Biographies from this period are full of stories of the philosophers traveling
from center to center, debating and sometimes converting their rivals. The
Buddhist logician Dignaga defeated a Brahman at Nalanda, and both the
emperor Harsha and the regional kings held public disputations among phi-
losophers of all religions (Stcherbatsky, 1962: 1:33; Dutt, 1962: 266). Hindu
philosophies became prominent in the intellectual world, first by contacting
the Buddhist networks, then by emulating their debates and eventually their
organizational structure. Since so many of the Buddhist philosophers were also
Brahmans, we must envision this transition as a shift in the strength of centers
of attraction in intellectual space. Dignaga and Dharmakirti (and many others
before them, such as Buddhaghosa and Nagarjuna) were Brahmans from the
south, just as Asanga and Vasubandhu I were Brahmans from the northwest
(Eliot, 2:86); when they traveled to the center, it was the great Buddhist
philosophers they sought; and the factional space they opened up created new
positions on the Buddhist side. Later, fewer and fewer of the Brahman educated
class were making this choice; instead they opened up positions on the Hindu
side of the turf. After Shankara, there were Shaiva monks with their own
monastic headquarters. Eventually all the Hindu sects had their maths, or
centers of learning.
The Buddhist monastic centers from about 400 to their last vestiges in the
1100s became universities in much the sense of the Christian universities of
Europe in the 1200s. Philosophy had grown up from “theology.” Conditions
were optimal for creative conflict, a few centers of attention with connecting
networks: Nalanda, above all, the “University of Paris” of its day, known for
its “row of monasteries with towers licking the clouds”; an outlier at Valabhi
in the west, made eminent by some of Vasubandhu II’s disciples (Dutt, 1962:
225–231); on the Hindu side, Mithila,^38 very near Nalanda, which became the
headquarters of Nyaya-Vaisheshika; and Varanasi (Banaras) 150 miles upriver,
a holy city for both Hindus and Buddhists, a center of intellectual factions in
Upanishadic times which became active again during the days of the great
Mimansakas and Shankara.
Chinese visitors in the 600s described Nalanda as a marvel, with its carved
walls and mosaic floors, brickwork brushed with vermilion paste and polished
with oil to shine like mirrors, its balustrades and turrets and tile-covered roofs,
its temples where Buddha images were surrounded by jewels and ornaments
of lustrous gold. There were 100 professors and 3,000 students, both monks
and laity, with crowds of servants and porters. When learned Nalanda monks
went out, they were carried in sedan chairs surrounded by attendants. Water
clocks kept time for the events of the day, which were announced by drum
strokes and blasts on a conch shell. Books were locked up at mealtimes to
prevent stealing. During lessons the monasteries “hummed with teaching and
226 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths