Nava Vihara

From Buddhist Encyclopedia

• Sanskrit :   नव विहार

Nava Vihara - "New Temple" or "New Monastery" (See Vihara), has been arabized as "Nau Behar" or "Navbahar") was a buddhist temple or monastery near the ancient city of Balkh, in the Khorasan province of Persia (now in present-day Afghanistan)

The temple may have been an old Zoroastrian fire-temple, or it may have been converted to a zoroastrian temple (sources differ).

From the Memoirs of Xuanzang, we learn that, at the time of his visit in the 7th century, there were in Balkh, or its vicinity, about a hundred Buddhist convents, with 3,000 devotees, and that there was a large number of stupas, and other religious monuments. Nau Behar was he most remarkable, and it possessed a very costly statue of the Buddha. The temple was led by Kashmiri Brahmins called Pramukh (who, under the arabized name of Barmak, came to be known as the Barmakids). A curious notice of this building is found in the writings of Arabian geographer Ibn Hawqal, an Arabian traveler of the 10th century.

The word Navbehar (or it's variants) appears in several locations of present-day Iran, a sign of the extend of Buddhism in ancient times. The Arch of Nawbahar can still be seen today near Balkh.

See also

• Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

External links

• History of Buddhism and Islam in Afghanistan
• Buddhism in Persia, a more scholarly document.