Bihar’s priceless Buddhist heritage is emerging as an entirely unexpected but powerful bond between India’s most backward regions and the world’s most dynamic economies of East Asia.

Three high-profile events this month, including the Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to India, will converge on a far-reaching proposal to build an international university at Bihar’s ancient seat of learning, Nalanda.

For the prosperous East Asians, including the Communist Chinese, who are rediscovering Buddhism, the Nalanda project is a labour of love and a spiritual debt.

For Bihar it could be that single big idea to kickstart economic reconstruction in the long neglected state and put it back at the heart of a re-integrating Asia.

If New Delhi and Patna can get their act together in the coming months, the East Asian enthusiasm for the Nalanda university project and the development of Buddhist circuit could change the face of not just Bihar but much of the Eastern Subcontinent that is home to the largest number of world’s poor.

Highlighting the new Chinese enthusiasm for Buddhism and the enduring links with the Indian civilisation are two Buddhist monks who arrive in Nalanda in the next few days.

The monks, one from mainland China and the other from Taiwan, are retracing the steps of Xuan Zang (better known in India as Hieun Tsang) who visited India in the seventh century when the Nalanda school was at the height of its intellectual influence all across Asia. Traveling overland, the two monks will be at Nalanda in the next few days.

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