Vedanta, Nalanda Universities: founding/resurrection of Asia's Biggest & Oldest Unis.

[Jai]

This thread aims to discuss Indian large-campus university development, in particular the very interesting Vedanta and Nalanda University projects. However, this thread is not just limited in scope to these particular projects.

Also of note is the Odyssey Science City, Anantapur, which isn't strictly an educational project, so won't be mentioned here. But it has a thread of its own.

-Jai

[Jai]

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Vedanta University
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Overview of Vedanta University

The Vedanta University, Puri-Konark Orissa, is an incredibly ambitious project planned to be India's first and only world class, multidisciplinary university. It will be a not-for-profit university that aims to compete with universities the caliber of Harvard or Oxford. The goal is several-fold: to develop India's future generations of Leaders, Nobel Laureates, Olympic Champions, Community Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and CEO; to spawn a world-class township; and to create immediate economic benefit to the region.

The university will house several inter-disciplinary centers of excellence and will support approximately 100,000 undergraduate, masters and doctoral students enrolled in 95 disciplines, and employ a 10,000 internationally renowned faculty members , making it Asia's largest university, and one of the largest universities in the world. It will also have a state-of-the-art Olympics Sports Complex, fully equipped to train India's future olympians.

The project aims to attract a student body of the best minds from around the world, making it international in character. It aims to be a world leader of research with cross-disciplinary Centres of Excellence, R&D with private-public partnership to ensure greater application of innovation, and will combat eurocentric academic monopoly with insights on globally relevant topics from an Asia-centric perspective. Eventually, the university foundation hopes that Vedanta University would stem the annual exodus of Indian students seeking higher education abroad, out of which about 80,000 head for the USA alone.

Vedanta University is the brainchild of Indian businessman Anil Agarwal. Needing a total outlay of 150 billion rupees (approximately US $3.2 billion) to set up the university, the foundation has been endowed $1 billion contributed from Mr. Agarwal's personal funds, the largest single person contribution ever made towards the endowment for any educational institution worldwide. The University has recieved full, enthusiastic support from the State, National governments and Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India himself. Currently,


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The Vedanta University Campus

The sprawling Vedanta University campus will follow a Mandala layout, centered around a large body of water. Its idyllic surroundings will include a picturesque lake in its immediate vicinity and rolling hills at a distance. The gentle, flowing waters of the Nuanai river meeting the crashing waves of the Casuarina tree-lined beach at Balighai would complete the scenic backdrop. The well-known ruins of the Sun Temple at Konark would be a few minutes away.

Vedanta University will be developed in several phases until its planned completion in 2025. However, the university is expected to start admitting its first batch of around 3,500 students as early as 2009, into its engineering, liberal arts, and basic science programs. Most academic schools, including those of law and performing arts, as well as a few centers of excellence would be in place by 2016.


^ The Train Station Plaza, the point of arrival for many visitors to Vedanta University


^ The University Green, the main campus prominade. Tall shade trees and fountains provide relief from the summer heat.


^ Great stretches of lawn offer views of state-of-the-art facilities.


^ Example of an academic building


^ Example of an academic building. The landscape and the architecture employ the best elements of Indian design traditions and the latest building technology.


^ The university green leads to the campus quadrangle gateways.


^ The students residences are expressed in lively architecture.




^ At the heart is a large grass courtyard for leisure and recreation.


^ The learning spaces are just next door, grouped around academic courtyards.


^ Classrooms lecture halls, offices and laboratories enjoy shaded courts with fountains


^ The Vedanta Stadium, venue of multi-sport, national competitions is the signature building of the Olympic Class Sports Complex.

The campus layout will be designed by Ayers Saint Gross, a Baltimore based architectural firm. Ayers Saint Gross has 90 years of experience developing some of the best university campuses in the USA such as Duke, Carnegie-Mellon and Johns Hopkins.

Additionally, Mumbai architect Hafeez Contractor, would be hired to impart an Indian touch to the various department and office building architectures.


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The Vedanta University Township



The Government of Orissa has identified 10,000 acres of land for the campus on a seafront location on Puri-Konark marine drive between Nuanai and Balighai, only an hour away from Orissa's state capital, Bhubaneswar, and minutes from the world famous Sun Temple at Konarak.

With close to 500,000 people living in its premesis, it aims to be an educational hub that will trigger development and provide employment, directly and indirectly, hundreds of thousands of people in the region, thus giving rise to a thriving township.

