate Buddhist teachings and philosophy. This ancient cultural exchange programme helped spread and shape Buddhism across Asia. The excavated Unesco site extends for 23 hectares, but is likely a mere fraction of the original campus (Credit: Dinodia Photos/Alamy) The excavated Unesco site extends for 23 hectares, but is likely a mere fraction of the original campus (Credit: Dinodia Photos/Alamy) The archaeological remains of Nalanda arenow a Unesco World Heritage site. In the 1190s, the university was destroyed by a marauding troop of invaders led by Turko-Afghan military general Bakhtiyar Khilji, who sought to extinguish the Buddhist centre of knowledge during his conquest of northern and eastern India. The campus was so vast that the fire set on by the attackersis said to have burned for three months. Today, the 23-hectare excavated site is likely a mere fraction of the original campus, but ambling through its multitude of monasteries and temples evokes a feeling of what it must have been like to learn at this fabled place. I wandered around the porches and porticos of the monasteries and the shrine-chambers of the temples. After slipping through a corridor with lofty, red-brick walls, I arrived at an inner courtyard of a monastery. The cavernous, rectangular space was dominated by a raised stone platform. "This used to be a lecture hall that could sit 300 students. And the platform was the teacher's podium," said Kamla Singh, my local guide, who showed me around the ruins. I went into one of the small rooms that lined the courtyard where students from as far away as Afghanistan lived. Two alcoves facing each other were meant to hold oil lamps and personal belongings, and Singh explained that the small, square-shaped hollow near the entrance of the cell served as each student's personal letterbox. Like today's elite universities, admission was tough. Aspiring students needed to engage in a rigorous oral interview with Nalanda's top professors. Those who got lucky were tutored by an eclectic group of professors from different corners of India and collectively operated under the most revered Buddhist masters of the era, such as Dharmapala and Silabhadra. The library's nine million handwritten, palm-leaf manuscripts was the richest repository of Buddhist wisdom in the world, and one ofits three library buildings was described by Tibetan Buddhist scholar Taranatha as a nine-storey building "soaring into the clouds". Only a handful of those palm-leaf volumes and painted wooden folios survived the fire – carried away by fleeing monks. They can now can be found at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the US and Yarlung Museum in Tibet. The Dalai Lama once said: "The source of all the [Buddhist] knowledge we have, has come from Nalanda." (Credit: REY Pictures/Alamy) The Dalai Lama once said: "The source of all the [Buddhist] knowledge we have, has come from Nalanda." (Credit: REY Pictures/Alamy) The acclaimed Chinese Buddhist monk and traveller Xuanzang studied and taught at Nalanda. When he returned to China in 645 CE, he carried back a wagonload of 657 Buddhist scriptures from Nalanda. Xuanzang would go on to become one of the world's most influential Buddhist scholars, and he would translate a portion of these volumes into Chinese to create his life's treatise, whose central idea was that the whole world is but a representation of the mind. His Japanese disciple, Dosho, would later introduce this doctrine to Japan, and it would spread further into the Sino-Japanese world, where it would remain as a major religion ever since. As a result, Xuanzang has been credited as "the monk who brought Buddhism East". In Xuanzang's description of Nalanda, he had mentioned the Great Stupa – a huge monument constructed in memory of one of Lord Buddha's chief disciples. I stood in front of the ruins of the imposing structure, shaped like an octagonal pyramid. Open-brick staircases wound their way up to the top of the edifice, also known as the Great Monument. Numerous small shrines and votive stupas dot the paved terrace that runs around the 30m-high temple, which is adorned by beautiful stucco images in the niches of the exterior walls. "The Great Stupa actually predates the university and was built in the 3rd Century CE by Emperor Ashoka. The structure had been rebuilt and remodelled several times over eight centuries," said Anjali Nair, a history teacher from Mumbai, whom I had met at the site. "Those votive stupas contain the ashes of the Buddhist monks who had lived and died here, dedicating their entire lives to the university," she added. More than eight centuries after its demise, some scholars contest the widely held theory that Nalanda was destroyed because Khilji and his troops felt its teachings competed with Islam. While uprooting Buddhism may have been a driving force behind the attack, one of India's pioneering archaeologists, HD Sankaliya, wrote in his 1934 book, The University of Nalanda, that the fortress-like appearance of the campus and stories of its wealth were reasons enough for invaders to deem the university a lucrative spot for an attack. The onsite museum houses more than 13,000 antiquities salvaged during the site's excavations (Credit: Sugato Mukherjee) The onsite museum houses more than 13,000 antiquities salvaged during the site's excavations (Credit: Sugato Mukherjee) "Yes, it is difficult to assign a definitive reason for the invasion," said Shankar Sharma, the director of the onsite museum, which displays 350 artefacts of the more-than 13,000 antiquities it houses, which were salvaged during Nalanda excavations, such as stucco sculptures, bronze statuettes