Odantapuri

Odantapuri (also called Odantapura or Uddandapura) was a Buddhist Mahavihara in what is now Bihar, India. It was established by the Pala Emperor Gopala I in the 8th century. It is considered the second oldest of India's Mahaviharas after Ancient Nalanda University and was situated in Magadha.

Acharya Sri Ganga of Vikramashila was a student at this Mahavihara. According to the Tibetan records there were about 12,000 students at Odantapuri which was situated at a mountain called Hiranya Prabhat Parvat and by the bank of the river Panchanan.

In the modern era, it is situated in Bihar Sharif, headquarters of Nalanda district.

In a Tibetan history of the Kalachakra tantra by Ngakwang Künga Sönam, 27th Sakya Trizin (Wylie: ngag dbang kun dga' bsod nams,1597–1659), it is mentioned that Odantapuri was administered by "Sendha-pa", the Tibetan referent for a Śrāvakayāna Buddhist school. According to the Tibetan historian Tāranātha, King Mahāpāla supported 500 Śrāvakasaṅgha bhikshus at Odantapuri. As an annex to this monastery, he built a monastery called Uruvasa, where he supported 500 Sendha-pa or Sendhava Sravaka. During the reign of King Rāmapāla, a thousand monks, belonging to both Hinayana and Mahayana, lived in Odantapuri and occasionally even twelve thousand monks congregated there. According to Peter Skilling, the "Sendha-pa" Śrāvaka-s could possibly have been Sāmmatīya-s since the probable derivation of "Sendha-pa" is from the Sanskrit saindhava or ‘residents of Sindh’ where the Sāmmatīya-s were the predominant school.Tāranātha links the Sendhapa or Sendhava Śrāvaka monks at the Mahabodhi at Bodhgaya to the “Singha Island”, i.e. Sri Lanka, and “other places”.

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