प्राचीन भारत में शिक्षा (डॉ. ए.एस. अल्तेकर - गुरुकुल एवं बौद्ध विहार शिक्षण इतिहास)

V] EDUCATIONAL CENTRES AND INSTITUTIONS 115 (c. 475-500 A.D.) added one monastery each to the establishment.¹ Vajra, an unidentified successor of Bālāditya, and another unnamed king of central India added two further monasteries to the establishment. New buildings continued to be erected by Hindu and Buddhist donors down to the 11th century. The Lay-out and Buildings: Excavations have shown that Nālandā University covered an area at least one mile long and half a mile broad. Monastic buildings and stūpas attached to them were built according to a preconcieved plan; they were all arranged in a row and not huddled together in any haphazard fashion. The central college had seven halls attached to it; besides there were 300 smaller rooms for the lecturing work. The buildings were superb, several storeys in height. Hwui Li's statement that the upper rooms towered above the clouds and enabled a spectator to see how they changed their shape is of course an exaggeration, but it has now received an unexpected corroboration from a con- temporary record which also avers that the tops of the buildings at Nālandā touched the clouds.² We may therefore take it that the towers and turrets of the colleges, temples and monasteries at Nālandā must have been of impressive height. There were also deep and translucent ponds covered with blue lotuses, which added to the beauty of the place and supplied water and flowers to the establishment. The whole

1. The sequence of these rulers and their time, given both by Yuan Chwang and his biographer, seem to be wrong. See Watters, II p. 164; Life, pp. 110-111.
2. यस्यामम्बुधरावलेहिशिखरश्रेणी विहारावली। मालेवोर्ध्वविराजिनी विरचिता धात्रा मनोज्ञा भुवः ॥ E.I., XX, p. 48