Experiencing Vismṛti and challenges in Bhāratīya Education
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| Title | Experiencing Vismṛti and challenges in Bhāratīya Education |
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| Author(s) | Raj Bijalwan |
| Platform | Bharatiya Jnana Sarita |
| Categories | History & Civilization/Itihāsa & Sabhyatā |
| Year | 2026 |
| Type of Article | Repurposed Advanced |
| Difficulty Level | Advanced |
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The article presents the concept of vismṛti and its impact on Bhāratīya education. The article tends to examine how European… The article presents the concept of vismṛti and its impact on Bhāratīya education. The article tends to examine how European interpretations of Bhārata have harmed the understanding of its civilisation. This has led to a disconnect between Bhāratīya traditions and their experiences. With the help of the Advaita Vedānta's concept of Rajju-Sarpa Nyāya, the article stresses on the need to recognise the superimpositions and overcome them. The article explores the relevance of the traditional frameworks and emphasises the need to understand Bhāratīya education through its own framework.
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Introduction
Bhārata’s long history of jñāna paramparā has witnessed multiple attacks on its traditions with the sole aim of trivialising the civilisation. However, Bhāratīya people have stood closely with their tradition. The constant upheaval from around the world has placed Bhāratīyas in a very complex situation. On one hand, there are Bhāratīyas who take pride in their customs and rituals as ancestral legacy, and on the other hand, there are some who demean, dismiss, and question their own culture. In order to understand Bhārata, it is necessary to take pride in the glorious past and not doubt this rich culture.
The Bhāratīyas have often found themselves either opposing or accepting the European ‘understanding’ of Bhārata. While questions are raised about traditions due to this understanding, the European experience of Bhārata has nothing to do with Bhāratīya tradition at all. Several descriptions question the significance of Bhārata’s timeless culture; from calling the tradition primitive to superstitious. However, the European experience is found to be far from the real culture of Bhārata that celebrates, enjoys, and cherishes the Bhāratīya way of life.
The need today is not to counter the attacks on the traditions but to create a pathway for people to address the challenges pertaining to the Indian Knowledge Systems. In its response, Bhārata must look at the Bhāratīya jñāna paramparā and its traditions to identify itself rather than adopting a European perspective.
Purpose and Scope
The purpose of this article is to reinstate the Bhāratīya experience for describing and defining Bhārata. Bhārata, its traditions, and its people have often been looked at from either of the two extremes, as a rich culture or as a primitive, ugly state of being. In either of the two states, it is Bhārata that seems to lack a voice of its own. Both states emerge from a European experience and a counter-European experience of ‘decolonisation’. The article attempts to mark a shift from this confused state and present instances from history to approach such challenges. The article takes the example of Nālandā Vihāra to explain the need to assimilate experience in Bhāratīya education. To understand the Nālandā model, the article stresses the need to view Bhāratīya traditions through their own lens.
Bhārata has remained under foreign attacks for several centuries. The foreign invasions brought along subsequent attacks on Bhāratīya culture and traditions. Both the Islamic invasions and European colonialism harmed Bhāratīya culture in every way possible. In their ‘curiosity’ to know Bhārata more, they started looking for ways to engage with rulers and their practices. Through their engagements, they wanted to understand the culture and thereby govern the people of Bhārata easily. Since the arrival of Europeans in the eighteenth century, they started documenting and developing ideas to understand the people who lived in Bhārata.
For the entire colonial era, Europeans, as colonisers, missionaries and travellers, described Bhārata based on ideas that had emerged from their cultural experience. Although the observances or descriptions were related to Bhārata and Bhāratīyas, they were part of the European perspective of Bhāratīya civilisation. The assertions arising from such perspectives were far from the authentic Bhāratīya culture. The European assertions were not absolute truths but mere experiences.
Rajju-Sarpa Nyāya
The confused state of a Bhāratīya can find respite by understanding the Advaita Vedānta's Rajju-Sarpa Nyāya analogy. This is encompassed in the concept of adhyāsa which refers to superimposing a thought or a view upon an object when its nature is not so in reality. In simple terms, it is mistaking something for what it is not.