of the Buddha, and ivory and bone pieces. "It was not the first attack on Nalanda, though," Sharma said, as we strolled through the ruins. "It was attacked by the Huns under Mihirkula in the 5th Century, and again sustained severe damages from an invasion of the Gauda king of Bengal, in the 8th Century." While the Huns came to plunder, it is difficult to conclude whether the second attack by the King of Bengal was the result of a growing antagonism between their Shaivite Hindu sect and the Buddhists at the time. On both occasions, the buildings were restored, and the facilities were expanded after the attacks with the help of imperial patronage from the rulers. "By the time Khilji invaded this sacred temple of learning, Buddhism was on an overall state of decline in India," Sharma said. "With its internal degeneration, coupled with [the] decline of the Buddhist Pala dynasty that had been patronising the university since the 8th Century CE, the third invasion was the final death blow." The ruins of Nalanda remain an important place of pilgrimage and reflection for Buddhists (Credit: Sugato Mukherjee) The ruins of Nalanda remain an important place of pilgrimage and reflection for Buddhists (Credit: Sugato Mukherjee) Over the next six centuries, Nalanda would gradually sink into oblivion and remain buried, before it was "discovered" by Scottish surveyor Francis Buchanan-Hamilton in 1812, and later identified as the ancient Nalanda University by Sir Alexander Cunningham in 1861. Standing near a miniature stupa, I watched a small band of young monks clad in crimson robes touring the site before they stopped to gather atop the large plinth of a former temple. The young ascetics sat upright in a meditative repose, their eyes fixed on the Great Monument – a silent homage to a glorious past. |
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Italy's unusual vegetable ritual Share using Email Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin (Image credit: Katie McKnoulty) Italy's unusual vegetable ritual (Credit: Katie McKnoulty) By Katie McKnoulty 17th February 2023 Since the Middle Ages, "onion oracles" have been using the root vegetable as a form of divination to peer into the future and predict the weather. E Every year on the evening of 24 January in the central Italian town of Urbania, local schoolteacher Emanuela Forlini cuts a yellow onion into quarters. She then separates out 12 wedges that will form the basis of her local weather predictions for the year ahead. She lays out a slice for each month of the year on her kitchen chopping board, the first representing January, the second February and so on through December. Sprinkling each piece with a generous pinch of salt, she leaves the board on her windowsill, facing east, and goes to bed. As the first rays of sun appear on the 25th, with her notebook and pen in hand, she interprets each sacred slice, looking for signs supposedly sent by a saint in the salt's reaction with the onion – are the wedges wet or dry, the salt caked or dissolved? From this, she creates her annual weather forecast for another year, published in local newspapers and on television for the people of Urbania and the surrounding province of Pesaro and Urbino, who await the results with bated breath. Forlini has been practising this ritual for the past 28 years, carrying on the tradition from her father Anselmo, a lawyer, after he passed away. Her grandfather, Domenico, passed it on to him before that. While Italy is home to a handful of other onion readers, Forlini has become the country's go-to expert, often featured in regional and national media throughout the years, essentially making Urbania the spiritual home of this tradition. She creates the forecast every year, not out of a strong belief in her own predictions, or even their esoteric nature, but out of duty. Every evening on 24 January, Forlini leaves the onion wedges by an open windowsill (Credit: Katie McKnoulty) Every evening on 24 January, Forlini leaves the onion wedges by an open windowsill (Credit: Katie McKnoulty) "I practice this ritual out of affection for my father and my grandfather, who practiced this tradition. And for me, this means simply keeping alive a very ancient and true tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages but is, above all, a family tradition." From reading runes and tea leaves to examining the stars, people throughout history have been looking for signs that might tell them the future, searching for comfort in knowing which way to go. These various modes of divination have taken many different forms depending on the religious, economic and environmental context. In medieval Europe, many people turned to whatever vegetables were available at the time to predict the weather for the year ahead. In Italy, this vegetable has historically been the common onion, a humble crop readily available to every farming family. Inside Urbania's 15th-Century Palazzo Ducale, which was commissioned by the Duke of Montefeltro, a library houses the duke's biography, which dates to the Middle Ages. The book describes his army winning a battle because he had consulted the onions and learned of the bad weather predicted, while his opponents had not. The practice has more commonly been used by farmers, passed down through generations of those dependent on agriculture. It was essential knowledge – when to plough the earth, plant the seeds, prune and harvest the crops. Failing to consult the onions could mean the difference between feeding your family or not. People in Urbania have been using onions to predict the weather since the Middle Ages (Credit: Katie McKnoulty) People