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Updated: June 4, 2025
After Buddha attained to pari-nirvâna the kings of the various countries and the heads of the Vaisyas built vihâras for the priests, and endowed them with fields, houses, gardens, and orchards, along with the resident populations and their cattle, the grants being engraved on plates of metal, so that afterwards they were handed down from king to king, without any one daring to annul them, and they remain even to the present time.
Nalanda and the other viharas continued to be seats of learning and not merely monasteries, and for some time there was a regular succession of teachers. Târanâtha gives us to understand that there were many students and authors but that sorcery occupied an increasingly important position. Of most teachers we are told that they saw some deity, such as Avalokita or Târâ.
Besides these chaityas, or temples, there are still more numerous viharas, or monasteries, found in India, of different dates, but none older than the third century before Christ. They show a central hall, surrounded on three sides by cells for the monks. On the fourth side is an open verandah; facing this is generally a shrine with an image of Buddha.
There were hundreds of pieces, friezes of figures in relief, fragments of statues and slabs crowded with figures that had encrusted the brick walls of the Buddhist stupas and viharas of the North Country and now, dug up and labelled, made the pride of the Museum.
The town itself is a quaint collection of castle-like turrets of the most fantastical architecture; of ancient viharas; of wooden fortresses, so gaily painted that they look like toys; of pagodas, with loopholes and overhanging curved little balconies; and all this over-grown by such abundance of roses, dahlias, aloes and blossoming cactuses, that it is hardly possible to tell a door from a window.
The guardians of the temple have either lost the secret of further caves, or conceal them jealously from Europeans. Besides the Viharas already described, there are many others, scattered over the slope of the mountain. These temple-monasteries are all smaller than the first, but, according to the opinion of some archeologists, they are much older.
On each side of the main court, against the outer wall, is another court, with buildings round it, consisting of kitchen and refectories on the one side, and hospital wards on the other. It is almost certain that this is a reproduction of the earlier forms of chaityas and viharas which existed in India, and have been already referred to.
The monks said it was the most precious thing in their possession, and that if they opened it, as I begged them to do, there would be a convulsion that would destroy the whole establishment. See E. H., p. 166. The name of the province of Behar was given to it in consequence of its many viharas. According to the characters, "square, round, four inches." Hsuan-chwang says it was twelve inches round.
After Buddha attained to pari-nirvana, the kings of the various countries and the heads of the Vaisyas built viharas for the priests, and endowed them with fields, houses, gardens, and orchards, along with the resident populations and their cattle, the grants being engraved on plates of metal, so that afterwards they were handed down from king to king, without any daring to annul them, and they remain even to the present time.
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