Bakhtiyar Khalji's Involvement in Nalanda's Incineration Is a Case of 'Selective Narration'
By Sumit Paul, New Age
Islam
9 July 2024
"The
invasions of the likes of warlord Bhakhtiyar Khalji (late in the 12th Century)
were also responsible for Nalanda’s decay, albeit their impact is overstated in
popular imagination. As Kumar points out, “It seems illogical that more than
five-hundred-year-old traditions of Nalanda had all of a sudden met with their
end by an attack”. In fact, he says, there is ample historical evidence that
“the mega monastery of Nalanda continued as a functioning institution of
Buddhist education well into the thirteenth century”.
Ruins of Nalanda University
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There's no
denying the fact that by incinerating ancient Nalanda University in 1200 CE,
Bakhtiyar Khalji put the (final) nail in the coffin of Nalanda. But Nalanda
University's decline began nearly 300 years before its destruction.
In the
book, " Buddhism: The Marxist
Approach" authors Rahul Sankrityayan (primary author) and Mulk Raj
Anand (secondary author) commented that out of four Buddhist Universities,
Nalanda and Vikramshila in Bihar, Takshshila (Taxila, now in Pakistan's Punjab
Province) and Dhanyakatak near Ujjain in Central India, it was only Nalanda
that was vandalised.
The
question remains, why did invaders leave the other three (varsities)? Moreover,
Bakhtiyar Khalji didn't incinerate the whole university. This was not a watered-down
version offered by Muslim historians to defend the Turko-Afghan plunderer.
Hindu
historians like Ram Sharan Sharma, Bipan Chandra, Satish Chandra and Dwijendra
Narayan Jha were of the opinion that Nalanda became a battleground for the
scholars and exponents of all three sects of Buddhism, viz, Heenyana, Mahayana
and Vajrayan (similar to Tantra of Hinduism). Monks of these three sects
started fighting among themselves. Vajrayanis already vandalised a huge part of
its library nearly fifty years before Bakhtiyar's coup de grace. Monks
themselves contributed to its vandalisation.
WhatsApp
University may claim that Khalji destroyed Nalanda as he was jealous of
oriental wisdom when Acharya Rahul Sribhadra of Nalanda University saved his
life. This is preposterous. No Buddhist or Hindu monk/doctor ever saved
Bakhtiyar's life. Bakhtiyar's involvement in Nalanda's destruction is a case of
selective narration and episodic occurrence.
Those
condemning him don't even know that he wasn't an Arab. He was a member of the
Khalji Dynasty. That doesn't mean he's being defended or exonerated. Muhammad
Bakhtiyar Khalji had his role in Nalanda's desecration but he wasn't solely
responsible for it. To encapsulate, rape of ancient Nalanda has become some
impassioned cri de coeur for today's Hindutva forces.
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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
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