The township will include primary and secondary schools, apartment complexes and private residences, theaters, cinema, parks and recreation areas, restaurants and shopping complexes. The township will also have allocated land for a research & development park. This park would serve as an incubator for other research laboratories, centers of excellence, and research oriented private companies as Vedanta University spin-offs. It will serve to channel venture capital funds into research and education. The entire area is expected to eventually evolve into a large research-cum-education complex, similar to the economic hub around Stanford with a combined market capitalization of $300 billion.

The Orissa Sate government will provide all necessary support infrastructure for this undertaking. The campus will have connectivity via a swanky new international airport being constructed near Bhubaneswar, connected by means of a four lane expressway under construction. Furthermore, railway stations will be located in the campus and township.


Cheers,
Jai

For latest news:
Official Site
Vedanta University Blog

[Jai]

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Nalanda University
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The formal plans for Nalanda University haven't been released yet. When it does, I will edit this introductary post accordingly. Till then, here are some articles that give an overview of the project.
An awesome article detailing not only the Maitreya Buddha project, but also the re-establishment of the ancient Nalanda University in Bihar.

Buddhism really is coming back to its motherland, thanks in great part to the Tibetan refugees who have made India their home!

Buddhist bonanza

Rabindra Seth
www.expresshospitality.com
16-31 January 2007

Two great projects - the world's tallest Buddha at Kushinagar in UP and the revival of Nalanda University in Bihar - are now on the drawing board and are likely to be taken up in 2007. This may give India a tourist draw card as alluring as the Taj Mahal.

The Buddha statue project is the brainchild of Maitreya - an international organisation. Its name is derived from Sanskrit, meaning universal love. The aim, the sponsors say, is not just to build a unique statue but "to benefit as many people as possible for as long as possible". The 152 metre (500 feet) high Buddha in the centre of 750 acres of landscaped environs is designed to last at least a 1,000 years.

Under the throne of the statue will be buildings, housing temples, exhibitions halls, a museum, library, audio-visual theatre and hospitality services. All around will be beautiful parks with meditation pavilions, fountains, tranquil pools and a collection of sacred art, plus a hospital of international standards and educational facilities. (Maitreya is already providing free education to 500 students at Bodhgaya)

Land for the project has been donated by the UP government which, at last count, had already acquired 40 per cent and the process is on for acquiring the rest. Maitreya and the state government have entered into an agreement to create a Special Development Area extending to 7.5 kilometres around the project where healthcare and educational programmes will be implemented.

Maitreya had originally planned the project at Bodhgaya, but the inordinate delays in decision-making in Bihar compelled it to shift it to Kushinagar. A spokesperson for the organisation told this writer that work on the project will hopefully start in 2007 when the acquired land is handed over.

The Nalanda University initiative was taken by the external affairs ministry as part of a move to re-kindle India's ancient links with east and south Asian countries, by reviving Nalanda as a centre for Buddhist learning. On its part the ministry of tourism and culture consulted the Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, an autonomous body under it. Later, at meetings at the PMO, four key components were identified for a the Nalanda project - setting up an international centre of learning, developing the area around Nalanda, re-development of Bodhgaya and developing the entire area of Nalanda as a cultural corridor or as a centre of cultural tourism. A consultant from the UN World Tourism Organisation was also invited who recommended that a master plan be prepared.



^ An artist's impression of the Buddha statue at Kushinagar. One of the four holiest Buddhist sites, Kushinagar near Gorakhpur in UP is where the Lord attained Mahaparinirvana. The other three are at Lumbini on the Nepalese side of the Indian border where he was born, Bodhgaya in Bihar where he attained enlightenment, and Sarnath near Varanasi where he delivered his first sermon.


Will tourism follow trade?

An international seminar on Nalanda-Buddhist cultural links was held in Singapore in November this year. It was jointly organised by the East Asian Institute, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences and the Institute of South Asian Studies in National University of Singapore. Sanjay Kothari, the new additional director general at the tourism ministry who represented India says, "the participants agreed that it was important to support the establishment of Nalanda University as well as the restoration of key Buddhist holy sites." They suggested, Kothari adds, "That the re-establishment of Nalanda University could be facilitated by linking up various centres of academic excellence and theological institutes in the region." Discussions on the practical aspects of the project will however, continue.


