• Third, apart from the non-recurring costs, the finances for operations and maintenance as well as an emolument structure attractive enough to attract high quality academic talent needs to be evaluated. This would impact the calibration of the fee structure.

• Finally, the time frame and implementational obligations. It is expected that the mentor group will complete deliberations well before the autumn of next year, and Nalanda could figure prominently at the next East Asia Summit in Bangkok in 2008. Simultaneous action is however needed to firm up financial modalities, and more importantly, the upgradation of the infrastructure facilities to make the university attractive and viable.

Nalanda instantly evokes nostalgia. Amartya Sen mentioned that the period of destruction of Nalanda synchronised with the inauguration of Oxford. Did this symbolise a transfer of intellectual leadership from Asia to Europe? The present effort to revive the university is part of the Asian renaissance and the new resurgence must be seen both as its growing economic power and rediscovering its strong cultural and ethnic roots interrupted by many centuries. George Yeo rightly commented that “the revival of the Nalanda idea — of human beings living together in peace and harmony with nature — is both timely and necessary.”