41-589: Vikramashila ( IAST : Vikramaśilā ) was a Buddhist monastery situated in what is now modern-day Bihar in India . It was founded by King Dharmapala between the late eighth and early ninth century. It was one of the three most important Buddhist Mahaviharas of its time in India, along with Nalanda and Odantapuri . Its location is now the site of Antichak village near Kahalgaon , Bhagalpur district in Bihar . It
82-568: A macron ). Vocalic (syllabic) consonants, retroflexes and ṣ ( / ʂ ~ ɕ ~ʃ/ ) have an underdot . One letter has an overdot: ṅ ( /ŋ/ ). One has an acute accent : ś ( /ʃ/ ). One letter has a line below: ḻ ( / ɭ / ) (Vedic). Unlike ASCII -only romanisations such as ITRANS or Harvard-Kyoto , the diacritics used for IAST allow capitalisation of proper names. The capital variants of letters never occurring word-initially ( Ṇ Ṅ Ñ Ṝ Ḹ ) are useful only when writing in all-caps and in Pāṇini contexts for which
123-509: A century of scholarly usage in books and journals on classical Indian studies. By contrast, the ISO 15919 standard for transliterating Indic scripts emerged in 2001 from the standards and library worlds. For the most part, ISO 15919 follows the IAST scheme, departing from it only in minor ways (e.g., ṃ/ṁ and ṛ/r̥)—see comparison below. The Indian National Library at Kolkata romanization , intended for
164-433: A font, etc. It can be enabled in the input menu in the menu bar under System Preferences → International → Input Menu (or System Preferences → Language and Text → Input Sources) or can be viewed under Edit → Emoji & Symbols in many programs. Equivalent tools – such as gucharmap ( GNOME ) or kcharselect ( KDE ) – exist on most Linux desktop environments. Users of SCIM on Linux based platforms can also have
205-469: A huge square monastery with a cruciform stupa in its centre, a library building and cluster of votive stupas. To the north of monastery a number of scattered structures including a Tibetan and a Hindu temple have been found. The entire spread is over an area of more than one hundred acres. The monastery, or residence for the Buddhist monks, is a huge square structure, each side measuring 330 metres having
246-431: A long-time demand of local people for revival of this university like Nalanda university . In 2015, prime minister Narendra Modi announced a Rs 500 crore package for it, while state Government had to provide around 500 acres land which was yet to be done. President Pranab Mukherjee visited the excavated ruins of Vikramshila university in 2017. He addressed a public gathering at the university, saying that he would talk to
287-467: A network; "all of them were under state supervision" and there existed "a system of co-ordination among them. It seems from the evidence that the different seats of Buddhist learning that functioned in eastern India under the Pāla were regarded together as forming a network, an interlinked group of institutions," and it was common for great scholars to move easily from position to position among them. Vikramashila
328-403: A series of 208 cells, 52 on each of the four sides opening into a common verandah. A few brick arched underground chambers beneath some of the cells have also been noticed which were probably meant for confined meditation by the monks. The main stupa built for the purpose of worship is a brick structure laid in mud mortar which stands in the centre of the square monastery. This two-terraced stupa
369-649: Is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during the 19th century from suggestions by Charles Trevelyan , William Jones , Monier Monier-Williams and other scholars, and formalised by the Transliteration Committee of the Geneva Oriental Congress , in September 1894. IAST makes it possible for
410-782: Is by setting up an alternative keyboard layout . This allows one to hold a modifier key to type letters with diacritical marks. For example, alt + a = ā. How this is set up varies by operating system. Linux/Unix and BSD desktop environments allow one to set up custom keyboard layouts and switch them by clicking a flag icon in the menu bar. macOS One can use the pre-installed US International keyboard, or install Toshiya Unebe's Easy Unicode keyboard layout. Microsoft Windows Windows also allows one to change keyboard layouts and set up additional custom keyboard mappings for IAST. This Pali keyboard installer made by Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) supports IAST (works on Microsoft Windows up to at least version 10, can use Alt button on
451-401: Is correct, it must have been toward the end of Chanaka's reign given the generally accepted dates for Naropa (956–1041). Some of the figures who either studied or taught at Vikramashila include: Vikramaśīla was a centre for Vajrayana and employed Tantric preceptors. The first was Buddhajñānapāda , followed by Dīpaṁkarabhadra and Jayabhadra. The first two were active during Dharmapāla's reign,