^ We should not forget that it is not only the faithful who wish to visit Buddhist holy sites. There are countless others the world over who are fascinated by Buddha's message of peace. Not all the millions who flock to Bethlehem are Christians.

As was to be expected, the revival of Nalanda University has been welcomed by academics and others, although the tourism fraternity has been slow in its response. Fortuitously, FICCI has organised an international conference on positioning India as a hub for Buddhist tourism in the capital on January 25 slated to be inaugurated by minister for tourism and culture, Ambika Soni. In a message, she says she is confident that the conference will encourage public-private partnership in infrastructure creation, improve connectivity and help in discussion of marketing strategies.

Hopefully, FICCI will arrange a session or two on the Maitreya and Nalanda projects to encourage the travel industry to get associated with them at an early stage. One would also expect marketing experts to refer to the opportunities that can be availed of with the re-opening of the trade route along the ancient Silk Road, linking Tibet with Sikkim through the 14,400-foot Nathu La. The pass was opened in July last year and neither the Sikkim government nor the tourism ministry at the center has said a word whether ‘tourism follows trade’ is on their agenda.

We should not forget that it is not only the faithful who wish to visit Buddhist holy sites. There are countless others the world over who are fascinated by Buddha's message of peace. Not all the millions who flock to Bethlehem are Christians.

(The writer is a freelance journalist. He can be reached at rabseth@yahoo.com)

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Really Old School

Op-Ed Contributor
By JEFFREY E. GARTEN
Published: December 9, 2006

AT a summit meeting of leaders next week in the Philippines, senior officials from India, Singapore, Japan and perhaps other countries are scheduled to discuss the revival of an ancient university in India called Nalanda. It is a topic unlikely to receive much mention in the Western press. But no one should underestimate the potential benefits of this project to Asia, or the influence it could have on Asia’s role in the world, or the revolutionary impact it could make on global higher education.

Americans are used to thinking about the rising powers of Asia — China, India, South Korea and even some of the smaller countries — primarily as formidable economic competitors. In the case of Beijing, we also recognize the potential for superpower political and military status. But there are at least two questions that are key to Asia’s future that we do not generally ask.

First, for all the talk about the rise of Asia in the “knowledge age” that we live in, are these countries ultimately constrained in their potential to be great nations by their lack of top-flight systems of higher education?

And second, is the Asian region any more than a series of nation-states obsessed with guarding their sovereignty — and do they have the ability to interact peacefully and constructively, much as the European Union is trying to do, to pool their individual strengths for the betterment of their region and the world beyond it?

The possibility of rebuilding Nalanda University goes to the heart of both those issues. Founded in 427 in northeastern India, not far from what is today the southern border of Nepal, and surviving until 1197, Nalanda was one of the first great universities in recorded history. It was devoted to Buddhist studies, but it also trained students in fine arts, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, politics and the art of war.

The university was an architectural and environmental masterpiece. It had eight separate compounds, 10 temples, meditation halls, classrooms, lakes and parks. It had a nine-story library where monks meticulously copied books and documents so that individual scholars could have their own collections. It had dormitories for students, perhaps a first for an educational institution, housing 10,000 students in the university’s heyday and providing accommodations for 2,000 professors. Nalanda was also the most global university of its time, attracting pupils and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey.

The university died a slow death about the time that some of the great European universities, including those in Oxford, England, and Bologna, Italy, were just getting started, and more than half a millennium before Harvard or Yale were established. Its demise was a result of waning enthusiasm for Buddhism in India, declining financial support from successive Indian monarchs and corruption among university officials. The final straw was the burning of the buildings by Muslim invaders from what is now Afghanistan.

But Nalanda represents much of what Asia could use today — a great global university that reaches deep into the region’s underlying cultural heritage, restores many of the peaceful links among peoples and cultures that once existed, and gives Asia the kind of soft power of influence and attraction that it doesn’t have now. The West has a long tradition of rediscovering its ancient Greek and Roman roots, and is much stronger for that. Asia could and should do the same, using the Nalanda project as a springboard but creating a modern, future-oriented context for a new university.

At the Asian summit meeting next week, a consortium led by Singapore and including India, Japan and others will discuss raising the $500 million needed to build a new university in the vicinity of the old site and perhaps another $500 million to develop the roads and other infrastructure to make the institution work. The problem is that the key Asian officials are not thinking big enough. There is more talk about making Nalanda a cultural site or a center for philosophy than a first-rate modern university. The financial figures being thrown around are a fraction of the endowments of Harvard, Yale or Columbia today. A bolder vision is in order.