In the analogy, a person sees a rope in dim light and mistakes it for a snake. In reality, there is no snake, but the thought gets superimposed upon the rope. This is largely because of the conditions in which the person sees the rope, influenced by his past experiences of seeing snakes and interpreting anything of that shape, like a rope, as a snake. The Europeans arrived in Bhārata and saw the life and the way of living of the Bhāratīyas which led them to understand this ‘rope’ as a snake. With time, such interpretations became the standard way of identifying Bhārata.
While the Europeans began giving assertions based on their misunderstandings, these descriptions and assertions got assimilated into the education system and still continue to remain a part of the academic community. This was not merely a case of misidentification but revealed a lot about the observer’s understanding of things.
Ādi Śaṅkarācārya’s concept of adhyāsa or superimposition remains significant in modern times as well. There are people who argue and assert that they know and practice the Bhāratīya traditions. Therefore, they are not under the influence of the snake’s description superimposed upon the rope. Such people might boast of their devotion towards their ācāra, which referred to the established practices, conduct and norms followed by the people. But even such arguments might carry the influence of the superimposition. They might not be able to explain the vismṛti or the forgetfulness that may have shaped their understanding. There remains a threat that the person carrying forward the ācāra may have understood the tradition through non-native concepts.
Ācāra was a part of the gurukula system that existed in ancient Bhārata. The gurukula system thrived in Bhārata because of its foundation, rooted in traditional domains of the Bhāratīya civilisation.
Adhyāsa tends to relate to the superimposition of one thought upon another. When one mistakes one thing for another and attributes the qualities of one to the other, it is adhyāsa. On the other hand, vismṛti is forgetting or losing the memory of things. In this context, it may be understood as the loss of jñāna and awareness about one's own culture and tradition.
Bhārata’s National Education Policy of 2020 brought with it a renewed hope for Bhāratīya traditions and the Indian Knowledge Systems. The integration of Bhāratīya traditions into the education system aimed to revive the traditional system of Bhārata rooted in its aim for jñāna. The National Education Policy mentions ancient universities of Takṣaśilā and Nālandā, along with Bhārata’s holistic and multidisciplinary system of learning: “The aim of education in ancient India was not just the acquisition of knowledge as preparation for life in this world, or life beyond schooling, but for the complete realization and liberation of the self. World-class institutions of ancient India such as Takṣaśilā, Nālandā,Vikramaśilā and Vallabhī, set the highest standards of multidisciplinary teaching and research and hosted scholars and students from across backgrounds and countries [1].”
Ancient wisdom points to the pursuit of jñāna, prajñā and satya as one of the highest goals for human beings. Historically, Bhāratīya educational institutions also had students coming in large numbers from other countries as well, suggesting how Bhārata was a hub of jñāna and viveka.
Ancient Bhāratīya Universities
The ancient Bhāratīya system of gurukula followed the guru-śiṣya paramparā. These gurukula systems evolved and led to the emergence of various monasteries and vihāras, where monks could perform meditation, and engage in discussions and debates. These gurukulas were the residential places of education and were situated in forests with serene surroundings. When the kings started taking interests in jñāna and its propagation, the centres of higher learning came into existence [2]. Eventually, some universities were established across Bhārata. Takṣaśilā, as one of the oldest centres of learning, offered disciplines such as law, vaidika studies, medicines etc. Nālandā was the world's first residential university and is known for its library called Dharmagaṅgā [2].
Nālandā University
Nālandā University presents a practical model for shaping Bhārata's future education. As one of the greatest centres of higher learning and the world's first residential university, Nālandā is said to have been founded during the reign of Kumāragupta I. To establish Nālandā-like institutions, it would require a complete overhaul of the current institutions in order to get recognised as per the Nālandā model.
Nālandā is often understood to be like a modern day university; instead, it was the Mahāvihāra of the Buddhist tradition. This was the most important Buddhist learning center in the Bhāratīya subcontinent from the fifth century to the thirteenth century. The kings of Tibet sent several students to the Nālandā Mahāvihāra to help them systematically establish a Buddhist way of learning in their kingdom. Recorded history also mentions many masters from the Nālandā tradition going to Tibet to establish a teaching-learning process.
