Who among the following founded Nalanda Mahavihara (Nalanda University) ?

Ancient Indian centres of learning were typically founded and endowed by ruling dynasties, whose patronage is recorded in inscriptions, seals, and the accounts of visiting scholars. Identifying a founder therefore means matching the institution to the specific ruler credited in these primary records, not merely to any famous ruler from the same broad era.

1. Nalanda Mahavihara, in present-day Bihar, was established as a formal monastic university by the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta-I in the early 5th century CE (around 427 CE), during a period of strong Gupta patronage for Buddhist and Brahmanical learning.

2. This is confirmed by clay seals recovered at the Nalanda site bearing Kumaragupta-I's name and titles, and is independently corroborated by the 7th-century travel account of the Chinese pilgrim-scholar Xuanzang, which records the institution's Gupta-era origin before its later expansion under Harshavardhana.

3. So among the offered rulers, the one whose reign matches the founding of Nalanda Mahavihara is Kumaragupta-I.

• Aditya-I: an early king of the Chola dynasty in southern India, reigning in the 9th century CE, centuries later, and in a different region, than Nalanda's founding.

• Ajatashatru: a king of the Haryanka dynasty ruling Magadha in the 5th century BCE, remembered for his patronage of the First Buddhist Council held at Rajagriha, roughly a millennium before Nalanda existed.

• Chandragupta Maurya: founder of the Mauryan Empire in the 4th century BCE, predating Nalanda's establishment by close to eight centuries.

Result: Kumaragupta-I founded Nalanda Mahavihara.