The rebuilt university should strive to be a great intellectual center, as the original Nalanda once was. This will be exceedingly difficult to achieve; even today, Asia’s best universities have a long way to go to be in the top tier. In a recent ranking of universities worldwide, Newsweek included only one Asian institution, the University of Tokyo, in the world’s top 25. In a similar tally by The Times of London, there are only three non-Western universities in the top 25.

The original Nalanda might have been the first to conduct rigorous entrance exams. The old university had world-class professors who did groundbreaking work in mathematical theorems and astronomy. It produced pre-eminent interpreters and translators of religious scriptures in many languages.

The new Nalanda should try to recapture the global connectedness of the old one. All of today’s great institutions of higher learning are straining to become more international in terms of their student body, their professors, their research and their course content. But Asian universities are way behind. A new Nalanda, starting as it will from scratch, could set a benchmark for mixing nationalities and cultures, for injecting energy and direction into global subjects and for developing true international leaders.

In the old days, Nalanda was a Buddhist university, but it was remarkably open to many interpretations of that religion. Today it could perform a vital role consistent with its original ethos — to be an institution devoted to religious reconciliation on a global scale.

Today, Nalanda’s opportunity is to exploit what is lacking in so many institutions of higher education. That includes great medical schools that focus on delivering health care to the poor, law schools that emphasize international law, business schools that focus on the billions of people who live on two dollars a day but who have the potential to become tomorrow’s middle class, and schools that focus intensely on global environmental issues. Can Asia pull this off? Financially, it should be easy. China’s foreign exchange reserves just broke all global records and reached $1 trillion. And Japan’s mountain of cash isn’t that far behind.

But the bigger issue is imagination and willpower. It is not clear that the Asian nations are prepared to unite behind anything concrete except trade agreements, either for their benefit or the world’s. It appears doubtful that with all their economic prowess, and their large armies, they understand that real power also comes from great ideas and from people who generate them, and that truly great universities are some of their strongest potential assets. I would like to be proved wrong in these judgments. How Asia approaches the resurrection of Nalanda will be a good test.


Jeffrey E. Garten, former dean of the Yale School of Management, is a professor of international trade and finance there.

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Updates since the article was written:


Nalanda university to be studied from space

Scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have been asked to help explore ruins in and around the ancient Nalanda University in Bihar.

P.K. Mishra, the superintending archaeologist of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Patna circle, said the radar mapping would help to explore the ruins for further excavation.

'A team of scientists from ISRO will visit Nalanda in February for the radar mapping work. We could plan the excavation after the results of the radar mapping,' Mishra said...

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Amartya Sen's help sought for Nalanda varsity

Bihar has decided to take help from Nobel laureate Amartya Sen for setting up an international university in Nalanda, a 2,000-year-old seat of learning. "The government will take the help and advice of Sen," Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said.

...Nitish Kumar also said that his government would place a bill in the assembly to set up the proposed university. "The government is ready with the draft," he said.

Japan has shown interest in investing Rs.4.5 billion for the varsity at Nalanda, where ruins of a 2,000-year-old university still stand.

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Nalanda University will be revived: Nitish Kumar

Patna: January 13, 2007

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, while attending a function organized to mark the 140th birth anniversary of Sir Ganesh Dutt at Bhartiya Nritya Kala Mandir in Patna on Saturday, said a new wind was blowing in Bihar where education would once again reach a height that the state once enjoyed during the Buddhist and Mauryan eras.

"People have found a new hope and expectations are running very high for a better academic environment in Bihar," Kumar said.

"The ancient seat of learning Nalanda University will be revived and will be turned into an international hub of knowledge that would restore the pride of all Biharis who, for such a long period, had been living in an academic dark age," the Chief Minister said amidst roar of applause. ...

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A developed Bihar

President APJ Abdul Kalam on Friday desired that Bihar should once again become the best-administered state as it had once been and suggested that the political system, irrespective of its party affiliation, should work for the development of the state. ...

The President also did not forget to refer to his dream project, the revival of ancient Nalanda University. "I have visited the ruins of Nalanda University," he said and hoped it would once again become the capital of knowledge to spread the knowledge to entire world.

