Tag: Ancient University

(An insightful conversation with Nhan Vo, Researcher on Nalanda) Research Journey This is a long and not easy question, and it contains 3 points: My motivation, what causes the interest, and the main objectives.Since the question is related to many causes & conditions and the events that crossed my life in the past, I will try to describe it in the simplest way possible. I was born in a Vietnamese Buddhist family and grew up with a strong background in Math and Computer Science. So, when any new concept appears clearly in my mind, the attitude of doubting and questioning if it is true comes naturally. I first learned the term “Nalanda” when I attended the teaching of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in California (2006). At that time, the title Nālandā just arose in my mind. It came up with one irritating and critical question: Why am I a Buddhist for life, but still not knowing well about this “Nālandā”? As time passed, I learned that many great Mahayana Masters also lived and worked there; specifically, one of them is my favourite Master, Xuanzang (玄奘). A few years later, even with so much information I could collect/learn about the institute, my wonder about it did not decrease at all. However, the final decision for full engagement in research about Nālandā only came after a very vivid and sad dream (circa 2011-12). In a vivid dream, after coming back to Nālandā with a much younger religious brother from an errant duty after a few months. I saw Nālandā getting destroyed, and I was very frightened. All things that I know of were burnt to black; the remains are broken bricks and walls with a bad smell. I cried as a kid who lost his mom. The feeling was so natural and strong as I was there; the image in the dream was so alive that even after waking up from that night, and many times later when thinking about what I saw in the dream, I continued to cry and feel as if the event just happened. So this is the final trigger that pushed me to eventually stop my worldly job as a scientist and go to India for 5 years to learn the truth about Nālandā and also to understand deeper about the Buddhist tradition. For easy saying, the objectives of my research are: a. To resolve my quest about Nālandā, including the dream. b. As stated, not only myself but also many other Buddhists, specifically the Vietnamese, do not know what Nālandā is. So, it seems a big mistake if you earnestly learn Buddhism but don’t really know its true history or where the teachings that you currently learn and practice come from and how they were transferred to you. c. As same as all Buddhists, my goal in life is to see all sentient beings get their true happiness. So if my work may contribute some productive information or facts, which can help Buddhist students to know how authentic and how valuable the teachings that they are following are, then this is a cause for my happiness as well as the graceful appreciation for the schools, the traditions, and the places that have hosted the Dharma teachings for thousands of years also. Lastly: How do we define the “Nālandā” term? To me, it is not just the monastery itself since doing so will narrow down the most important factor that Nālandā was the main Buddhist philosophy centre in India particularly, and the largest philosophy centre in the world generally. Not only religious, but it is also the centre of logic school, art, and architecture. We may find that His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 14th was fully true: Tibetan Buddhist tradition is Nālandā tradition (not more, not less). Chinese Buddhist tradition and some other Mahayana countries also are a kind of following Nālandā even though they may become self-transforming later. But at least at the time upto Xuanzang (玄奘) and Yijing (義淨) time, it fully adopted the Nālandā tradition. The scope of these essays is not to find the absolute facts about what happened over a long period of thousand years ago but to find a clearer picture of the place named as Nālandā and its role within Buddhism, especially Mahayana and its tantric subschools. It also tries as much as it can to indicate the earliest source of fact that can be found through scriptures, writings, and the evidence of archaeology. With all the above mentioned, the presentation of the essays contains two kinds of information :(1) The facts, including the creation, rise, and destruction of Nālandā, its activities, depicting how people live, learn, and practice, and lastly, the philosophy, the teachings, and the paths.(2) The information that is exposed in many other aspects about Nālalndā, but they are implied within stories or legendaries. Those are very important since they may indicate and be the imprint to show details that are the actual image of Nālandā. Research Methodology 2. We understand that your research involved extensive data collection from Tibetan, Indian, and Chinese scriptures, as well as archaeological evidence. Could you shed light on the research methods you employed, the challenges you faced, and how you ensured the accuracy and reliability of the gathered information? Following Buddha’s teachings, there should be reliable sources of valid cognition for the proper knowledge: Direct Sense, Inference by suitable logic/critical thinking, and the knowledge taught by reliable persons (such as Buddha himself and his excellent Bodhisattvas). So, pick this as a guideline; my strategy goes with three stages: Collect data, filter them, and select what to present. But where is a good and reliable source for collecting data in the regard of more than thousands of years of history? a. So, the first sources and facts are the archaeology evidence which may come from: the Nālandā area itself, any other related archaeology evidence that is tightly related to Nālandā (such as Vikramasila Monastery) and any other facts found directly mentioned or refer to Nālandaā and its tradition. Those…