India is well known to have a very rich store of traditional knowledge which is presently scattered in different forms. Nalanda Dialogue Mission started nearly 20 years back to explore this knowledge stores in their present forms mainly by engaging scientists and Indian philosophers in different orders of Dialogue. In fact different orders of dialogical engagements with science started during British colonial period here. Our gradual introduction to Western knowledge, started during the end of 18th century, eventually developed a new scanner of assessment of our own traditional knowledge store. We Indians were engaged for the first time in a two-fold Dialogue - with the new knowledge influx from West as well as with our own scholastic Past with the new scanner gradually developed as a consequence of our exposure to West.

These all led to questions like -
How much of our traditional knowledge can be integrated meaningfully with the new knowledge systems of Western origin ?
But at the same time , this question invites collateral questions like - is it at all needed to integrate or , we should be engaged with our tradition in our own terms without any comparative scanner ? What is living and what is dead in Indian knowledge traditions today as a whole? Should we think about updating Indian knowledge systems or these can be used intact in their traditional versions ? Can we expect Indian knowledge systems to answer the questions stemming out from the modern empirical investigations ?

But at the same time , this question invites collateral questions like - is it at all needed to integrate or , we should be engaged with our tradition in our own terms without any comparative scanner ? What is living and what is dead in Indian knowledge traditions today as a whole? Should we think about updating Indian knowledge systems or these can be used intact in their traditional versions ? Can we expect Indian knowledge systems to answer the questions stemming out from the modern empirical investigations ?

During the last 200 years or so the highest intellects of India as well as the commoners took part in responding to these questions in different ways. Not surprisingly, our responses to these questions happened to differ over a wide spectrum of tonal variations. Nalanda Dialogue Mission is a follow-up initiative to showcase these Dialogues in their present form as well as to develop fresh new modes of fruitful modern engagements with Indian knowledge systems.

This ongoing mission has been supported by Navanalanda Mahavihara, Nalanda in different ways. Mahavihara had been providing warm incubating grounds for these kinds of questions by hosting philosophers , logicians , scientists , historians , literary workers from around the country and outside to be engaged in Dialogues of different orders .