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Cheers,
Jai

[Babji]

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35485

Singapore to Help Revive Ancient Indian University
Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE, Nov 15 (IPS) - With support from Singapore, Japan and other countries interested in Buddhism, India's ancient Nalanda University, dating back to 5th century B.C., may soon be restored to its past glory as a primary seat of learning in Asia.

An ambitious 150 million US-dollar project was unfolded at an international symposium titled ‘Reviving Buddhist Cultural Links', held here this week. Essentially a joint venture between the provincial government of India's eastern Bihar state -- where Nalanda is located -- and the Singapore government, it envisages the participation of several countries with large Buddhist populations, including Sri Lanka, Thailand and China.

Opening the symposium on Monday, Singapore's foreign minister George Yeo said the project was not about the religion but "Buddhist values and philosophy which have become an integral part of East Asian civilisation".

Yeo added that as Asia reemerges on the world stage, Asians could "look back to their own past and derive inspiration from it for the future." Thus he noted, "We should develop Nalanda as an icon of the Asian renaissance, attracting scholars and students from a much wider region as the ancient university once did."

Indian President Abdul Kalam, delivering a keynote address via live multimedia videocast from New Delhi, described the project as a "model for evolving a happy, prosperous and peaceful society in our planet" and helpful in the "evolution of the enlightened citizen." The process, he said, has three components -- education with a value system, religion transforming into spirituality and economic development for societal transformation.

"The mission of unity of minds is indeed gaining momentum from Bihar, the birthplace of ancient Nalanda," observed Kalam.

The symposium was attended by over 200 Asian scholars, government officials and Buddhist monks and nuns from Singapore, India, Thailand, Japan, China and many other countries.

N.K Singh, deputy chairman of the Bihar Planning Board, told the meeting that land for the project has already been allocated near the ancient Nalanda university site, and a bill to establish the university is expected to be passed by the Bihar state assembly in the third week of December. "The government of Bihar is going to put in its own resources... but we also hope to supplement it through an international consortium," Singh said, adding that Japan and Singapore have already expressed interest in funding the project with the latter showing a desire to be the "principle catalyst" in conceptualising the project.

Singh said he expected Singapore to bring together countries in the region to participate in the project and offer its expertise in the management of the university. Responding to concerns raised by some Buddhists that this university may have a secular framework, Singh said the concept of the university would be very broad ranging and "represent what Nalanda was at the time (of its foundation)."

Though already a seat of learning while the Buddha was alive, Nalanda University was founded by Kumaragupta I of the Gupta dynasty during the golden age of classical Indian culture. It came into preeminence as a centre of Buddhist scholarship between 5th and 12th centuries.

Nalanda at the height of its glory, accommodated over 10,000 students from across Asia. The famous Chinese scholar Hsuan Tsang is believed to have spent many years there, lecturing and writing his 3,000 stanza work on the ‘Treatise on the Harmony of Teaching.'

According to historians, Nalanda was key to the spectacular spread of Buddhism during this period to Sri Lanka, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, and Laos. Today it has 400 million followers or approximately half the number of those who practice Christianity and a third of those who practice Islam.

Nalanda was destroyed in the 12th century by Turkish Muslim invaders who burned down the library and the buildings, and killed many of the monks and scholars who could not flee. The site was abandoned.

Speaking at the symposium, Chinese Buddhist scholar Prof. Tan Chung, described Nalanda as "the oldest precursor of Oxford and Cambridge - a fortress of learning''.

According to the Chinese academic, ‘'China would not have been what it became but for the beneficial cultural influence of India." He argued that when the Han Dynasty was on the verge of collapse by the 6th century, it was the Buddhist influence which reunified China under the banner of Sui, whose rulers Emperor Wen and Emperor Yang both proclaimed themselves as the disciples of the Buddha.

Prof. Tan argued that Nalanda offered China a model where great centres of learning based on monasteries and temples could provide commoners lives that throbbed with spirituality and wisdom. "China during pre-Buddhist days could not have such vitality, and learning was the monopoly of a handful of families. The advent of Buddhism made a sea-change and China came alive as a popular land of spiritualism and wisdom. This development co-prospered with the introduction of the all-China Imperial Examinations and the civil service".

Others saw the project as way to get Asian giants India and China closer. In a passionate plea Prof. Wang Dehua, of the Shanghai Municipal Centre for International Studies said: ‘'Let's forget about the 1962 incident (India-China war). This project will symbolise the rebuilding of our old friendship and understanding. In the future we will be able to reach the dream of an Asian community with a project like this.''

