Place · monastic university · India
Odantapuri
The Pala-dynasty Buddhist mahavihara at Bihar Sharif in Nalanda district, Bihar, founded by King Dharmapala in the late 8th century — one of the five great Pala monasteries alongside Nalanda, Vikramashila, Jaggadala and Somapura. Odantapuri was reputedly the model for the Samye monastery in Tibet (built c.775 CE under Shantarakshita, Padmasambhava and the Tibetan king Trisong Detsen) — the first full Buddhist monastery in Tibet. Bakhtiyar Khilji destroyed Odantapuri around 1193. Almost nothing survives above ground; the site is now occupied by the modern town of Bihar Sharif, and the exact remains of the mahavihara have not been identified.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 25.190, 85.520
Connections (5)
- Monastic transmissionGaur (Lakhnauti)
Odantapuri's plan is said to have been the model for Samye, the first monastery in Tibet, and teachers from these Pala foundations — Atisha above all, from Vikramashila — carried their lineages north as the Gangetic institutions failed. Almost nothing of Odantapuri survives above ground; what survives is in Tibet, in the ordination lines, the curriculum and the architecture of monasteries built a thousand kilometres away.
- Architectural modelNālandā mahāvihāra
Nālandā, Odantapurī, Vikramaśilā and Somapura are four Pāla-period mahāvihāras within about two hundred kilometres, deliberately run as a system with shared appointments and standards. Odantapurī's plan went to Samye in Tibet and Somapura's to Southeast Asia; the network exported its architecture as well as its texts. All four were destroyed within a few years of each other around 1200, so a system built over four centuries ended in a single campaign season.
- Teaching lineageVikramashilā
Odantapurī, Vikramaśilā, Nālandā and Somapura were Pāla foundations operating as a single system within about two hundred kilometres of each other, with scholars moving between them and a shared curriculum. When Bakhtiyar Khalji's campaigns reached Bihar around 1200 the whole network went at once. Tibetan accounts describe monks fleeing north with manuscripts, and much of what Nālandā taught survives today only in Tibetan translation rather than in any Indian language.
- Architectural modelSomapura Mahāvihāra, Paharpur
The Pāla vihāra plan — a square of cells around a courtyard with a central shrine — was worked out at Odantapurī and built at its largest at Somapura. Tibetan tradition says Samye was modelled on Odantapurī, and Somapura's plan reappears in Burma, Java and Cambodia. Somapura's plan then reappears at Chandi Sewu in Java and in the temple-mountain layouts of Cambodia, so a Bengali monastery is the type-specimen for monumental Buddhist building across maritime Asia.
- InfluencedSamye Monastery
Tibetan sources name Odantapuri in Bihar as the architectural and curricular model on which Samye was planned.
On these journeys
Sources
Tibetan monastic histories
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