ScienceSouth Asia
Nalanda
The world's first residential university, with ten thousand students
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The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang studied here for five years in the seventh century and left a detailed description — one of our most important sources on India in that period. Nalanda taught not only Buddhism but logic, grammar, medicine and mathematics. It was burned during a Turkic campaign around 1200; the library is said to have burned for months.
For children
Nalanda in India had lecture halls, dormitories and a library nine storeys high. Students came from China, Korea, Tibet and Persia, and the entrance examination was so severe that most were turned away at the gate.
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