To the east of the major monastic and pilgrimage centers of Bihar, near the modern village of Antichak, are the remains of a massive temple with shrines facing the cardinal directions. Enclosing the temple, which was excavated in the 1960s, is the largest Buddhist monastery in South Asia, which scholars today agree is probably the mahavihara (“great monastery”) of Vikramashila, described in many Tibetan sources.
Before going to Tibet, Atisha was the head, or upadhyaya, of Vikramashila, a center that many Tibetans visited and whose standing in the Buddhist world was rivaled only by that of Bodhgaya and Nalanda. The monastery is laid out as an enormous square (1,080 feet on each side) with residential cells running along the inner edges of the enclosure. A monk living in one of those cells would have faced the central, mountainlike temple, which was crowned with a massive tower and must have looked much like the Mahabodhi temple.
The date of the site can be fixed only generally, but it seems to have been founded by the end of the eighth century, was thriving in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and was destroyed at the beginning of the thirteenth century following the Ghurid conquest.
The date of the site can be fixed only generally, but it seems to have been founded by the end of the eighth century, was thriving in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and was destroyed at the beginning of the thirteenth century following the Ghurid conquest.
The exterior wall appears to have been fortified — it is studded at regular intervals with the foundations of round and square towers — and the only point of access was a single gateway facing north. In 1234 the Tibetan monk Dharmasvamin arrived in north India and wrote about the devastated state of the major Buddhist centers. According to Dharmasvamin’s account, Bodhgaya was deserted and Vikramashila was almost totally destroyed, although it had still been active when his uncle Chang dGra-bcom traveled to India at the end of the thirteenth century. Dharmasvamin stayed for two years at Nalanda, living among the last vestiges of its monastic population, before returning to Tibet.
When Vikramashila was excavated, two of its huge directional shrines still contained remains of Buddha images. The spatial organization suggests that each shrine housed one of the Tathagatas presiding over the corresponding pure land, while the fifth Tathagata, likely Vairochana, was placed in a now-lost shrine in the upper part of the central tower. (Alternatively, the tower itself could have symbolized the central, presiding Buddha.)
The link between Vikramashila and Tibetan monasteries such as Shalu, where the five Tathagatas appear in wall paintings, is compelling; certainly it can be no coincidence that the western Tibetan temple of Tholing, where Atisha initially resided after leaving north India, is organized as a central shrine surrounded by four subsidiary shrines facing the cardinal directions. Tibetan sources speak of Vikramashila as an important monastic university that conferred the prestigious title of pandita, which we know was bestowed on Atisha. By the late eleventh century it housed some 160 panditas along with a thousand monks. Later Tibetan sources list the names of many Tantric teachers at Vikramashila and emphasize the importance of Vajrayana practices there, probably a factor of its location far to the east of the main Buddhist pilgrimage centers. At those sites, sculptures of Tantric deities are often relegated to supporting roles (such as protectors and attendants), suggesting the dominance of more conservative Mahayana practices. At centers even farther east than Vikramashila — such as Paharpur, in Bangladesh, or Ratnagiri, in Odisha — the opposite holds true: the sculpture tends to be more esoteric in emphasis, and Tantric rituals were undoubtedly a vital aspect of these Buddhist communities.
The link between Vikramashila and Tibetan monasteries such as Shalu, where the five Tathagatas appear in wall paintings, is compelling; certainly it can be no coincidence that the western Tibetan temple of Tholing, where Atisha initially resided after leaving north India, is organized as a central shrine surrounded by four subsidiary shrines facing the cardinal directions. Tibetan sources speak of Vikramashila as an important monastic university that conferred the prestigious title of pandita, which we know was bestowed on Atisha. By the late eleventh century it housed some 160 panditas along with a thousand monks. Later Tibetan sources list the names of many Tantric teachers at Vikramashila and emphasize the importance of Vajrayana practices there, probably a factor of its location far to the east of the main Buddhist pilgrimage centers. At those sites, sculptures of Tantric deities are often relegated to supporting roles (such as protectors and attendants), suggesting the dominance of more conservative Mahayana practices. At centers even farther east than Vikramashila — such as Paharpur, in Bangladesh, or Ratnagiri, in Odisha — the opposite holds true: the sculpture tends to be more esoteric in emphasis, and Tantric rituals were undoubtedly a vital aspect of these Buddhist communities.
