[Kabar-indonesia] Asia challenged to rebuild ancient centre of learning

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The Straits Times (Singapore) 
Saturday, September 2, 2006

Review

Asia challenged to rebuild ancient centre of learning

Mafoot Simon, Senior Writer

The Buddhist diaspora will benefit from plans to
revive the historical city of Nalanda in India, says
Mafoot Simon. These plans provide a cultural dimension
to India's Look East Policy and complete India's
engagement with its Asian neighbours

AN AMBITIOUS plan is gathering momentum in India's
'poorest of the poor' state of Bihar: To rebuild an
international university near an historic site in the
ancient city of Nalanda, a reincarnation of the
world's first residential university for thousands of
scholars 2,500 years ago.

Nalanda was the site of a Buddhist centre of learning
established in the 5th century BC and which flourished
for 700 years. It fell into ruins in 1193 when an
obscure Turkish adventurer, Bakhtiyar Khalji, embarked
on a campaign to gain control of Bengal's traditional
trade routes.

At its peak, thousands of students came from as far
away as China and South-east Asia. When the Tang
Dynasty pilgrim Xuanzang studied for two years in
Nalanda in the 7th century, he said he was in the
company of several thousand scholar-monks. He studied
logic, grammar, Sanskrit and the Yogacara school of
Buddhism during his time at Nalanda.

Recently, Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
expressed the hope that the refounding of a university
in Nalanda could become 'the beacon of light for the
modern world'.

Describing the proposed university as unique, Dr Kalam
said: 'This university can be a place for the meeting
of minds from the national and international arena to
do research on the unity of minds, with a focus on
philosophy linking science, technologies, economy and
sprituality.'

Reference can be made to 'ancient and modern thinking'
and the focus can be 'the evolution of the world, free
from crime, terrorism and war', he added.

In May, the Bihar state government gave its
in-principle approval to the project. In the same
month, a Japanese delegation expressed interest in
redeveloping the ancient university.

Two months later, Indian archaeologists began their
exploration of the site, based on the travel accounts
of the 7th century Xuanzan. The ancient Nalanda
university is believed to have been spread over an
area of about 16 sq km, out of which an area of only a
1.6- km radius has been excavated so far, Indian media
has reported.

The project to rebuild the university is estimated to
cost about 5 billion rupees (S$ 169 million). But
according to Mr N.K. Singh, the deputy chairman of
Bihar's Planning Board, much more will be required.

'You can't only rebuild the university. You need a
supporting infrastructure. You need roads, airports,
railway linkages,' he told The Straits Times last week
during a one-day official visit en route to Australia.

The cost of the entire project would only be known 'in
the next few months', said Mr Singh, who added that
experts are now studying a draft law to establish the
university.

The Bill stipulates that one of the six objectives of
the university is 'to recapture in the modern context
the holistic traditions of knowledge creation,
acquisition and dissemination as practised in Nalanda
several centuries ago, and the universal outlook with
which scholars from many countries interacted there'.

The Bihar government plans to enact the law by the
year's end, Mr Singh said. He also disclosed that one
plan was to obtain the involvement of Unesco. In 2002,
the agency declared the Mahaboddhi Temple in
neighbouring Bodhgaya a World Heritage site.

One thing is certain: It will be a massive
undertaking.

By way of comparison, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a
huge library and cultural centre on the shore of
Alexandria, Egypt, took some seven years to build at a
final cost of US$220 million (S$350 million). The
library is a commemoration of the famous Library of
Alexandria, once the largest library in the world and
a centre of learning commonly believed to have been
built at the beginning of the 3rd century BC during
the reign of Ptolemy II.

But how can Bihar, where 42 per cent of its 85 million
population live below the poverty line - against the
national average of 26 per cent - and where the per
capita GDP is a quarter the national average, find the
money?

The proponents are looking at how countries in Asia
could act as an international consortium, 'in its best
form a public and private sectors partnership', as Mr
Singh put it, to rebuild Nalanda.

'This has to be an international consortium. It cannot
be just exclusively a Japanese project. Money is not
everything. It has to be conceived in terms of a
shared commonality of value and culture. A shared
commonality will involve many countries in this
partnership,' he said, pointing to countries with a
link to Buddhism, such as China, Thailand, Malaysia
and Indonesia.

In other words, the Buddhist diaspora.

There is also another element to the development of
Nalanda - Buddhist tourism. Bodhgaya, Nalanda and
neighbouring Rajgir constitute a Buddhist circuit that
witnesses regular Buddhist visitors from all over the
world. 'The entire area is vibrating with the
historical past,' Mr Singh noted.

This 'smallest circuit of the Buddhist trail' is a
major beneficiary of a government plan to pump 55
billion rupees into improving the infrastructure
around 22 religious sites in India.

A bigger circuit includes Vashali and Sharnath - both
in India - and Lumbini in Nepal, the birthplace of
Buddha, while a regional trail would include Sri
Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, China and Japan,
Mr Singh said. 'We have to put in more energy into the
Buddhist circuit in India.'

There is still what he described as the 'bigger arc',
which includes Pakistan and Afghanistan. Said Mr
Singh, who was, between Aug 1998 and April 2001, a
secretary to the then-premier of India: 'The Buddhist
trail is a very big trail involving many countries. So
the ultimate vision will be to establish the cultural
links which cover all these countries.

'But we have to make a beginning somewhere. So we are
beginning at Nalanda...Europe has discovered its
cultural roots. It's time for Asia to discover its
cultural roots. Nalanda represents an Asian cultural
root: 2,500 years ago different Asian countries were
bound together in a cultural confluence. I think we
want to do that now,' he said.

Mr Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School
of Public Policy, wrote in the Washington Post
recently: 'There is a growing realisation that the
world can learn a lot from, say, Chinese and Indian
civilisations, in everything from poetry and
philosophy to traditional medicine and strategic
thinking.'

But what is more important, the religious-based
projects being stirred in Nalanda would give a
cultural dimension to India's Look East Policy, first
enunciated in the early 1990s. So far, the areas
addressed cover security, politics, economics and
trade. This cultural dimension would complete India's
engagement with its Asian neighbours.

 WHERE MINDS CAN MEET

'This university can be a place for the meeting of
minds from the national and international arena to do
research on unity of minds with a focus on philosophy
linking science, technologies, economy and
sprituality, with reference to ancient and modern
thinking. The focus is on the evolution of the world,
free from crime, terrorism and war.'

DR ABDUL KALAM on the rebuilding of a university in
Bihar

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