NALANDA

It is said that Mohammad Bakhtiar Khilji destroyed Nalanda and the monks were either killed or had fled. The great collection of works the result of centuries ofscholastic studies-and manuscripts were burnt or destroyed. According to a Tibetan source, there was a sort of revival after the raid of the Turks and a temple was reerected at 'Nalanda. There was a lamentable quarrel between tile Brahmana sadhus and the Buddhist monks, as a result of -whie. fire was set to the Buddhist temples and the great conflagration that followed destroyed Ratnodadhi, one of the libraries of Nalanda.

Buchanan Hamilton had visited tile place in the first quarter of tile 19th century and his memories show that he had seen a number of Brahmanical and Buddhist images. The place remained neglected till the sixties of the 19th century when General Cunningham identified the place with the ancient Nalanda. To we owe a very great debt, as it was lie who actually re-discovered Nalanda andthus astounded the world. Cunningham identified the place with the ancient Nalanda mainly oil the basis of the distances and the directions given by the Chinese pilgrims and from the epigraphical evidences of some inscriptions he found.

[ Back ] [ Up ] [ Next ]