How the world's oldest university was lost for 800 years – BBC REEL

nalanda is one of the greatest universities of the world from 5th century onwards having such a very big university where students had come from different parts of the world nalanda has very old buddhist tradition it was a huge place the range of the university said to be 10 kilometers eight centuries after destruction of ancient nalanda reestablishing nalanda in its second after [Music] the first modern university known as bologna university in italy 10th and 11th century oxford university in 12th century cambridge university in 13th century just see 700 years before that one you had an international university of greater magnitude here in india [Music] ananda can be termed as a epitome of culture a soul of our ancient academia one of the most important curriculum that was taught in nalanda what chickasaw is medical education there might have been a hustle and bustle of people in the whole area because in every day there would be hundreds of classes would be there various courses were being taught in the university we had logic we had astronomy we had astrology and all other subjects also it was being taught [Music] [Music] from the descriptions of they speak about the huge turrets four-story monasteries nan story that astronomical observatory and also about the great university's magnificent library there were 1500 teachers they were all very prominent teachers there were students from korea china japan and many other countries [Music] [Music] india lost everything india lost its soul when nalanda was destroyed great and valuable books were there on various aspects of life all of them were completely destroyed by the people archaeological proof is there after the destruction of nalanda buddhism declined from india and people forgot about nalanda university about buddha also this is the biggest ever excavated university in the whole world it was in 1811 francis spokane and hamilton for the first time he saw the remains of the university but he did not know that it was a university it has been completely under earth and the village have been settled on top on the basis of that one thing travelock cunningham have started to excavate this place so the first excavation was in 1872 that was only a very small excavation and then from 1915 onwards up to 37 the whole temple complex was excavated the whole monastic portion was excavated then from 1974 up to 84 also a small type of excavation that was taken up during my tenure i tried to excavate some of the ruins just close to temple number three archaeological finding of that area the famous archaeologist percy brown created a conjunctual drawing of temple number three this very close to the original one a number of inscriptions inscriptions of the kings also and inscriptions of certain donations have also been excavated from there and this inscription they throw remarkable light about the history innumerable sculptures were excavated from the whole narendra the sculptures of lord buddha in various forms [Music] is a collection of manuscripts and rare minisculps many of the manuscripts of naranda have taken to tibet and they translate it into tibetan language some of the manuscripts are donated by his holiness dalai lama and some are from various other monasteries [Music] it had a history of 800 years of continuous education and then a gap of 800 years after which nalanda was created or re-established i am trying to repurpose nalanda redefine it in today's context basing it to the ancient nalanda nalanda university houses students from 31 countries so it's truly a cultural confluence that happens here this is the administrative block wing one we have another wing there uh the construction we started in 2017 we have about over 80 structures that are ready these are all academic administrative examination centers student facilities classrooms faculty rooms mini auditorium all these are ready we are complete in every respect it's only the residences that are under construction 70 percent done i i think we are already a university of future because we are looking at the multipolar world after various upheavals and visititudes of history near about eight almost 800 years the new international university would be again jumping into the whole fray almost like phoenix was earlier completely destroyed but out of that ashes now the new university will be coming and that would give the message of peace and non-violence to the entire globe [Music] you