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#1732765497574492-420: Is cruciform on plan and about 15 metres high from the ground level accessible through a flight of steps on the north side. On each of the four cardinal directions there is a protruding chamber with a pillared antechamber and a separate pillared mandapa in front. In the four chambers of the stupa were placed colossal stucco images of seated Buddha of which three were found in situ but the remaining one on north side
533-667: Is said to have built over one hundred monasteries in Western Tibet, including the famous Tabo Monastery in Spiti , Himachal Pradesh , Poo in Kinnaur and Rinchenling monastery in Nepal . Rinchen Zangpo had been sent as a young man by King Yeshe-Ö , the ruler of Zanskar , Guge , Spiti and Kinnaur , with other young scholars to Kashmir and other Buddhist centres to study and bring back Buddhist teachings to Western Tibet. He
574-633: The Buddhist monks fled to these regions following the collapse of the monastery. So far, five manuscripts have been identified that contain references to Vikramashila. One of these manuscripts is currently held at the British Library references the ‘Glorious Great Monastery of the King Vikramaśīla’ ( śrīmadvikramaśīladevamahāvihāra ) as the place of production and contains the text of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā . Vikramashila
615-534: The Prime minister for its revival. The nearest big town is Kahalgaon about 13 km, It is approachable through 11 km long motorable road diverting from NH-80 at Anadipur, about 2 km from Kahalgaon. Bikramshila railway station and Kahalgaon railway station are situated on the Sahibganj Loop line near the area. Lately river cruises from Kolkata to Varanasi have started, which also stop by
656-573: The Vikramashila ruins. An Indian Railways train recognises this place by running a Train No. 12367/12368 Vikramshila Express that runs from Anand Vihar , Delhi to Bhagalpur , Bihar. The Vikramashila site is the place for Vikramashila Mahotsav, which is held annually during the month of February. [REDACTED] Media related to Vikramashila at Wikimedia Commons IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST )
697-675: The area of Sanskrit studies make use of free OpenType fonts such as FreeSerif or Gentium , both of which have complete support for the full repertoire of conjoined diacritics in the IAST character set. Released under the GNU FreeFont or SIL Open Font License , respectively, such fonts may be freely shared and do not require the person reading or editing a document to purchase proprietary software to make use of its associated fonts. Rinchen Zangpo Samding Dorje Phagmo Lochen Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055; Tibetan : རིན་ཆེན་བཟང་པོ་ , Wylie : rin-chen bzang-po ), also known as Mahaguru,
738-536: The consumer edition since XP. This is limited to characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). Characters are searchable by Unicode character name, and the table can be limited to a particular code block. More advanced third-party tools of the same type are also available (a notable freeware example is BabelMap ). macOS provides a "character palette" with much the same functionality, along with searching by related characters, glyph tables in
779-631: The convention is to typeset the IT sounds as capital letters. For the most part, IAST is a subset of ISO 15919 that merges the retroflex (underdotted) liquids with the vocalic ones ( ringed below ) and the short close-mid vowels with the long ones. The following seven exceptions are from the ISO standard accommodating an extended repertoire of symbols to allow transliteration of Devanāgarī and other Indic scripts , as used for languages other than Sanskrit. The most convenient method of inputting romanized Sanskrit
820-551: The course of excavation, are displayed in the site museum maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India . The Stupa is a sacred solid structure raised over the body remains or belongings of Buddha or a distinguished monk; or to commemorate any event associated with them. But some stupas are merely symbolic made for worship by the monks. A votive stupa is a miniature stupa erected by a devotee in gratitude of fulfilment of his desire. The Vikramashila stupa built for
