Nalanda

#Nalanda....

Nalanda Mahavihara was one of the greatest Buddhist Monastery of ancient India, located in the ancient Magadha Kingdom (modern day Bihar). It was the greatest center of learning in ancient India along with #Vikramshila and #Taxila_Universities. #Nalanda Mahavihara and university was built during the reign of #Gupta #Emperor #Kumaragupta I in the 5th Century A.D and remained an active center of learning in India till 1200 A.D when it was destroyed by the invading muslim armies of Bakhtiyar Khilji, the commander of Qutb-ud-din Aibak of the Delhi Sultanat. At its peak, Nalanda Mahavihara attracted scholars and students not only from India but from foreign lands such as Central Asia, China, Tibet, Japan, Korea and South East Asia. They were given instructions in subjects such as Mahayana Buddhism, Hinayana Buddhism, Vedas, logic, Sanskrit grammar, medicine and Samkhya. 

Nalanda Mahavihara received royal patronage under the Gupta rulers in 5th and 6th Century. The post-Gupta period saw a long succession of kings who continued building at Nalanda "using all the skill of the sculptor". At some point, a "king of central India" built a high wall along with a gate around the now numerous edifices in the complex. Another monarch (possibly of the Maukhari dynasty) named Purnavarman who is described as "the last of the race of Ashoka-raja", erected an 80 ft (24 m) high copper image of Buddha to cover which he also constructed a pavilion of six stages. However, in the post Gupta period, the most notable patron of the Mahavihara was Harsha, the 7th-century emperor of Kannauj. Harsha was a converted Buddhist and considered himself a servant of the monks of Nalanda. He built a monastery of brass within the Mahavihara and remitted to it the revenues of 100 villages. Around a thousand monks from Nalanda were present at Harsha's royal congregation at Kannauj. 

The subsequent centuries were a time of gradual decline, a period during which the tantric developments of Buddhism became most pronounced in eastern India under the Pala Empire. Pala rulers built four additional mahaviharas -  Jagaddala, Odantapura, Somapura, and Vikramashila respectively. The now five different seats of Buddhist learning in eastern India formed a state-supervised network and it was common for great scholars to move easily from position to position among them. Each establishment had its own official seal with a dharmachakra flanked by a deer on either side, a motif referring to Buddha's deer park sermon at Sarnath. Below this device was the name of the institution which in Nalanda's case read, "Sri-Naland-Mahavihariya-Arya-Bhiksusamghasya" which translates to "of the Community of Venerable Monks of the Great Monastery at Nalanda"

The famous Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang who visited India in the 7th Centruy during the reign of Harsha, spent a total of around two years at the monastery. He was warmly welcomed in Nalanda where he received the Indian name of Mokshadeva and studied under the guidance of Shilabhadra, the venerable head of the institution at the time. He believed that the aim of his arduous overland journey to India had been achieved as in Shilabhadra he had at last found an incomparable teacher to instruct him in Yogachara, a school of thought that had then only partially been transmitted to China. Besides Buddhist studies, the monk also attended courses in grammar, logic, and Sanskrit, and later also lectured at the Mahavihara.

Hiuen Tsang left detailed accounts of the school in the 7th century. He described how the regularly laid-out towers, forest of pavilions, harmikas and temples seemed to "soar above the mists in the sky" so that from their cells the monks "might witness the birth of the winds and clouds". It comprised of 10 temples, 8 individual compounds, classrooms, meditation halls, parks and lakes. 

According to conventional Tibetian sources, Nalanda housed a big library called ‘Dharmaganja’ (Piety Mart) that encompassed three multi-storied edifices called ‘Ratnaranjaka’ (Jewel-adorned), ‘Ratnodadhi’ (Sea of Jewels) and ‘Ratnasagaral (Ocean of Jewels). Collections of the library included religious manuscripts and texts on medicine, astronomy, logic, astrology and literature among others.

The Nalanda Mahavihara was destroyed by the invading Muslim armies of Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1200 A.D. Khilji destroyed the Nalanda and Vikramshila universities during his raids across North Indian plains, massacring many Buddhist and Brahmin scholars. The Persian Historian Minhaj-us-Siraj wrote of this attack 

"Muhammad-i-Bakht-yar, by the force of his intrepidity, threw himself into the postern of the gateway of the place, and they captured the fortress, and acquired great booty. The greater number of the inhabitants of that place were Brahmans, and the whole of those Brahmans had their heads shaven; and they were all slain. There were a great number of books there; and, when all these books came under the observation of the Musalmans, they summoned a number of Hindus that they might give them information respecting the import of those books; but the whole of the Hindus had been killed. On becoming acquainted [with the contents of those books], it was found that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindui tongue, they call a college Bihar."