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