Nalanda Mahavihara and the Modern University — Can These Be Compared?

Education holds a significant place in measuring the progress of post-independence India. That is precisely why India’s educational standing is continually compared with different countries of the world. On one hand, India’s education system is extremely vast. In this system, about 14 lakh schools and 1,300 universities are providing education to approximately 24.5 crore students. Of these, about 65 percent of the colleges are private colleges. Every year, roughly 4 percent of India’s GDP is spent on education. Although at one level this appears to be an educational system one could be proud of at the global level, in the matter of educational quality it appears to have considerable problems. In recent times, many thinkers agree that the National Education Policy has set out to build the new educational system that India needs. Although it is true that there is substance in that, on certain matters this education policy has left, as a question mark itself, the question of how to think about Indian education.

In this education policy there is a discussion of reshaping India’s universities upon the ideal of our parampare (tradition/culture). That is why this policy argues that India’s modern universities should be rethought on the Nalanda model. With that view, in order to take the next steps, the National Education Policy has carried out considerable discussion about this Nalanda model. The most central matter of this policy is to make Indian universities, on the Nalanda model, into centres of bahushistiya (multi-disciplinary) study. No one could possibly object to such a forward-looking idea. But let us ask the question of whether it is possible to transform our universities in that way.

Let us now observe, for once, the viharas of the Vajrayana tradition of the Nalanda model that are living before our very eyes. Here a student comes to the vihara as a śikṣārthi (learner) between the ages of 6 and 10. He takes dīkṣe (initiation) as a bhikku (monk) and, as part of the saṅgha (community/order), begins his study. Here, to begin with, he continuously studies tarka (logic), pramāṇa (means of valid knowledge), prajñāparimita sūtra, the Mādhyamika tradition, vinaya (monastic discipline), abhidhāmadhamma, and so on, for 20 to 30 years. While studying in this way, in order to carry out jijñāse (inquiry) into experience, and for the sṛjane (creation) of jñāna (knowledge), he must shape his life in a specific manner. He is taught not only to study but also all the tasks from cleanliness to cooking, over these two to three decades. For at least 20 years of his life, a student learns in a disciplined way to engage in saṃvāda (dialogue/debate) for more than 3 hours a day. Not only that — by the time he completes his education from the vihara, he has learned to live the value called karuṇe (compassion). Although there are extremely rigorous examination systems in this vihara, the learning is shaped according to the capacity of individuals. The discussions that take place among the teachers here are about some profound matter of logic, or a matter of dhyāna (meditation), or about how a lesson should be taught to students. Here, education is niḥśulka (free of cost). The viharas take care of the arrangements for the teachers.

In these viharas, education has been shaped by keeping learning alone at the centre, for the sake of a specific way of life. Therefore, no effort whatsoever has been made to make the learning here — to make them — multi-disciplinary. But it has taken shape here very naturally. Here, education is not given by placing at the centre either ideologies or the momentary changes of the laukika (worldly) world. Instead, here vidye (learning/knowledge) is the path to mukti (liberation). Like everyone, the students here too — pursuing knowledge for the sake of life — later take up some work or other. But for them, learning for the sake of mukti (liberation) continues throughout life.

Our universities work in exactly the opposite way to this. In these universities, everything is fee-based. Here, teachers are absorbed in the work of delivering information to students more than in bodhane (teaching). More than the student’s learning, the task of finishing the syllabus itself has become a very big matter for the teachers. In the vihara, the guru thinks from a samagra (holistic/comprehensive) perspective for the growth of his student. But in our universities, what he has learned is determined by the marks recorded in the aṅkapaṭṭi (marks card). Here, teachers, more than the development and learning of students, keep discussing matters such as the university’s rules and regulations, politics, promotion, salary, and so on. Here, vāda (argument/reasoned debate) is not something taught to students over decades; instead, it becomes a tool used to justify the ideology they cling to.

