ahmedabad india may be aspiring to compete with chinas economic might but various accounts by chinese scholars suggest the dragonland was very much in awe of gujarat as early as in the seventh centuryas the state government strives to market gujarat to investors and international universities for collaborations a walk down memory lane reveals that the state had both big businesses and top class universities over 1500 years agotwo chinese scholars xuanzang and itsing described valabhi presentday vallabhipur near bhavnagar as a great seat of learning and business during the seventh century xuanzang writes he saw many millionaires in valabhi valabhi was a larger area the population is very dense the establishments rich there are some hundred or so who possess a hundred lakhs the rare and valuable products of distant regions are here stored in great quantities wrote xuangzang in his book siyukihistorian makrand mehta says the maitraka rulers shifted their capital from girinagar to the porttown of valabhi on the gulf of cambay after the gupta empire broke down a large number of buddhist pali sanskrit and chinese sources reveal that valabhi port was the hub of commercial activity and a centre of buddhist and jain studies contemporary work manjusrimulakalpa says that the merchants of valabhi and other ports of gurjarshtra cross arabian sea to reach foreign countries dandin who composed dashkumarcharit in the seventh century refers to merchants and navikapati or sea captains crossing the arabian sea writes mehtabuddhist monk itsing compared two indian universities nalanda and valabhi with leading chinese schools these two places are like chinma and ling men where eminent and accomplished men assemble in crowd discuss possible and impossible doctrines and having been assured of the excellence of their opinions by wise men become far famed in their wisdom he wrote rich gujarati businessmen donated generously to the university