The distinction between Mahayana and Vajrayana practices, but also their coexistence at places such as Vikramashila, is apparent in the writings of the later Tibetan monk Taranatha (b. 1575), whose History of Buddhism in India (1608) tells of a Pala-period king, Canaka, who established Buddhist devotional centers linked to key texts: eight for the Prajnaparamita (a text encompassing the Mahayana canon), four for the Guhyasamaja (a Tantric text known to Atisha), and one for Hevajra and Chakrasamvara, powerful esoteric protective deities who had associated Tantric texts. Considering both Taranatha’s account and the uneven distribution of esoteric sculptures among the various Buddhist centers of north India, what becomes clear is that esoteric Buddhism emerged out of the fabric of the larger Mahayana tradition.
The monastic university of Nalanda, where Atisha studied and, according to Taranatha, composed a literary text, was the best-known and most prestigious center of learning in north India. Renowned for its intellectual rigor, Nalanda attracted learned and ambitious monks from across South and Southeast Asia as well as a great many Tibetans.
Monks versed in all aspects of the South Asian textual traditions and schools of logic resided at the monastery, and its library, the Shilabhadra (Treasury of Good Law), was famous throughout the Buddhist world. One of the earliest and most informative accounts of Nalanda was compiled by the Chinese monk Xuanzang, who left China for north India in 629 with the goal of translating Buddhist texts and then returning home with the translations. On his journey, which followed well-established trade routes through Central Asia, Afghanistan, Gandhara, and Kashmir, and from there into the Ganges basin of north India, Xuanzang recounts seeing powerful relics, miraculous images, and a number of Buddhist communities, whose monasteries and practices he describes.
Monks versed in all aspects of the South Asian textual traditions and schools of logic resided at the monastery, and its library, the Shilabhadra (Treasury of Good Law), was famous throughout the Buddhist world. One of the earliest and most informative accounts of Nalanda was compiled by the Chinese monk Xuanzang, who left China for north India in 629 with the goal of translating Buddhist texts and then returning home with the translations. On his journey, which followed well-established trade routes through Central Asia, Afghanistan, Gandhara, and Kashmir, and from there into the Ganges basin of north India, Xuanzang recounts seeing powerful relics, miraculous images, and a number of Buddhist communities, whose monasteries and practices he describes.
Like Atisha, Xuanzang took up residence in Nalanda, where he received instruction in Mahayana doctrine and had access to a diverse body of texts, some of which later became important to the Vajrayana Buddhist communities of Tibet. He noted that ten thousand dignified and grave monks resided at Nalanda and that the revenue of a hundred villages supported the monastery. The lay community also contributed rice, butter, and milk so that the monks were abundantly supplied and need not beg for food. The excavated site of Nalanda, with its seven towering image temples and ten vast, multistoried monasteries, certainly supports Xuanzang’s account of a well-funded institution.
Students seeking admission to Nalanda had to answer questions posed to them by a gatekeeper, who permitted entrance only to those familiar with both old and new Buddhist texts. Xuanzang describes eight halls in which students attended lectures and engaged in discussion on such subjects as logic, the Vedas (foundational texts for the Hindu tradition), Mahayana Buddhism, and the Buddhist doctrines associated with the earlier Hinayana or Nikaya schools, suggesting that Nalanda’s monastic population must have included scholars from various Buddhist traditions. Judging from Xuanzang’s observations of the other places he visited, such ideologically diverse monastic communities were common in north India at this time. The two Buddha images from Nalanda would thus have resonated with the devotees at Nalanda regardless of whether they adhered to the early Nikaya traditions, Mahayana Buddhism, or a mixture of Mahayana ideology and Vajrayana ritual practice.