This was significant because after the Islamic invasion, the entire Nālandā learning system was preserved completely in the Vajrayāna and the Tantrayāna traditions of Tibet. Traditions like Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug preserved the entire Nālandā learning model. These traditions were shaped and developed by ācāryas like Dharmapāla, Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Dharmakīrti, Candrakīrti, Asaṅga, Śīlabhadra and Śāntarakṣita, and were carried forth in the Vajrayāna tradition of Tibet. Today, many of these traditions are a part of the vihāras in Tibet, with some of them being over 600 years old.
The Traditions of Learning
The traditions, preserving the Nālandā model of learning, have continued to exist in Tibet. In these traditions, students are engaged in rigorous study for twenty to twenty-six years. Initially, logic and language were taught. Then, study of Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, Mādhyamika Buddhist tradition, Vinaya and Abhidhamma etc. took place for a duration of at least seventeen to eighteen years. For a duration of twenty years, the students engaged in debates to understand how to argue. The debating process helped them in easily understanding about their inner self. The entire learning tradition resonates with the Bhāratīya framework of śravaṇa, manana, and nidhidhyāsana.
The Nālandā tradition has survived in several parts of Bhārata as vihāras. After China invaded Tibet in the 1950s, a sizable population of Tibet along with the Dalai Lama migrated to Bhārata and restarted the Nālandā tradition in the 1960s. Every year, over a thousand students complete fifteen to twenty years of study and later obtain a degree from Geshe, Khenpo and so on. The study is the sādhnā or the practice for attaining paramārtha, satya and ānanda.
There are several gurukulas still functioning across the Bhāratavarṣa, carrying forward the jñāna of Veda, nyāya, mīmāṃsā, kṛṣi, and sthāpatya. It can be said that the Nālandā model still exists in some form. In Karnataka’s Mundgod, Bylakuppe and Hunsur, thirty thousand monks study even today and people from other countries still come to vihāras for learning. However, the degrees attained in vihāras are not recognised by the universities. The vihāras also fear the university system because of the regulations that might undermine their models and paramparā. If the vihāras are brought under the university system, they might lose their essence. The learning process, preserved for over thousands of years, would undergo significant change and eventually die out.
The core element of the Nālandā model was a pedagogy spanning two decades, students engaging in debates, and understanding the world without getting influenced by ideology. But the university model encompasses textbooks, and influential ideologies that deprive a person from jñāna. While vihāras held constructive discussions and debates, in modern universities, the debates and discussions often lead to chaos.
The modern universities are a result of European colonialism, whereas the gurukulas and vihāras were rooted in Bhāratīya traditions. Therefore, the universities and the gurukulas have different purposes, both structurally and institutionally. The modern education system unfortunately continues to undermine traditional learning methods that were part of the gurukula system.
Conclusion
While the European assertions of Nālandā, as beautiful and ideal, are glorified, Bhāratīya traditional methods are not recognised by the universities or are merely called informal education. Nālandā offered a comprehensive multidisciplinary learning system involving daily routine, reflective methods, emphasis on meditation amalgamated together. In the Nālandā model, this transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach was not created, but was allowed to emerge naturally.
However, it must be noted that the modern understanding of Nālandā was a creation of European experience and was later used to explain Bhāratīya model of learning. This points that the Nālandā’s description we know of today, is different to what it really was. The irony is that while the Nālandā model of learning thrives, it is not even considered a recognised teaching and learning system. This is vismṛti. Today, the traditional systems of learning are being forgotten and ignored. Instead of recognising the systems, we look at them through the lens of modern framework. This is similar to the person mistaking the rope for a snake. It is therefore necessary to look at Bhāratīya paramparā through the traditional lens and not from the colonial, modern outlook.
References:
Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. (n.d.-b). National Education Policy 2020. https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/NEP_Final_English_0.pdf
Singh, S. J. D. P. (2026b). Intellectual Traditions of Ancient India: An Analysis of Early Universities and their Educational Practices. Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19367162
Original Article Information
- Original Article Link: https://www.brhat.in/dhiti/vismrti-nalanda-vihara-experience-and-indian-education
- Original Article Details: Vismṛti, experience, and the challenge of reclaiming Indian education.