861-638: The high excellence of terracotta art flourishing in the region during Pal period (8th to 12th centuries). The plaques depict many Buddhist deities like Buddha , Avalokiteshvara , Manjusri , Maitreya , Jambala, Marichi, and Tara, scenes related to Buddhism, some social and hunting scenes, and a few other Indian deities like Vishnu , Parvati , Ardhanarisvara and Hanuman . Many human figures, like those of ascetics, yogis, preachers, drummers, warriors, archers, snake charmers, etc., and animal figures like monkeys, elephants, horses, deer, boar, panthers, lions, wolves, and birds, are also depicted. The architecture of
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#1732765497574902-621: The manuscripts contained within Vikramashila’s library have been lost following multiple historical upheavals including the Muslim raids of East India led by Bakhtiyar Khalji . Many of manuscripts fell prey to natural decay as the climate of the Indo-Gangetic plains is not favourable to the preservation of palm-leaf manuscripts. However, some of the manuscripts of Vikramashila’s library, have been discovered in Nepal and Tibet as many of
943-531: The most important branch of learning was Buddhist tantra . According to scholar Sukumar Dutt, Vikramashila appears to have had a more clearly delineated hierarchy than other mahaviharas, as follows: According to Tāranātha, at Vikramashila's peak during the reign of King Chanaka (955–83), the dvārapāla were as follows: Ratnākaraśānti (Eastern Gate), Vāgīsvarakīrti (Western Gate), Ratnavajra (First Central Gate), Jñanasrimitra (Second Central Gate), Naropa (Northern Gate), and Prajñākaramati (Southern Gate). If this
984-700: The opportunity to install and use the sa-itrans-iast input handler which provides complete support for the ISO 15919 standard for the romanization of Indic languages as part of the m17n library. Or user can use some Unicode characters in Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended Additional and Combining Diarcritical Marks block to write IAST. Only certain fonts support all the Latin Unicode characters essential for
1025-424: The purpose of worship is a brick structure laid in mud mortar and stands in the centre of the square monastery. This two terraced stupa is cruciform on plan and about 15 metres high from the ground level. The lower terrace is about 2.25 metres high from the ground level and the upper terrace is at a similar height from the lower side. At both terraces there is a circumambulatory path, the lower about 4.5 metres wide and
1066-599: The reader to read the Indic text unambiguously, exactly as if it were in the original Indic script. It is this faithfulness to the original scripts that accounts for its continuing popularity amongst scholars. Scholars commonly use IAST in publications that cite textual material in Sanskrit, Pāḷi and other classical Indian languages. IAST is also used for major e-text repositories such as SARIT, Muktabodha, GRETIL, and sanskritdocuments.org. The IAST scheme represents more than
1107-452: The remaining of the north side was possibly replaced by a stone image after the clay image was somehow damaged. All the stucco images are unfortunately broken above the waist. The images are placed over a brick pedestal having traces of painting in red and black pigments. The walls and floors of the chamber and antechamber were plastered with lime . The walls of both the terraces are decorated with mouldings and terracotta plaques which testify
1148-595: The renowned Tibetan translator Rinchen Zangpo and his commentary became particularly important for the Sakya school, and Tathāgatarakṣita collaborated with Rin-chen grags. In chronological order: The remains of the monastery have been partially excavated in kahalgaon Bhagalpur district , Bihar state, India , and the process is still underway. Meticulous excavation at the site was conducted initially by B. P. Sinha of Patna University (1960–69) and subsequently by Archaeological Survey of India (1972–82). It has revealed
1189-471: The right side of the keyboard instead of Ctrl+Alt combination). Many systems provide a way to select Unicode characters visually. ISO/IEC 14755 refers to this as a screen-selection entry method . Microsoft Windows has provided a Unicode version of the Character Map program (find it by hitting ⊞ Win + R then type charmap then hit ↵ Enter ) since version NT 4.0 – appearing in
1230-486: The romanisation of all Indic scripts , is an extension of IAST. The IAST letters are listed with their Devanagari equivalents and phonetic values in IPA , valid for Sanskrit , Hindi and other modern languages that use Devanagari script, but some phonological changes have occurred: * H is actually glottal , not velar . Some letters are modified with diacritics : Long vowels are marked with an overline (often called
