Nalanda University - ... 800 years later!!!

Nalanda University -  the ancient university, which began during the Gupta period in 6th century AD and came to an end after being ransacked, looted and burnt in 1193 AD by the invading Turk army led by its commander Bakhtiyar Khilji, is finally reopening its majestic gates to the students of today. 

The majestic university, perhaps the first one in the world to have residential premises which used to house around 10,000 students and 2000 teachers. This seat of wisdom and knowledge was frequented by travelers from far and wide. 

At its peak, the university attracted scholars and students from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Turkey, Greece, and Persia. The subjects taught included religion, history, law, linguistics, medicine, public health, architecture, metallurgy, pharmacology, sculpture and astronomy.

After deliberating since 2006, the Government of India finally has decided to reopen this University after a gap of 800 years. 

Will the Nalanda University flourish like in the days of yore? Will the syllabus and curriculum that were preached in those days hold validity in today's day and age? To seek an end to this conundrum, scholars were asked to prepare an entrance test very similar to what existed in those days. This would be a good benchmark to conclude that NU would need a new avatar. 

Nationwide exams were conducted with millions of aspirants appearing for the exams and the exam results were baffling; to say the least. Nobody had expected this result!!!

1. Candidates did not have command over simple English or Hindi or even for that matter, their language of choice for appearing for the exams. The Nalanda Entrance & Aptitude Test or NEAT had provisioned for all recognized languages. Almost all candidates failed the language test as sms language was deemed to be non recognized. 
2. Candidates did not have proficiency in basic arithmetic. Almost 98% of the students failed to do basic calculations when the supervisors prohibited calculators and mobile phones in the exam hall. Just under 1% of the candidates had even heard of vedic mathematics. Some right winged students protested that prohibition of mobile phones and calculators was akin to infringing upon their fundamental rights. 
3. All throughout the exam process, there were lots of protests by different groups demanding minority quotas for their ilk in the re-opened Nalanda University. 
4. The aspirants had to appear for interviews. The Nalanda University had made provisions for including English also as an accepted language. A vast majority of the candidates could not speak out grammatically correct sentences. The only mandate was to use just one language during the interview. A vast majority failed because they used fillers in between like hmmm, ok, like, basically etc. 
5. Candidates who had appeared for astronomy knew stars of a different kind!!! The ones living in Mumbai. 
6. Some of the aspirants were a bit vocal about offering "some goodies" if their candidatures were cleared. No coincidence, but they were aspiring to study Law. 

Finally, after a 2 months of arduous efforts by the Management of the Nalanda University came out with a press notification. 

"After the rigorous exercise of conducting the exams and interviews of millions of aspirants, we went back to the NU library to confer and discuss further. We then decided to refer to our Bible - the Nalanda University scripture written 800 years ago to find some inspiration." "There it was written thus - In the coming centuries, the denizens of this country will slowly start losing out on key elements of human facets - intellect being the foremost of them. They will squabble among themselves and then let themselves be ruled by invading merchants. Further in time, they will also start lacking in the ability to reason; ironical that they themselves would have built devices to help enhance their thinking faculty. This will be the day when they will cease to think. In that future, if an opportunity arises to reopen the annals of this majestic University; we strongly recommend the contrary."

Signed 

Harshavardhana, Vasubandhu, Dharmapal, Suvishnu, Asanga,Dharmakirti, Shantarakhsita, Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Padmasambhava, 

Chanakya, Xuanzang (the reputed founder of Buddhism in Tibet) and Hwui Li,  

(Alumni of Batch 1193 A.D.)

We, herewith, defer the re-opening of the Nalanda University till unforeseen future when our population may have evolved intellectually.