Much about Nalanda remains shrouded in mystery. When was it founded? Who founded it? Who studied and taught there? What subjects were offered? How many students and teachers were there? Was Nalanda a university in the modern sense? And what ultimately led to its downfall? Nalanda by Abhay K. unravels these questions, telling the story of the rise, fall, and re-rise of Nalanda Mahavihara. Through extensive research, the book explores Nalanda’s contributions in fields such as science, mathematics, philosophy, art, architecture, and poetry. It also highlights the great luminaries who elevated its unparalleled reputation as the preeminent seat of knowledge, as well as the foreign scholars who visited the celebrated monastery.
Nalanda: How It Changed the World by Abhay K
Abhay K. is the author of a dozen poetry books, including, Celestial, Stray Poems, Monsoon, The Magic of Madagascar and The Alphabets of Latin America and is the editor of The Book of Bihari Literature, The Bloomsbury Book of Great Indian Love Poems, Capitals, New Brazilian Poems and The Bloomsbury Anthology of Great Indian Poems.
His poems have appeared in over a hundred literary magazines, including Poetry Salzburg Review and Asia Literary Review. His ‘Earth Anthem’ has been translated into over 160 languages. He received the SAARC Literary Award (2013) and was invited to record his poems at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., in 2018. His translations of Kalidasa’s Meghaduta and Ritusamhara from Sanskrit won him the KLF Poetry Book of the Year Award (2020–21). His translation of Magahi novel Fool Bahadur has been published by Penguin Random House, India. His paintings on the Buddhist philosophy of ‘Sunyata’ have been exhibited at Bihar Museum, Patna.
