It was common for religious institutions to also be places of higher learning during this era.
The Nalanda Mahavihara (Buddhist grand monastery) is regarded as world’s oldest residential university. It is in present day India, though not operating today. Scholars such as Xuanzang (known as far Mokṣadeva in Sanskrit) travelled from China (in his case Luoyang) to Nalanda for his studies and returned with thousands of sutras. It was knowledge transfer through this university during the Tang dynasty that brought the number system we use (it’s original form created by Bhramagupta) today to China.
shawn1122@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Al-Qarawayyin is recognized by UNESCO and Guinness as the world’s oldest running university.
Hlodwig@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
If you want to go that way, a lot of places could qualify as oldest university, some christian monasteries way older than al-qarawiyyin are still inactivities and the main focus of monasteries is to learn and apply “god” teachings…
shawn1122@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
I wonder why UNESCO and Guinness do not recognize those Christian monasteries then. Perhaps they did not confer degrees or certificates of scholarly competence (ijazahs) the way that al-Qarawiyyin does.
Hlodwig@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
My nephews gets stars stickers when he successfully learn something, does it qualify as degrees and its school qualify for university?
UNESCO can say whatever they want, it never have been a university in the sense that 90% of the population would not identify it as a university… An ersatz of university? Yeah sure if it make you feel better…
morrowind@lemmy.ml 12 hours ago
the main reason might just be whether the institution themselves claim they are educational