1271-475: The stupa and the terracotta plaques bear great resemblance to the Somapura Mahavihara , Paharpur (Bangladesh) which, too, was founded by the same king Dharmapala. In plan both are very much alike with the significant difference that Somapura is centred on a central temple rather than a stupa. Vikramashila monastery is also larger and has fort-like projections on its outer wall. The vast majority of
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1312-535: The third in the early to mid portion of the 9th century. Jayabhadra, a monk from Sri Lanka, was the first prominent commentator on the Cakrasamvara tantra . Śrīdhara was the next preceptor, followed by Bhavabhaṭṭa. The latter, also a prominent commentator on Cakrasamvara, may have been the mahāsiddha Bhadrapāda. He in turn was succeeded by three more prominent Cakrasamvara commentators, Bhavyakīrti, Durjayachandra, and Tathāgatarakṣita. Durjayachandra collaborated with
1353-487: The transliteration of Indic scripts according to the IAST and ISO 15919 standards. For example, the Arial , Tahoma and Times New Roman font packages that come with Microsoft Office 2007 and later versions also support precomposed Unicode characters like ī . Many other text fonts commonly used for book production may be lacking in support for one or more characters from this block. Accordingly, many academics working in
1394-443: The upper about 3 metres wide. The main stupa placed over the upper terrace is accessible through a flight of steps on the north side on each of the four cardinal directions. There is a protruding chamber with a pillared antechamber and a separate pillared mandapa in front, placed beyond the circumambulatory passage. In the four chambers of stupa were placed colossal stucco images of seated Buddha of which three were found in situ, but
1435-535: Was a principal lotsawa or translator of Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Tibetan during the second diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet, variously called the New Translation School, New Mantra School or New Tantra Tradition School. He was a student of the famous Indian master, Atisha . His associates included (Locheng) Legpai Sherab. Zangpo's disciple Guge Kyithangpa Yeshepal wrote Zangpo's biography. He
1476-468: Was destroyed by the forces of Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji around 1193. A number of monasteries grew up during the Pāla period in medieval Bengal and Magadha . According to Tibetan sources, five great Mahaviharas stood out: Vikramashila, the premier university of the era; Nalanda , past its prime but still illustrious, Somapura , Odantapura , and Jagaddala . The five monasteries formed
1517-530: Was founded by Pāla king Dharmapala in the late 8th or early 9th century. It prospered for about four centuries before it was destroyed by Bakhtiyar Khilji along with the other major centres of Buddhism in Eastern India around 1193. Vikramashila is known to us mainly through Tibetan sources, especially the writings of Tāranātha , the Tibetan monk historian of the 16th–17th centuries. Vikramashila
1558-462: Was neglected for years which contributed to the extensive damage to the monument. The Archeological Survey of India is now planning to develop the excavated site of Vikramashila. Since 2009, there has been considerable work in maintaining and beautifying the place to attract tourism. There has been inflow of western tourists as well, during their river cruises on the Ganga River . It has been
1599-489: Was one of the largest Buddhist mahaviharas, with more than one hundred teachers and about one thousand students. It produced eminent scholars who were often invited by foreign countries to spread Buddhist learning, culture and religion including Atiśa and Ratnākaraśānti . Vikramashila was established by the Pala emperor Dharmapala (783 to 820 CE) in response to a supposed decline in the quality of scholarship at Nalanda . It
1640-481: Was one of the largest Buddhist universities, with more than one hundred teachers and about one thousand students. It produced eminent scholars who were often invited by foreign countries to spread Buddhist learning, culture and religion. One such scholar was Atisha Dipankara, a founder of the Sarma traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Subjects like philosophy, grammar, metaphysics, Indian logic etc. were taught here, but
1681-530: Was possibly replaced by a stone image after the clay image was somehow damaged. About 32 metres south of the monastery on its south west corner and attached with the main monastery through a narrow corridor is a rectangular structure identified as a library building. It was air-conditioned by cooled water of the adjoining reservoir through a range of vents in the back wall. The system was perhaps meant for preserving delicate manuscripts. A large number of antiquities of different materials, unearthed from this place in