Prof Tavivat Pantarigvivat of Thailand's Mahidol University, suggested that Nalanda should be established with the clear idea of a world religious university with a Buddhist focus, "to propagate compassion towards other religions". She offered Thailand's expertise in running such Buddhist universities in the development of the project.

With India emerging in the 21st century and becoming a knowledge-based society, "reviving Nalanda symbolizes the hopes and aspirations of South and East Asians that the civilisations of Asia will rise again based on knowledge and cooperation,'' observed Balaji Sadasivan, Singapore's junior minister for foreign affairs. (END/2006)

[Babji]

more on Nalanda University ...

http://bstdc.bih.nic.in/Nalanda.htm

http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha240.htm

http://www.bharatguru.com/Newbuzz/Travel/nal.htm

http://www.culturalindia.net/monuments/nalanda.html

http://www.wb-university.org/?do=sho...id=1&newid=166

http://www.ayurveda-california.com/B...ge_Nalanda.htm

[VaastuShastra]

Great news - if only Taxila could be revived...

[pding]

it will require huge investments from the gov't also.

[Naga_Solidus]

Moreover, Taxila is in Afghanistan. Turht to be told, reiving it will do wonders for the Afghan economy and education sector. However, I'm not sure if a Hindu-Buddhist university will fly in an Islamic country like Afghanistan.

[pding]

current leadership in Afghan isn't Islamic but yet i don't think it will go well with the ppl in general. anyway, one thing at a time and first let's take care of Nalanda.

[VaastuShastra]

I thought it was in Pakistan near Islamabad.

[Naga_Solidus]

It's somewhere around the Afghan-Pakistan border.

@pding: The current Afghan government is much more moderate than the previous one (duh! The old one was a major human rights violator and thus didn't have any right to existence under international law), but it's still an Islamic country. The president must be a Muslim according to their constitution, and apostacy from Islam is still a capital crime (but they don't have hijab laws as far as I'm aware).

[pding]

actually, there is one interesting aspect about current Afghan gov't. it's president Hamid Karzai was educated in Himachal Pradesh University (if i'm not wrong, but def in HP. not sure which university).

[IndiansUnite]

Himachal University in Shimla to be precise

[Naga_Solidus]

He's also reportedly quite fluent in Hindi and Urdu because he studied in HP. Last but not least, Afghanistan's new government buildings are being built by, of all aid-giving governments, India.

[kronik]

Afghanistan is more pro-India than many people think. Hopefully one day they will rise again to become the prosperous land they once were, without interference from any other outsider, inshallah.

That whole area has deep historical ties with the ancient Hindu/Buddhist civilizations, the time when the university flourished.

on a sidenote, here is an interesting link from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient...ities_of_India

[Babji]

http://www.buddhist-pilgrimage.com/nagarjuna-konda.html
NAGARJUNA KONDA
The island takes its name from the Buddhist monk, Nagarjuna, who lived around the turn of the 2nd century AD. Excavations carried out in its this valley have unearthed the Maha Chaitya, Viharas and Monasteries. Nagarjunakonda is 150 kms. from Hyderabad, the state capital of Andhra Pradesh.

Named after acharya Nagarjuna, a Buddhist Scholar, Nagarjuna Konda is a burning feat of both engineering and ancient Buddhist architecture. The site is a remake of another original, to save it from submersion, under the Nagarjuna Sagar dam. While the dam is one of the largest, the site also presents some of the most antique items of Buddhism. More than that it represents a lost civilization, rich and excellent, thousand years ago, in the same place where Nagarjuna Sagar dam is now situated. The excavations led to the findings of ruins of a university, some statues of Buddha, relics and other pieces of Buddhist origin. The museum at Nagarjuna konda houses all these precious findings which, are considered priceless, in terms of Buddhist sentiments and, not to forget, for the rest of the artistic people too.

sLIDE SHOW:
http://ignca.nic.in/asp/showbig.asp?projid=ac08

The Historic items of the items found while constructing the nagarjuna sagar have been put in the exhibition. This hill contains some ancient scluptures of Gautam Buddha and the model of univeristy etc are placed there. Can go by Small launch and good time to visit this site is during monsoon when the dam is filled and can have a great look when the gates of dam are opened.I ti really tragedy to see that once a great palce of learning is only now has water and no learning place.

http://wikimapia.org/415524/

[Naga_Solidus]

It looks like AP might need one of these revival universities too. They need it, for they have South India's worst education indicators (literacy rate etc.) despite their IT prowess, as stated many times on this forum.

