[INDOLOGY] Amartya Sen and Nalanda

[Walter Slaje]

> "entry qualifications"? If Sen knows this, it is a new discovery. I don't
think anyone knows anything about how 'students' were granted 'admission'
to 'study' at Nalanda. The entire presentation of Nalanda as a 'university'
with 'students' who come to 'study' there is, to my mind, fantastical.

Is not the office of intellectually high-ranking dvārapālas, who were to
decide about admission to Buddhist centres of learning of the Nālandā
calibre,  mentioned in foreign pilgrims' accounts ? Their function would
have been to test the mental skills of aspirants. I have only a very faint
memory, certainly dating back more than thirty years, of having read about
that in Chinese and/or Tibetan accounts. I am almost sure that for instance
Śāntarakṣita, too, did hold such a position. Unless the function of a
monastic dvārapāla was not entirely different from the one I am (hopefully
correctly) recalling, it was probably an office of such a kind Sen might
have borne in mind when writing about "entry qualifications".

Regards,
WS

-----------------------------
Prof. Dr. Walter Slaje
Hermann-Löns-Str. 1
D-99425 Weimar
Deutschland


2015-07-14 9:15 GMT+02:00 Jonathan Silk <kauzeya at gmail.com>:

> Thank you Patrick! From the first: "Academics are good at deconstructing
> everyone’s privileges but their own."
> Never a truer word was spoken!
>
> Although it goes back a few days, may I take this opportunity also briefly
> to respond to Andrew's worthwhile question: "Maybe Jonathan can tell us
> what struck him as false, fantastic, ignorant, etc., as opposed to
> hyperselective."?
>
> A catalog is not appropriate, and I am well aware that Sen is not an
> Indologist (although one might think that it is not very hard to run such a
> piece by a friend or colleague who is before one publishes), but:
>
> "As an institution of higher learning, where the entry qualifications were
> high, Nalanda was supported by a network of other educational organizations
> that
>
> provided information about Nalanda and also helped to prepare students for
> studying there."
>
>
> "entry qualifications"? If Sen knows this, it is a new discovery. I don't
> think anyone knows anything about how 'students' were granted 'admission'
> to 'study' at Nalanda. The entire presentation of Nalanda as a 'university'
> with 'students' who come to 'study' there is, to my mind, fantastical. This
> spirit permeates the piece.
>
>
> "Special care was taken to demolish the beautiful statues of Buddha and
> other Buddhist figures that were spread across the campus."
>
>
> Setting aside 'campus', I don't think again that there is any evidence for
> this, and rather, it seems to me that when monasteries were sacked in North
> India the goal was almost entirely economic. The 'beautiful statues' were
> often made of precious substances or encrusted with jewels; my guess--but
> it is nothing more than that--is that there is at least a whiff of some
> idea that one might connect this sack of Nalanda with the destruction of
> the Bamiyan Buddhas, which is historically, and typologically, an entirely
> unrelated event.
>
> Birgit has already referred much more authoritatively than I could to the
> discussion of debate; I have nothing to add.
>
>
> One more:
>
>
> "The issue of the spread of knowledge was raised in a conversation in the
> seventh century when Xuan Zang completed his studies and
>
> was considering going back to China. The professors at Nalanda asked Xuan
> Zang to stay on as a member of the faculty."
>
>
> The professors? The faculty? Completed his studies? Andrew would perhaps
> not characterize this as fantastic, but I think it fundamentally and
> entirely misrepresents the very nature of Nalanda, and plops it right down
> in the European context to which Sen wishes to equate the Indian
> institution.
>
>
> Finally, and unrelated, a random question: is it just because he thinks
> his NYRB readers will expect it that Sen refers to Lokesh Chandra as
> Chandra? It's one name, LokeshChandra, right?!
>
>
> I would like to sincerely thank the colleagues who have helped place this
> discussion in the wider context, of which I was entirely ignorant, of
> contemporary Indian politics. It is an interesting, but depressing, story,
> which unfortunately seems to hold serious lessons for those of us in Europe
> also dealing with State control over education and resources.
>
>
> Jonathan
>
> On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 7:23 AM, Patrick Olivelle <jpo at uts.cc.utexas.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Writing from my temporary home in Delhi, those of you interested in the
>> Amartya Sen and Nalanda University fiasco, my profitably read these two
>> essays. The first is by a friend, Pratap Bhanu Mehta (who taught at
>> Harvard). He is a very incisive and insightful public intellectual and
>> analyst of Indian politics and society.
>>
>> http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/nalanda-is-a-syndrome/99/
>>
>> http://thewire.in/2015/07/13/goodbye-sen-welcome-yeo/
>>
>> With best wishes from monsoon soaked Delhi,
>>
>> Patrick
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>
>
>
> --
> J. Silk
> Leiden University
> Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
> Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
> 2311 BZ Leiden
> The Netherlands
>
> copies of my publications may be found at
> http://www.buddhismandsocialjustice.com/silk_publications.html
>
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