Nalanda was an acclaimed Mahavihara, a vast Buddhist religious community in the old kingdom of Magadha (advanced Bihar) in India. The site is situated around 95 kilometers southeast of Patna close to the town of Bihar Sharif and was a center of gaining knowledge from the 5th century CE to c. 1200 CE. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The exceptionally formalized techniques for Vedic learning propelled the foundation of expansive teaching establishments, for example, Taxila, Nalanda, and Vikramashila which are frequently described as India's initial universities. Nalanda thrived under the support of the Gupta Empire in the fifth and sixth hundreds of years and later under Harsha, the ruler of Kannauj. The liberal social customs acquired from the Gupta age brought about a time of development and success until the ninth century. The resulting hundreds of years were a period of steady decay, a period amid which the tantric advancements of Buddhism turned out to be most articulated in eastern India under the Pala Empire. At its pinnacle, the school pulled in researchers and understudies from close and far with some voyaging the distance from Tibet, China, Korea, and Central Asia. Archeological proof likewise notes contact with the Shailendra Dynasty of Indonesia, one of whose rulers assembled a religious community in the complex.

Quite a bit of our insight into Nalanda originates from the compositions of pioneer priests from East Asia, for example, Xuanzang and Yijing who set out to the Mahavihara in the seventh century. Vincent Smith commented that "a brief history of Nalanda would be a past filled with Mahayanist Buddhism". A significant number of the names recorded by Xuanzang in his travelogue as results of Nalanda are the names of the individuals who built up the rationality of Mahayana. All students at Nalanda examined Mahayana and the writings of the eighteen (Hinayana) organizations of Buddhism. Their educational modules additionally included different subjects, for example, the Vedas, rationale, Sanskrit grammar, pharmaceutical and Samkhya.

Nalanda was stripped and wrecked by a multitude of the Mamluk Dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate under Bakhtiyar Khilji in c. 1200 CE. While a few sources take note of that the Mahavihara kept on working in a temporary design for some time longer, it was in the long run deserted and overlooked until the point that the nineteenth century when the site was reviewed and preparatory unearthings were led by the ArcheologicalSurvey of India. Deliberate unearthings started in 1915 which uncovered eleven religious communities and six block sanctuaries perfectly masterminded on grounds 12 hectares (30 sections of land) in the region. A trove of sculpture, coins, seals, and engravings have likewise been found in the remnants huge numbers of which are in plain view in the Nalanda Archeological Museum arranged close-by. Nalanda is currently a remarkable vacationer destination and a piece of the Buddhist tourism circuit.