Really old school

In an isolated corner of northern India, 202 hectares of desolate farmland are set to become a pan-Asian centre of learning. Under a bold, US$1 billion plan unveiled last November, Nalanda university - a learning institution that passed into history 800 years ago - is to be revived. With support from China, Japan and Singapore, the ancient seat of learning will be rebuilt from scratch just 16km from the ruins of the old centre.

Founded by Buddhist monks, the university - whose Sanskrit name means giver of knowledge - flourished from AD427, some 90km from Patna, capital of India's present-day Bihar province. One of the first great universities in recorded history, it attracted students from as far afield as China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Persia (today's Iran) and Turkey.

In its heyday it housed 10,000 students, 2,000 teachers and boasted a nine-storey library. Its curriculum focused on Buddhist studies, but fine arts, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, politics and military science were also taught.

But in 1197 it was razed by Turkish invader Bakhtiar Khilji and forgotten until 1860, when its remains were unearthed by British archaeologists. The excavated ruins, preserved by the Archaeological Survey of India, still rake in tourist dollars in backward Bihar.

Historians say the ancient university was the key to the spread of Buddhism in China, Japan, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar.

The bid to revive Nalanda has attracted the attention of a number of western academics. 'Nalanda represents much of what Asia could use today - a great global university that reaches deep into the region's underlying cultural heritage, restores many of the peaceful links among peoples and cultures that once existed, and gives Asia the kind of soft power of influence and attraction that it doesn't have now,' wrote Jeffrey Garten, a former dean of the Yale School of Management, in The New York Times.