Long before university rankings were compiled, Xuanzang, a prospective student from China made the long and perilous journey to India, on the hearsay of the most distinguished university and monastery in India – Nalanda.
This ancient location, where the Buddha himself is believed to have delivered lectures and sermons, was home to one of the world’s most reputed universities and places of learning between the fifth and 13th centuries A.D. Records suggest that the site was a place of learning from as early as the third century B.C.
Like any good student, Xuanzang had researched the teachers he hoped to study under at the university. In Nalanda resided among the foremost experts of Buddhism ever – the sage Silabhadra. At the time, Nalanda would have been home to between 1,000-4,000 students, all of whom revered Silabhadra to no end. An account of the first meeting between the Xuanzang, the Chinese student and the Indian teacher is below:
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