Which Indian institute of higher education enjoys the highest esteem in the world? Most people would say it's a close race between the Indian Institutes of Management and the Indian Institutes of Technology.

For decades, these state-funded schools have produced the sort of highly skilled, motivated and competitive graduate — usually from a middle-class background — who promptly leaves for big things in America, where, to use the language of the Indian family, he or she "makes us and India proud."

Even so, one Indian university has an aura that far exceeds that of any other. And although the school is itself extinct, it continues to embody the virtues traditionally associated with a university education: a love of knowledge for its own sake; an ability to frame a question from different points of view; and a passion for formulating new answers to the great questions after making a thorough study of a tradition. The name has echoed around India and the world for well over a thousand years: Nalanda.