Nalanda
One goes to Nalanda by the road, either starting from Patna, or starting from Bodhgaya. It is disadvised rolling night for reasons of safety.
It is in Nalanda that the ruins of the one of the oldest universities of the world are. It was founded to the 5 2nd century on an old place of pilgrimage and one says that the Buddha came there on several occasions.
This isolated site was forgotten centuries during and was rediscovered at the 19 2nd century. Thus one gradually gave at the day the remainders of the monastic occupations. A Chinese monk-traveller, to the 7 2nd century, Hiun-Tsang, passed a dozen years there, initially as student, then as teacher. He pays how much the university Nalanda was imposing (3000 professors!) and celebrates, and how much the level bouddhic studies, that one exempted there, was high with such sign that two applicants only out of ten were allowed there.
This activity ended in 1199 with the confusion of Nalanda by the Moslem armies of Bhaktiar Khalji and this massive destruction, combined with the massacre and the dispersion of the monks, sounded the disappearance of Buddhism in India.
A small archaeological museum presents statues and various objects found at Nalanda and Rajgir.
Rajgir
Nalanda and Rajgir are distant only of one about fifteen kilometers; also, the two sites are visited the same day.
Rajgir was, under the name of Rajagriha, the capital of the kingdom of Maghada of the time of the Buddha which frequently remained in these places to make retirement during the season of monsoon and y to give lesson. Mahavira, 24 2nd prophets (Tirthankara) of the Jain religion, which was contemporary of the Buddha, came also often here (14 years, one says). Also of many Jains temples they are, them also, the object of pilgrimages.
Rajgir is located within a beautiful framework of wooded mountains. Places that one visit are as follows there:
Ruins of old Rajagriha it remains little of things though the enclosing fort and walls were gigantic
The hill of the vultures (Gridhrakuta), close to Rajgir, from where one enjoys from a beautiful point of view. It is here that the Buddha remained
The cave of Saptapani, close to Rajgir also, on the hill of Vaibhara, where the first council was held of the monks, two months after the disappearance of the Master. At this point in time its lesson, for the first time, was consigned in writing
The preferred retirement of the Buddha would have been the Monastery of Jivakamarvana, of which it remains little of things gigantic a stupa, Vishva Shanti Stupa, was built by the Japanese on the mountain of Ratnagiri