[Jai]

An older article, but one that explains much more about Vedanta University

Vedanta University to rewrite history of academia

DK Matai - October 15, 2006

One of the hot subjects discussed at the peripheries of The Evian Group conference in Montreux, Switzerland, was Vedanta University. Vedanta University's motto is to "Rewrite the history of academia." The university, which is a "not-for-profit" venture, is being endowed with USD 1 billion from Anil Agarwal's personal funds.

A few months back, Anil Agarwal, an Indian businessman, who heads the London based Vedanta Resources corporation and Naveen Patnaik, the Chief Minister of Orissa state in eastern India, signed a memorandum of understanding to create India's first and only world class, multidisciplinary university, Vedanta University.

According to the institution's consultant A T Kearney, this is the biggest single person contribution ever made towards the endowment for any educational institution worldwide. The entire outlay to set up the dream university is estimated to be around 150 billion rupees (approximately USD 3 billion). M Siddiqi is the present Project Director of Vedanta University. Other senior administrative officials are currently being recruited internationally.


The three goals of Vedanta University are:

1. Education: To provide meritorious Indian students access to world class education within India

2. Research: To conduct cutting edge research on globally relevant topics from an Asian-centric perspective

3. Society: To produce tomorrow's leaders, and to promote economic growth in the region.


Academics & Research

According to the Anil Agarwal Foundation, Vedanta University will be modeled most closely on Stanford and Harvard universities and aims to be a peer institution to them in terms of world class research and education. Unlike other smaller prominent institutions in India which are focussed entirely on technical education, the planned university would be multidisciplinary in nature, encompassing all domains of human endeavour. It will provide the "finest quality of education" in liberal arts, law, medicine, business, humanities, basic sciences and engineering. The university will house several interdisciplinary centres of excellence in areas such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information technology. It will support approximately 100,000 undergraduate, masters and doctoral students enrolled in 95 disciplines, and employ a few thousand internationally renowned faculty members, making it one of the largest universities in the world. Vedanta University will have a roughly equal mix of Indian and foreign students.

The university will be governed by a board of trustees drawn from industry and society. It will be headed by a president and a provost. The various schools and colleges within Vedanta University will be led by a few deans who would be recruited locally within India as well as internationally. In order to stimulate cutting-edge research, each center of excellence will include five to eight professors of international caliber. The government of Orissa will pass legislation specifically to provide complete administrative and fiscal autonomy to the new university.

Vedanta University will be developed in several phases until its planned completion in 2025. However, the university is expected to start admitting its first batch of students as early as 2008, into its engineering, liberal arts, and basic science programs. Most academic schools, including those of law and performing arts, as well as a few centres of excellence would be in place by 2016. Eventually, the Anil Agrawal foundation hopes that Vedanta University would stem the annual exodus of Indian students seeking higher education abroad, out of which about 80,000 head for the USA alone.

As part of Agarwal's vision, Vedanta University would nurture future Nobel laureates, Olympic champions and heads of states and governments for India and the world.


Campus & Township

Keeping in view a variety of factors based on Agrawal's desire, such as a scenic location, proximity to a major city, and accessibility, the government of Orissa has identified 10,000 acres (40 km²) of land near the Puri-Konark marine drive between Nuanai and Balighai for the proposed Vedanta University. It has undertaken the task of connecting the site of the university to the swanky new international airport being constructed near Bhubaneswar, 70 km away, by means of an expressway. Furthermore, a railway station will be located in the campus. The Orissa government will also provide all necessary infrastructure to support this massive undertaking. The area would be developed into a university township with a permanent population of 40,000 in addition to the large body of students. The township would include primary and secondary schools, apartment complexes and private residences, theaters, cinema, parks and recreation areas, restaurants and shopping complexes.

The township will also allocate land for a research & development park. This park would serve as an incubator for other research laboratories, centers of excellence, and research oriented private companies as Vedanta University spin-offs. It will serve to channelize venture capital funds into research and education. The entire area is expected to eventually evolve into a large research-cum-education complex, similar to the economic hub around Stanford with a combined market capitalization of USD 300 billion, only an hour away from Orissa's state capital, Bhubaneswar.