in Urbania have been using onions to predict the weather since the Middle Ages (Credit: Katie McKnoulty) "Up until the first post-war period, it was a thing people believed in and many did it," Forlini recalled. "Then at a certain point, instead there were people who cultivated this tradition and the farmers turned to these trusted people... among these was my grandfather, who was a farmer that continued this tradition, even later when it had fallen into disuse." Urbania resident Anna Damiani remembers a time before smartphones and scientific weather predictions. "Once upon a time, we didn't have weather forecasts like there are today. So, we always trusted in the things of nature. For example, it was enough that if on a particular day, it rained, for us it meant it would rain for the next 40 days, too. It's just a belief. Sometimes it worked, but we still continued to believe in it even if sometimes it was also wrong." Italy's few remaining onion oracles tend to be scattered in the country's central and northern regions, such as the nearby coastal city of Ancona, and farther north in Brescia, Parma and Trento. Their predictions are published in local newspapers including a regional edition of the newspaper Il Resto del Carlino, as well as on a regional TV news programme, the typical refrain being: "The onions have spoken for another year." The continued annual broadcast of the results helps keep the tradition alive. In Urbania, the onion weather predictions (il barometro delle cipolle) remain a part of the local lexicon. "Around the town we still hear, 'The onions have predicted rain!' or 'The onions have predicted such and such'," said Damiani. Each year, people in Urbania and the surrounding province await the results of the onions with bated breath (Credit: Katie McKnoulty) Each year, people in Urbania and the surrounding province await the results of the onions with bated breath (Credit: Katie McKnoulty) According to Forlini, the accuracy of the predictions isn't what's important; what matters is that it continues. "We all know that it is not a scientific method, and that for weather forecasting, there are meteorologists and satellites and everything that today's modern world gives us. It is only a tradition… just a way to keep yourself a little anchored to the past in an emotional way." Elisa Luzi is an anthropologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany but hails from a town close to Urbania, and she has been known locally as "the onion girl" ever since writing her bachelor's thesis at the University of Bologna on the topic of the Urbania onions in 2007. She credits Forlini's dedication, as well as local farmers who relied on the predictions, for keeping the tradition alive. "My grandfather was a farmer, so for him it was kind of important. The day that the journal would print the predictions, we'd have to buy the paper and read what happened. He was still attached to this kind of old tradition – following the Moon to know when you have to work the field, when you have to plant, when you have to kill the pigs." Perform your own onion predictions Chop a medium onion into quarters and place 12 of the largest pieces on a wooden chopping board in two parallel rows. The top row represents January to June, the bottom represents July to December. Sprinkle a generous pinch of fine, non-iodised salt on each slice and leave the board on a windowsill facing east with the window open. At dawn, bring your board inside and analyse your onions straight away. The top of each slice represents the first 10 days of each month, the middle the second 10 days and the bottom the third portion. Undissolved salt means dry and sunny; melted salt means rain, possibly snow for a winter month; slices hardened with salt crystals mean frost and/or snow; bubbles mean humidity. The timing of the ritual is rooted in Catholicism, which is intrinsically tied to Italian culture. "Traditionally in the Catholic Church, the day of [January] 25th is the day of the Conversion of St Paul. So, you do it [the ritual] the night before because, like everything, it's the night before that's important," Luzi said. On the night of 24 January, according to Catholic tradition, Paul received clear signs to become a Christian. This same night was chosen as the best time to read the onions as it was believed to hold some kind of magic. "They thought 'he was given signs so he'll give signs to me'," said Luzi. While the tradition has Catholicism in its DNA, the Catholic church does not officially support the practice. "They do not condone this kind of stuff. They say, 'When you pray, you pray to the saints, not to the onions'," Luzi said. Onion-reading may no longer serve as practical a role as it once did, but Urbania's residents are still keen to preserve it. "It's kind of a point of pride… [it's] part of what we are, a little piece of our identity that we bring from the past, to the present, to the future," Luzi said. "Sometimes, you need to remember that you're a part of history. That it's not just you." When Forlini is finished with her readings, she types them up and sends them to the media for publication. For 2023, the onions predicted a long and cold winter; a spring that starts and finishes with rain, interrupted by a mild and beautiful May in between; a sweltering summer; a mild early autumn that lasts until the end of October; and an earlier-than-usual start to a cold winter. After all is said and done, she puts the onions to good use. "I certainly don't throw them away!" she said. "Along with other onions, I'll make onion soup for the evening." |
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