{"id":17088,"date":"2023-09-13T17:39:12","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T12:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/?p=17088"},"modified":"2023-09-13T17:50:25","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T12:20:25","slug":"vaishali-festival-of-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/13-09-2023\/vaishali-festival-of-democracy","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Vaishali\u2019 festival of democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS1\/Art &amp; Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Context<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) to organise a festival of democracy in Nalanda University, Bihar.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">About<\/span>:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The <strong>\u2018Vaishali\u2019 festival of democracy<\/strong> was organised by the Union Culture Ministry in <strong>\u2018Bharat Mandapam\u2019<\/strong> as part of the side events of the G-20 Summit.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The exhibition <strong>titled \u201cBharat: mother of democracy\u201d<\/strong> was aimed at highlighting the <strong>democratic ethos of India.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It holds significant <strong>historical and cultural importance<\/strong>, as it commemorates the birthplace of democracy and celebrates the enduring values of democratic governance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Ancient city of Vaishali:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It is a great Buddhist pilgrimage and birthplace of Lord Mahavira, the last Tirthankar of Jainism. It is believed to be the first republic in the world.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Buddha visited this place thrice, delivered his last sermon and announced his Nirvana here at Vaishali.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>After the death of Buddha, the Second Buddhist Council was held at Vaishali.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Gana or Sangha:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It was a <strong>different form of government<\/strong> of the Magadha empire.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In a gana or a sangha there were many rulers, each one was known as a raja who performed rituals together. They also <strong>met in assemblies<\/strong>, and decided what had to be done and how, <strong>through discussion and debate.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>However, women, dasas and kammakaras could not participate in these assemblies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Both the Buddha and Mahavira (about whom you will read in Chapter 7) belonged to ganas or sanghas.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ajatshatru, the great Magadh King, annexed Vaishali in the fifth century BC and after that Vaishali gradually lost its glory and power.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>UNESCO <\/strong>declared the ruins of Nalanda Mahavihara, <strong>a world heritage site.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Nalanda University<\/strong><br><\/span><br>&#8211; It was a <strong>centre of higher learning<\/strong> that attracted scholars from different parts of the country as well as the world <strong>from the 5th century CE to 12th century CE.<\/strong><br>&#8211; It was <strong>located in present day Rajgir, Bihar<\/strong>.<br>&#8211; The courses of study offered by Nalanda University covered a wide range, almost the entire circle of knowledge then available.<br>1. Students at Nalanda studied the Vedas and were also trained in fine arts, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, politics and the art of warfare.<br>&#8211; The <strong>Chinese scholars I-Qing and Xuan Zang<\/strong> visited Nalanda in the <strong>7th century CE<\/strong> and noted that <strong>as many as one hundred discourses happened on a daily basis<\/strong>, in a variety of disciplines through the <strong>methods of debate and discussions<\/strong>.<br>1. Xuan Zang himself became a student of Nalanda to study yogashastra. He has mentioned that the Chancellor of Nalanda, Shilabhadra, was the highest living authority in yoga.\u00a0<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/ccidist-ws\/th\/th_delhi\/issues\/51645\/OPS\/GS4BOADCB.1+G0BBOB7BS.1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source: TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syllabus: GS1\/Art &amp; Culture Context About: Ancient city of Vaishali: Gana or Sangha: Nalanda University&#8211; It was a centre of higher learning that attracted scholars from different parts of the country as well as the world from the 5th century CE to 12th century CE.&#8211; It was located in present day Rajgir, Bihar.&#8211; The courses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17089,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17088\/revisions\/17089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}