THE HERITAGE OF NALANDA

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 native realism of the early monastic order to developed metaphysics of the Prajnaparamita and Yogacara philosophies which revolutionized the capacity of thinking of men. 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 antiques-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.