WORLD'S OLDEST UNIVERSITY

Towards the Southeast of Patna, the Capital City of Bihar State in India, is a village called the 'Bada Gaon', in the vicinity of which, are the world famous ruins of Nalanda University, world's oldest residential university. The site is located about 88 kilometres south east of Patna, and was a religious center of learning from the fifth century CE to 1197 CE.

    Founded in the 5th Century A.D., Nalanda is known as the ancient seat of learning. In its heyday, 2,000 Teachers and 10,000 Students from all over the Buddhist world lived and studied at Nalanda, the first Residential International University of the World. It had dormitories for students. The famous Chinese traveller and scholar,Hieun-Tsang stayed here and has given a detailed description of the situations prevailing at that time. Careful excavation of the place has revealed many stupas, monasteries,hostels,stair cases,meditation halls, lecture halls and many other structures which speak of the splendour and grandeur this place enjoyed,when the place was a centre of serious study.

  Nalanda flourished between the reign of the Sakraditya (whose identity is uncertain and who might have been either Kumara Gupta I or Kumara Gupta II) and 1197 CE, supported by patronage from the Hindu Gupta rulers as well as Buddhist emperors like Harsha and later emperors from the Pala Empire.

  It is also one of the most famous universities.  The university was considered an architectural masterpiece, and was marked by a lofty wall and one gate. Nalanda had eight separate compounds and ten temples, along with many other meditation halls and classrooms. On the grounds were lakes and parks. The library was located in a nine storied building where meticulous copies of texts were produced. The subjects taught at Nalanda University covered every field of learning, and it attracted pupils and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey. During the period of Harsha, the monastery is reported to have owned 200 villages given as grants.

Layout

Structure The library at Nalanda University was an immense complex. Called the Dharmaganja, or Piety Mart, it was separated into three large buildings: the Ratnasagara, the Ratnadadhi, and the Ratnaranjaka. The Ratnadadhi, meaning the Ocean of Gems, was nine stories high and housed the most sacred manuscripts including the Prajnaparamita Sutra and the Samajguhya. The towers were supposedly immense, bejewelled and gilded to reflect the rays of the sun. According to the Bhaskara Samhita, an ancient text on organizational practices, the library was to be built in a “finely built stone building” and each manuscript would have been placed on iron shelves or stack and covered with cloth and tied up. Furthermore, the librarian in charge, according to the text, was not only responsible for maintaining the materials but also for guiding readers in their studies. The exact number of volumes of the Nalanda University Library is not known but it is estimated to have been in the hundreds of thousands. The library not only collected religious manuscripts but also had texts on such subjects as grammar, logic, literature, astrology, astronomy, and medicine.

WORLD'S OLDEST MAN

Habib Mian of Jaipur, blind for the last 55 years is the oldest living man on earth. He was born at Rajgarh in Rajasthan's Alwar district. But there is some controversy regarding his actual age. He claims his date of birth to be 28th May 1870. That makes his age 138. But according to his pension documents his date of birth is 28th May 1878. So there is a difference of eight years.

A Trumpet and clarionet player in the erstwhile royal band of the ruler of Jaipur, Sawai Madho Singh, he retired from service in 1938. Habib Miyan has been drawing pension money since his retirement. His pension at the time of his retirement after 20 years of service was fixed at 1 rupee and 86 paise a month. He now gets about Rs. 2,000 a month and an ex-gratia from the erstwhile royal family. He also holds the distinction of being the oldest Haj pilgrim — he went to Mecca for Haj in 2004 — and the longest beneficiary of pension benefits since 1938, first from the Jaipur Riyasat, and later from the State Government after Independence.

Habib Mian is once again sprouting his third set of teeth and now even eats meat!.

Latest Update: News of great grief. Grand old Habib Mian, who had fever and a bout of dysentery, expired at 3 am on 19th August 2008, at an age of 139.

WORLD'S OLDEST MOTHER

Omkari Panwar, at the age of 70, gave birth to twins at Muzaffarnagar District, Uttar Pradesh, India, becoming the world's oldest mother. She gave birth to twins on June 27, 2008 by emergency Caesarean section after undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment at a hospital in Muzaffarnagar.
Panwar's doctor Nisha Mallik, who delivered the twins, explained some of the details of Panwar's pregnancy. "Omkari is a 70-year-old patient who has conceived through IVF fertilisation with a pre-term of 32 weeks. Due to some complications, we had to start with the caesarian section. She has delivered twins," explained Panwar.

The father of the twins, Charan Singh, who himself is 76-years-old, said he was happy to finally have a boy who could look after his daughters and the family's business after his death. "I always wished to have a boy who would protect and take care of my daughters. After my death he would take care of my property and carry forward my family," he said. Charan Singh, a retired farmer, told how he had mortgaged his land, sold his buffaloes, spent his life savings and taken out a credit-card loan to fund the IVF treatment, which cost 350,000 rupees (£4,375).
Mrs Panwar, who has no birth certificate and does not know the day she was born, uses the date of India's independence in 1947 to gauge her age. She remembers being nine when the British Raj left India - meaning she is now 70.