Nalanda Open University

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B.Sc. (Hons.) in Home Science

Priti Singh Thakur

04/08/2021
About the course: Good
Course taken: August 2021
Would you recommend this course?: Yes
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History

Towards the Southeast of Patna, the Capital City of Bihar State in India, is a village called the 'Bada Gaon', in the vicinity of which, are the world famous ruins of Nalanda University.

Founded in the 5th Century A.D., Nalanda is known as the ancient seat of learning. 2,000 Teachers and 10,000 Students from all over the Buddhist world lived and studied at Nalanda, the first Residential International University of the World. A walk in the ruins of the university, takes you to an era, that saw India leading in imparting knowledge, to the world - the era when India was a coveted place for studies. The University flourished during the 5th and 12th century.

Although Nalanda is one of the places distinguished as having been blessed by the presence of the Buddha, it later became particularly renowned as the site of the great monastic university of the same name , which was to become the crown jewel of the development of Buddhism in India. The name may derive from one of Shakyamuni's former births , when hewas a king whose capital was here. Nalanda was one of his epithets meaning "insatiable in giving."

This place saw the rise and fall of many empires and emperors who contributed in the development of Nalanda University. Many monasteries and temples were built by them. Kingarshwardhana gifted a 25m high copper statue of Buddha and Kumargupta endowed a college of fine arts ere. Nagarjuna- a Mahayana philosopher, Dinnaga- founder of the school of Logic and Dharmpala- the Brahmin scholar, taught here.

The famous Chinese traveller and scholar,Hieun-Tsang stayed here and has given a detailed description of the situations prevailing at that time. Careful excavation of the place has revealed many stupas, monasteries,hostels,stair cases,meditation halls, lecture halls and many other structures which speak of the splendour and grandeur this place enjoyed,when the place was a centre of serious study.

A large number of ancient Buddhist establishments, stupas, chaityas, temples and monastery sites have been excavated and they show that this was one of the most important Buddhist centres of worship and culture.Regarding the historicity of Nalanda, we read in Jaina texts that Mahavira Vardhamana spent as many as fourteen rainy seasons in Nalanda.

Pali Buddhist Literature , too, has ample references to Nalanda, which used to be visited by Lord Buddha. During the days of Mahavira and Buddha,Nalanda was apparently a very prosperous temple city, a great place of pilgrimage and the site of a celebrated university. It is said that King Asoka gave offerings to the Chaitya of Sariputra at Nalanda and erected a temple there.Taranath mentions this and also that Nagarjuna, the famous Mahayana philosopher of the second century A.D., studied at Nalanda. Nagarjuna later became the high-priest there.

The Gupta kings patronised these monasteries, built in old Kushan architectural style, in a row of cells around a courtyard. Ashoka and Harshavardhana were some of its most celebrated patrons who built temples and monasteries here. Recent excavations have unearthed elaborate structures here. Hiuen Tsang had left ecstatic accounts of both the ambiance and architectureof this unique university of ancient times. Modern historians have tentatively dated the founding of a monastery at Nalanda as being in the fifth century.However, this may not be accurate. For example,the standard biographiesof the teacher Nagarjuna, believed by most historians to have been born around 150 AD, are quite specific about his having received ordination at Nalanda monastery when he was seven years old. Further, his teacher Rahulabhadra is said to have lived there for some time before that. We may infer that there were a monastery or monasteries at Nalanda long before the foundation of the later Great Mahavihara.

Description

The Nalanda Open University is the only University in the State of Bihar meant for imparting learning exclusively through the system of distance education.The University is named after the famous Nalanda University of Ancient India.

At present, the University is functioning from its camp office at Biscomaun Bhawan, 2nd,3rd,4th and 12th Floors, Patna 800 001. The University has established at its camp office at Patna a well equipped and fully automated modern office in an area of approximately 60,000 sq. feet, which houses an examination centre for about 1000 students, a state of the art Library with about 50,000 titles and a computer laboratory of about 300 IBM Pentium-4 computers, apart from administrative offices and other infra-structures. The University is recognised by the Distance Education Council (DEC), University Grants Commission, and Ministry of HRD, Government of India for imparting education through distance mode.

Aims & Objective

To Provide educational opportunities to those who are unable to take up formal education and are still desirous to upgrade their educational qualifications and acquire knowledge in various fields of learning through the print medium (correspondence course), contact programmes, study centres and mass media.

To provide flexibility in matters of eligibility for enrolment for higher education, age of entry, choice of course, methods of learning, conduct of examination and operation of programmes.

To offer degree and diploma courses a

Nalanda Open University