Heritage of Nalanda Book
Contents: Foreword. Preface. Acknowledgements. The Nalanda Tradition. A dialogue with Buddha. Bridging the past, present and future. I. History: 1. Historical background (excerpts from ASI guidebook on Nalanda)/A. Ghosh. II. Art and archaeology: 2. Excavations of Stupa Site No. 3 at Nalanda and early chronological evidence/B.R. Mani. 3. The mystery Goddesses of Nalanda: visualisations and empowerment/C. Mani. 4. The Buddhist art at Mainamati: a parallel to Nalanda/Enamul Haque. 5. A portable Stupa in Magadha style/Amarendra Nath. 6. Influence of Nalanda Bronzes on the Bronzes of Bangladesh, Orissa, Nepal and Java/G.C. Chauley. 7. Fusion of Nalanda School of art in Indonesian sculptures/G.K. Lama. 8. Nalanda metal icons speak what Nalanda Mahavihara was/S.K. Pathak. 9. Mandala elements in Tantric Buddhist Architecture in India, Tibet, and Indonesia/Adelheid Herrmann-Pfandt. 10. The Nalanda stone inscription of Yasovarmadeva/Naina Pandey. 11. The Nalanda copper-plate of Devapaladeva/Archana Sharma. 12. Management of Nalanda Mahavihara from epigraphical material/Arpita Chatterjee. 13. Nalanda from the Chinese and Tibetan sources/Anandamayee Ghosh. III. Early medieval scholasticism: logic, philosophy and esoterism: 14. The doctrine of Apoha with reference to Dharmakirti/Lobzang Tsewang. 15. Nalanda as a centre of esoteric Buddhism/Kimiaki Tanaka. 16. Santaraksita and modern philosophy/Marie-Louise Friquegnon. 17. Contribution of Acarya Dharmapala of Nalanda/Bimalendra Kumar. 18. Nalanda and Santaraksita: His Madhyamakalankara Sastra in Tibetan Version/Manotosh Mandal. 19. Nagardzhuna and partition of Madhyamika technology/Damba Ayasheev. 20. Nalanda and the Mulasarvastivadins: Yi’jing’s accounts with further consideration/Wang Bangwei. 21. Quotations from Mahayana Sutras in the works of thinkers of Nalanda/Linnart Mall. 22. Nalanda: stronghold of ancient scholarly debates/Lozang Jamspal. 23. Debate between Acarya Candrakirti and Candragomi over Vijnanavada and Madhyamika Philosophy/Tashi Paljor. 24. The doctrine of the Pramanabhuta-Buddha/Nawang Tsering. 25. Relics of the Buddha: Body, essence, text/Michael Willis. 26. Yogic tradition of Naropa and its uninterrupted continuity in Tibet, Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh/Ramesh Chandra Tewari. IV. Literature: 27. The Chinese Buddhacarita/Charles Willemen. 28. Beginnings of the Apabhramsa poetry: the contribution of Nalanda/Chandra Dhar Tripathi. V. Monastic education: ideals of Nalanda Mahavihara: 29. The Vihara in Buddhist tradition and Nalanda/K. Sankarnarayan. 30. The influence of master Silabhadra on Master Xuanzang’s thought/Hsiu-O Chien and S-C Shiu. 31. Nalanda: its significance/B.B. Kumar. 32. Master Xuanzang brings the Buddha’s wisdom to Tang China/Rev. Heng Sure. 33. The educational system of Nalanda from Chinese Records/S-C Shiu and H-O Chien. 34. Genjo-Sanzo E: the biographical story of Hsuan-Chuang in Japan/Yayoi Tachibana. 35. The ideal educational system of ancient Nalanda Mahavihara/Angraj Chaudhary. 36. Nalanda as an international centre of learning/J. Sitaramamma. 37. Xuanzang legacy as inspiration to higher education/Cheng, Wei-Yi. 38. Nalanda as a centre of world learning/Satya Dev Kaushik. VI. Nalanda experience: 39. The spirit of Nalanda/Ven. Dhammadipa. 40. Revitalizing the spirit of Nalanda/Ven. Fa Qing and Ven Wei Wu. 41. Recovering the Nalanda legacy/Joseph Loizzo. 42. Nalanda university: its influences on the development of Buddhist learning (Buddhist studies in Taiwan and the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist order)/Ven. Bhiksuni Chuehmen. 43. Dharma in Brazil: a Nalanda-inspired experience/Ricardo Sasaki. 44. Buddhist interrelationship between Korea and India/Lee Ki Woon. 45. Buddhism in Asia/Sulak Sivaraksa. Bibliography. Index.
"Nalanda as a monastic institution in the time of Buddha emerged into the greatest academic and spiritual centre of Asia in the early medieval times. This alludes to successive stages of development in Buddhism from naive realism of the early monastic order to developed metaphysics of the Prajnaparamita and Yogacara philosophies which revolutionized the capacity of thinking of men.
The Tibetan and Chinese histories aver five sciences taught at the Mahavihara as had been prescribed by Asanga. These have been enumerated as (i) Sabda-Vdya (grammar, lexicography); (ii) Silpasthana-vidya (arts); (iii) Cikitsavidya (medical science); (iv) Hetu-Vidya (Logic, meta-physics); and (v) Adhyatmavidya (the cosmic sciences, philosophy). A mass of secret teaching and modes of worship are contained in Tantric texts.
Nalanda also ushered in a new school of art. It is acceded that Indian art in the earliest stage was based in six centres as Gandhara, Mathura, Sanchi, Sarnath, Ajanta and Amaravati. If the Gandhara School has analogies with the antique-Etruscan intermixed with the Greco-Roman, from which the art of Italy flashed in Christian art and similarly other centres flourished with composite features, the Nalanda school like the other five schools, being purely Indian in conception, traces its roots into the sculptures of Sarnath and Mathura. It has its own ethos and historical development.
The book, an outcome of the research papers presented in the International Conference on ‘The Heritage of Nalanda’ held at Nalanda (February 12 to 14, 2006) a landmark in the field of scholarship, in its six parts with its critical delineation, has a veritable coverage as: (i) History, (ii) Art and archaeology, (iii) Early medieval scholasticism: logic, philosophy and esoterism, (iv) Literature, (v) Monastic education: ideals of Nalanda Mahavihara, and (vi) Nalanda experience.
The strikingly illustrated book is a significant contribution to the field of Buddhist studies and is valuable for a general interest reader as well as an academician." (jacket)