In universities recently, it seems greater attention has been given to “Learning Outcome” in their learning systems. For that, it has become extremely unavoidable for every teacher to subject to measurement what students have learned from the classes he teaches. This measurement is being implemented in most universities, often as a laughable activity. A few years ago, I was invited to speak at a large NAAC-affiliated conference. There, while speaking with the teachers, I asked the question: how many of you write what the “Outcome” of the courses you teach is, and conduct an examination to measure it? At that, all the teachers in that room said, fully, that “we all do this.” Then, when I asked whether there was any teacher who could truly say that the examination method you mentioned is capable of measuring the Outcome, and that in that way your teaching is having an effect on students, not one said yes. Instead, after the conference, some senior teachers said, “Sir, in the university rules it is stated that we must write in this manner, so we write it out accordingly. We do hold the intention of increasing the students’ learning ability. But we have no time at all to do all this; finishing the syllabus itself is difficult.”

In exact contrast to this, the daily routine of the teachers who teach in the vihara begins at 4 o’clock in the early morning. 11 o’clock and 6 o’clock in the evening are meal times. Apart from these two times, they spend more than 340 days of the year in adhyayana (study) and adhyāpana (teaching).

This comparison of the vihara and the university has the potential to convey one simple matter. Very importantly, for the Nalanda model that the education policy is proposing to exist, a specific educational environment is necessary. The Nalanda model cannot be seated anāmattāgi (wholesale / as it is) within the university structure imported from Europe. And even if that were somehow done, these modern universities in India have the capacity to merely thread the Nalanda learning method itself into the university’s present-day problems. Here, the measurement of knowledge-creation is determined by the articles they publish. The teachers’ writing, and their publications, are the instrument for their promotion and so on. For that very reason, the greatest amount of fraud and injustice in the world takes place in universities in India. What is more — even in the assessments such as NAAC, NARF, etc. that are meant to raise the quality of research and teaching, the art has been perfected here of adding every kind of exaggeration — both what is not there and what is there — and showing one’s institutional and personal achievement as wonderful.

In exact contrast to this, in the viharas or gurukulas, satyaparate (truthfulness), kāruṇya (compassion), dedication for the sake of knowledge, and anubhava jijñāse (inquiry into experience) are kept at the centre. All these are matters of anuṣṭhāna (practice/implementation), not matters of bhāṣaṇa (speech/lecturing).

Against this background, the programme of reshaping Indian universities on the Nalanda model appears like mistaking a rope for a snake. The main thing to be remembered here is that the above comparison is not an attempt to show that the gurukula is superior and the university inferior. As far as we know, even today in Western countries, knowledge-creation happens in universities. They work in that culture in a most excellent manner. But although centuries have passed since such structures were brought to our country, they do not appear to have given the results we expected.

If we ask the question of why institutions that create knowledge even today in Europe, within Europe’s cultural background, fail in India, several thinkers have given different answers in different periods. Many solutions to this problem have been attempted. Even so, in India these universities do not appear to be on the path of jñānārjana (acquisition of knowledge). To put it very simply, there appears to be a direct relationship between the structure of the university and the culture out of which it arose. That is, our universities do not yet appear to have adapted in a way complementary to India’s cultural way of life. Whatever in our culture is conducive to learning, our laws do not appear to have recognized. Instead, one can see the aspiration of bringing the Nalanda model into India’s universities while holding on to some romantic, picturesque imagination of ancient times.

Why is it not possible to reshape the programme of punarujjīvana (revival) of India’s universities against the background of our own experience? For what reason are we today unable to properly construct nirūpaṇe (accounts/narratives) about the learning of the Nalanda Mahavihara and its educational environment? Is it possible to limit the Nalanda vihara to merely multi-disciplinary study? Even if one were to set out to do so, why is no thought being given to how Indian universities might be reorganized by studying its living model and keeping samagrate (comprehensiveness/holism) in view in accordance with this Nalanda vihara? While such questions, on one hand, appear even today as an unresolvable puzzle, on the other hand it becomes evident that these very questions are a good example of the adhyāsa (superimposition) we have already discussed. Why does it not appear to those who make such a simple comparison between the modern university and the viharas that they are mistaking a rope for a snake?

Just as a rope is mistaken for a snake, because the gurukula or viharas are today being perceived as universities, it is not possible to see the rope as a rope. Like the difference between a rope and a snake, there is an extreme difference between the university and the gurukula or viharas that two (different) cultures have shaped. Therefore, if we ask whether thinking about the Nalanda model within the framework of the university can become a path to the revival of Indian education, it feels difficult to say yes. How to shape universities — against the background of the purpose and the learning method of Indian education, in a way complementary to our cultural life — this needs to become our serious question for the time ahead.