Recent newspaper articles report that the campus layout will be designed by Ayers Saint Gross, a Baltimore based architectural firm. Ayers Saint Gross has 90 years of experience developing some of the best university campuses in the USA such as Duke, Carnegie-Mellon and Johns Hopkins. Additionally, Mumbai architect Hafeez Contractor, would be hired to impart an Indian touch to the various department and office building architectures. The railway station is planned to be built in an area within the campus that will be called the Train Station Plaza. It will be at one end of what will be called the University Greens - the main university promenade. The palm tree laced University Greens will lead to the University Quadrangle area. Classroom buildings will be centered around stylish lawns called Academic Courtyards. The entire campus would be dotted with fountains, both small and large. There will be an Olympic quality sports complex on campus, the Vedanta Stadium.

The sprawling Vedanta University campus will follow a Mandala layout, centered around a large body of water. Its idyllic surroundings will include a picturesque lake in its immediate vicinity and rolling hills at a distance. The gentle, flowing waters of the Nuanai river meeting the crashing waves of the Casuarina tree-lined beach at Balighai would complete the scenic backdrop. The well-known ruins of the Sun Temple at Konark would be a few minutes away.

Vedanta University would provide immediate benefits to eastern India. It would create enormous opportunities and usher in a knowledge revolution in a state that has hitherto been denied any educational or research institution of national importance by the Indian government in New Delhi.

[Jai]

Great news!

A couple days after the Indian Government denied plans to revive Nalanda University (or more precisely, denied plans that excavated remains of ancient Nalanda would serve as the future university), the Bihar state government affirmed plans!:

Plans being formalised for international university at Nalanda

Malaysia Sun
Sunday 18th March, 2007
(IANS)

The long-awaited dream of setting up an international university at Nalanda, the famous Buddhist centre of learning in Bihar, is about to come true.

The detailed project report (DPR) is ready, land acquisition is going on and a bill on the university will be tabled in the ongoing budget session of the Bihar assembly.

The proposed university will be fully residential like the ancient Nalanda seat of learning. In the first phase it will have seven different schools with 46 foreign faculty members and over 400 Indian academics, states the final DPR, which was submitted to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in February.

The university will impart courses in science, philosophy and spiritualism along with other subjects. An internationally known scholar will be the chancellor of the university.

Bihar Human Resources Development Commissioner M. Jha said the idea of the university was first mooted in the late 1990s but it was President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's initiative in early 2006 that gave shape to the project.

The excavated remains at Nalanda are protected as a site of national importance. The university, a 5th century architectural marvel, was home to over 10,000 students and nearly 2,000 teachers.

Nalanda is the Sanskrit name for 'giver of knowledge'. Nalanda University, which existed until 1197 AD, attracted students and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey, besides being a pedestal of higher education in India.

Though it was devoted to Buddhist studies, it also trained students in subjects like fine arts, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, politics and the art of war.

The DPR states that in its first phase the university will offer only post-graduate, research, doctoral and post-doctoral degrees. However, the DPR is also in favour of offering undergraduate courses in specific areas.

Some 1,137 students from both India and abroad will be enrolled in the first year. By the fifth year the number will go up to 4,530. In the second phase, the enrolment of students will increase to 5,812.

The university on a sprawling 500 acre campus will have a 1:10 faculty-student ratio. The 46 international faculty members will receive an estimated $36,000 per annum as salaries.

The Bihar government plans to take the advice of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen for setting up the university.

Japan and Singapore have shown interest in investing about Rs.4.5 billion (about $100 million) for the varsity.

The state cabinet approved the University of Nalanda Bill, 2007, Friday. The bill will be introduced in the state assembly next week. The draft of the bill stated that the international university would strive to create a world free of war, terror and violence.

Educational Consultants of India, a consulting company under the union ministry of human resource development, has prepared the DPR of the International Nalanda University. 'The government has received a DPR of the university and will hand it over to the Overseas Development Agency (ODA) of Japan for developing it,' officials told IANS.

Jha said the chief minister was taking keen interest in completing the project.

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Furthermore, Vedanta University's webpage has undergone a small update, including a small photo of the proposed site:



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-Jai

[pding]

good. if the centre has no balls, or more appropriately no initiative, to revive such cultural centres, then states govts and enterpreneurs should take over....We desperately need a Harvard type university in India and hopefully Nalanda will regain its ancient glory to unprecedented levels.