'Nalanda and Rajgir' continued....

Rajgir and Nalanda were among few places which received attention from almost all notable
orientalists and enthusiasts of 19th and early 20th century. And rightfully so, the enriched past of
the area was in rubbles and there was no account of it anywhere. A number of legends and folklores
existed in the area but there was no way to decipher between the truth and the myths.
Buchanan was the first to draw attention to the area with the publication of his interesting finds of
the valley and places around Rajgir in 1811.
In 1845, East India Company appointed Kittoe to tread in the footsteps of Fahien. It was a good
start though all of his identifications were found incorrect by later explorers and he set a big
example of how not to do things. It was mid-summer and he leaned a lot on his assistants for
taking legs, without following through and verifying their work. But to his credit, he chose to start
his exploration from this part of Magadha.
A major break through came for the area in 1861 when Alexander Cunningham equipped with the
copy of travelogues of Fahien, Xuanzang and reports of Buchanan started his tour to Bodh Gaya and
Rajgir. He successfully established the Remains of Bargaon as Site of Ancient Nalanda Mahavihara.
The work that started then was carried further by many explorers. With lots of information and all
of it being open to interpretations, its difficult to pin down specific sites and establish a well
accepted standard. Work done by some was either confirmed or negated by others following their
steps.
For example, the likes of James Ferguson, James Burgess and Auriel stein negated the
identification of sone bhandar, site identified by Kittoe and Cunningham as Saptaparni. It was a
Mauryan cave in their opinion, too later a period to be saptaparni.
A Cave Site on the north side of Vaibhara hill, identified by Beglar in 1872 is generally accepted as
the site of Saptaparni. This site is also not out of contention, John Marshall was of opinion that the
site as described by Xuanzang is a Stone house and not Stone cave, he suggested another site
further west at the foot of same hill as more appropriate site for such a council.
Burgess and Ferguson were also of same idea and a question mark on Beglar identification still
continues.
{The above example might overwhelm you with the amount of information and contradictions at
the same time but we plan to revisit this topic with latest tools of the technology and elaborate
more on the details}
Many more explorers like George Grierson, Vincent smith, Dr. Austine Waddell, Sylvain Levy and
others made their contribution towards the search but nothing conclusive could be achieved.
In the table below, we have summarized some sites as identified by these explorers and mentioned
their status. This would give you a glimpse into the difficulty this situation presented despite the
hard work put in by these men and with good intentions
The identification of sites is summarized below, (click on the image to see larger view)

subsequent chapters

* Significance of places shall be dealt separately in

No matter what approach you choose to look at this piece of information, you cannot deny the
complexity of it.
Whether you are a traveler, an explorer, a mathematician, a scientist, a spiritualist or just a passer
by or anything else you may choose to identify yourself with, you would have to acknowledge that
despite the knowledge that is already available, it is a tough task to compile and recreate history.
And on top of that the information that is yet to be discovered is damaged and tampered with by
the ignorance of the masses. So educating the masses about their heritage and involving the
community in its preservation is a way of restoring the past that has been explored and all that is
yet to come

Understanding of the history is an ongoing process that must be continually elaborated and revised
as our knowledge in the subject expands. We know the glorious days that this place has witnessed
and over the course of time we have come to associate our self with the history and take pride in
the importance of this area but thats just the beginning.
We have a long way to go.
The compilation of all the previous findings and analyzing & corroborating them using the existing

maps and latest technology like GIS, etc is an effort to further the work done by previous
enthusiast and archeologists
The interest rekindled has to keep going, the discovered needs to be documented using new
technology, conserved and most important of it all, is that the community needs to be involved in
the conservation of its heritage and benefit from it in the process.
Lets together usher a new era of community participation in heritage management
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Rajgir, Nalanda and vicinity...

It took several sources, several dedicated people and numerous years to rediscover Rajgir and
though its link with the glory of its past has been established, it is important to understand the
process that brought us here, through which we realize the potential of this place as it stand today.

As we previously discussed, the initial clues and knowledge that encouraged an exploration in this
area came from travelogues of Chinese visitors and Pali sources.
Elaborating further on that the first insight into this areas history was provided by the detailed
account of Fahien, who visited Magadha in 406 AD. He started his journey in 399 from China,
traveled the famous silk route and after his stay here, he traveled to southern Indian and then to
Sri Lanka on his way back to China in 414 via the sea route.
Considering the travel time it took for people to move around in those days, his trip to Rajgriha is
considered very brief but he extensively traveled in this part of Magadha and visited most of the
important sites of the time and not just that he left a detailed description of Rajgir and its vicinity
stating the importance of the sites he visited and that has helped the archeologists in their initial
search for clues and references.
Another important visitor of the area who has left a detail account of Rajgir and its vicinity is
Xuanzang who was here in 637 AD and spent close to two years in Nalanda as a scholar of the
famous university. He not only described the sites and their attributes in his travelogue but also
mentioned the socio-economic condition of the area at the time which helped a lot in relating the

heritage of the area to great kings and their dynasties.

Third pilgrim who visited this region and has left detail description of Nalanda University is It-sing
who stayed here for ten years from 675 to 685 AD. Fourth pilgrim to make visit and leave an
account was corean monk Hwui Lun whose period of visit is not clear.
An eyewitness account of the decline of Nalanda Sangharama is provided by Dharmasvamin. His
description answered some questions about the disappearance of an international university that
was in service for more that 700 hundred years and at the same time acted as a fuel to flare up our
curiosity. He was in Nalanda for two years from 1235 to 1237 AD and states that it was the period of
great turmoil with deteriorating economic situation. He also narrates his narrow escape while
crossing Ganges when he refused to give away his belongings to a fellow traveler.

Pali sources from neighboring countries like Srilanka, Burma and others provided valuable
information that helped piecing the puzzle together by giving us a detail description about places
and there significance. Though they didnt provide the exact locations as the previously mentioned
travelogues did, yet they reinforced the fact that the different streams of religions practiced in the
south-east Asian counties actually have a common origin and Magadha was at the land of their Lord.
Translation of sutras from Pali texts helped established the location of places like Nala and
Nalanda, the two different places in close vicinity which were believed to be the different names
of one a same place. Nalanda they maintain was associated with Pavarika mango grove where
Buddha gave important sermons. Nala/ Nalak/ Nalika were associated with Sariputra. Nalanda as
per the Pali tradition was also associated with Nirgranthas (The jains).
Other sources that contributed our knowledge bases are the Mahayanist texts, mainly the Tibetan
sources. Lama Taranatha in his book History of Buddhism in India written in 17th century has
given a detail description of origin of Nalanda Mahavihara though his account is based on the
biographies and nothing much is known about the primary sources.
Rajgir and Nalanda were also associated with Lord Mahavira and many of his important disciples are
from this place. We find mention about many places from this vicinity in the Jaina literatures.
We also find mention about Nalanda and Rajgir in Brhaminical accounts like Kautaliyas,
Arthasastra.

Now that we have documented the sources, in our next post well find out how these texts helped
orientalists rediscover Rajgir, Nalanda and the vicinity

NEXT: 'Nalanda and Rajgir' continued....

SPECIAL NOTE: We have received some very interesting queries that we plan to address in the
coming posts. So, if you are waiting for an answer, it is to let you know that its coming soon
and if you are wondering if you should ask a question/clarification, sure go ahead, add it to
the comments and youll hear from us soon