Nalanda | Abhay K., William Dalrymple and Shailendra Raj Mehta in conversation with Narayani Basu

Presented by New Indian Express Nalanda, the great Buddhist monastery of the Magadha empire, was known to be one of the oldest and greatest centres of learning in the ancient world. For all this fame, much about this earliest of universities and its inevitable impact on ideas of education remains unexplored and unattended to. Historian as well as Co-Director of the Jaipur Literature Festival, William Dalrymple’s work on ancient India includes an engagement with Nalanda’s position as the great source of Buddhist teaching. Poet and scholar Abhay K. enters these questions in Nalanda, a deep-dive into its global impact. Scholar and educationist Shailendra Raj Mehta’s long-standing commitment to researching the educational institutes inspires his fascination with the forerunner of the university. In conversation, these three scholars paint a picture of the place that shaped the thoughts, ideas, and even lives of ancient India and the ancient world while they trace those reverberations in the contemporary world. Abhay K. is a poet, editor, translator, artist, and diplomat. He is the author of a number of poetry collections and has edited several books including The Book of Bihari Literature. His latest book, Nalanda, published by Penguin Random House, chronicles the history of Nalanda and how it changed the world. Shailendra Raj Mehta is the O.P. Jindal Distinguished University Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Asia School of Business in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His previous roles include serving as President and Director of MICA, Chairman of the Board of Management at Auro University, Provost & Vice Chancellor of Ahmedabad University, and Vice-Chairman of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. Narayani Basu is the bestselling author of V.P. Menon: The Unsung Architect of Modern India and the biography A Man For All Seasons: The Life of K.M. Panikkar. A historian and foreign policy analyst based in New Delhi, she highlights lesser-known figures in Indian independence while writing extensively on foreign policy for international publications. Follow us on – Website - https://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/ Facebook -   / jaipurlitfest   YouTube -    / jprlitfest   Instagram -   / jaipurlitfest   Twitter -   / jaipurlitfest   #buddhist #nalanda #jaipurliteraturefestival2025