Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Bateshwar Sthan and Vikramshila University

Tuesday, 17 February 2015

To visit Vikramshila University, we docked at the village of Batheshwar Sthan. The date was a major Hindu holiday: Mahashivratri (literally, Shiva's big night). The town was filled with festival goers.

Making our way through the village.
Villagers were dressed up for the holiday.
Even the goats got special treatment.
Nearby is Vikramshila, a major Buddhist university established in the 8th or 9th century CE. Like many Buddhist sites, it was destroyed around 1200 CE. It had only about 1/10 of the students that Nalanda had (1,000 students for Vikramshila), but was more elite.

The remnants of the original stupa, partially reconstructed. The surrounding wall in the foreground is part of the huge square monastery that had the stupa in its center.
The platform surrounding the stupa.



No comments:

Post a Comment