Destruction of Nalanda (c. 1193): End of a Great University

The destruction of Nalanda refers to the sacking and abandonment of Nalanda Mahavihara, the great Buddhist monastery and centre of learning in Bihar, eastern India, around the end of the twelfth century. It is traditionally dated to c. 1193 and linked to raids by Bakhtiyar Khalji, a Turkic commander serving the Ghurid sultans. The loss of Nalanda and its sister monasteries is widely seen as a turning point in the decline of Buddhism in India.

Nalanda before the fall

Nalanda Mahavihara had been founded in the fifth century AD, probably under the Gupta king Kumaragupta I. Over the following centuries it grew into a vast complex of brick monasteries, temples and stupas, with lecture halls and libraries. Students came from across Asia to study Buddhist philosophy, logic, grammar, medicine and other subjects.

The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang studied there in the 630s and described thousands of monks and a strict entrance examination. Under the Pala kings of Bengal and Bihar (eighth to twelfth centuries), Nalanda continued to flourish alongside newer royal foundations such as Vikramashila and Odantapuri. Its scholars played a major role in transmitting Buddhism to Tibet.

By the late twelfth century the Palas had declined, and the great monasteries depended on a weaker network of patrons. They were also wealthy, walled and conspicuous, which made them obvious targets for raiders.

Excavations show that the monasteries were built as large rectangular blocks of cells around open courtyards, with thick brick walls and a single main entrance. To soldiers unfamiliar with Buddhist institutions, such compounds could easily look like fortresses. Copper plates, clay seals and inscriptions found on the site record gifts of villages and money from kings and patrons as far away as Java and Sumatra.

The Ghurid advance into Bihar

After Muhammad of Ghor’s victory at the Second Battle of Tarain in 1192, Ghurid commanders spread across the Ganges plain. One of them, Ikhtiyar al-Din Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, was a soldier of the Khalaj people from Afghanistan who had been given lands near the eastern frontier around Mirzapur.

From this base he led raids into Bihar, seizing plunder and building up a following. Around 1204 he went on to attack Nadia in Bengal, forcing the Sena king Lakshmana Sena to flee, and set up a base at Lakhnauti. He died in 1206 after a disastrous expedition towards Tibet.

Bakhtiyar’s raids were not part of a planned campaign against Buddhism as such. His aim, like that of other frontier commanders of the period, was plunder, prestige and control of land. Rich and poorly defended monasteries, however, suffered heavily in this kind of warfare, and contemporary writers recorded their destruction as part of the conquest.

The dates of his Bihar campaigns are not secure. They are often given as 1193, but various historians place them anywhere between about 1193 and 1205.

What the sources say

The main Persian account comes from Minhaj-i Siraj, who wrote his Tabaqat-i Nasiri around 1260 and heard the story from one of Bakhtiyar’s veterans. He describes an attack on a walled place that the invaders took for a fortress. Most of its inhabitants, described as shaven-headed “Brahmans”, were killed. Afterwards the attackers found large numbers of books and learned that the place was a college, called a “bihar” (from the Sanskrit vihara, a monastery).

Minhaj does not name the monastery. Many historians identify it with Odantapuri, whose site lies under the modern town of Bihar Sharif, which takes its name from the vihara. Nalanda lies only about 10–15 km away, and it is generally accepted that it was sacked during the same period of raids, though no source gives a detailed description of the attack.

Tibetan sources provide another view. The monk Dharmasvamin visited Nalanda in 1234–1236. He found most buildings damaged and deserted, but a small community of about seventy monks still studying under the aged teacher Rahula Shribhadra. During his stay, Turkic soldiers threatened the site and the monks hid until they left. Vikramashila, by contrast, had been destroyed so thoroughly that its foundation stones had reportedly been thrown into the Ganges.

Myths and facts

The burning library. A popular modern claim says Nalanda’s library was so large that it burned for three or six months. No contemporary source says this. Later Tibetan traditions, recorded centuries afterwards, describe the library complex called Dharmaganja with buildings named Ratnasagara, Ratnodadhi and Ratnaranjaka, and tell of a fire, but these accounts mix history and legend.

A single day of destruction. Nalanda’s end was a process rather than one event. The raids of c. 1193–1205 shattered the institution, but Dharmasvamin’s account shows that teaching continued on a small scale for at least a generation.

The only cause of Buddhism’s decline. Historians agree the sack of the monasteries was a heavy blow, but Indian Buddhism was already in decline. The loss of royal patronage, competition from Hindu devotional movements, and the concentration of Buddhist life in a few great monasteries all left it vulnerable.

Consequences

The destruction of Nalanda, Vikramashila and Odantapuri ended organised Buddhist monastic scholarship in its Indian homeland. Monks and scholars fled to Nepal, Tibet and other regions. The Kashmiri master Shakyashribhadra, who had been at Vikramashila, travelled to Tibet in 1204, and many Sanskrit texts survive today only in Tibetan or Chinese translation.

Inside India, the remaining Buddhist communities lost the centres where monks had been trained, texts copied and debates held. Without them, local monasteries found it hard to sustain a learned tradition. Within a few centuries Buddhism had almost disappeared from most of India, while it continued to thrive in Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Tibet, China, Korea and Japan. The comparison with the loss of the Library of Alexandria is often made, though in both cases the real story is more gradual than popular accounts suggest.

Rediscovery and legacy

Nalanda’s ruins were gradually covered by earth and vegetation. The Scottish surveyor Francis Buchanan visited the area in the early nineteenth century, and Alexander Cunningham identified the site as Nalanda in the 1860s. The Archaeological Survey of India excavated it between 1915 and 1937, revealing monasteries, temples, seals and inscriptions.

In 2016 the site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as the Archaeological Site of Nalanda Mahavihara. A new Nalanda University, created by an act of the Indian parliament in 2010, began teaching nearby in 2014. Its founders presented it as a revival of the ancient institution’s international spirit, with support from several Asian governments. The archaeological site, with its museum of finds, draws pilgrims and tourists from across the Buddhist world.

Timeline

• c. 5th century: Nalanda Mahavihara is founded under the Guptas.
• c. 630s: Xuanzang studies at Nalanda.
• 1192: Muhammad of Ghor defeats Prithviraj III at Tarain.
• c. 1193–1205: Bakhtiyar Khalji raids Bihar; Odantapuri, Nalanda and Vikramashila are sacked.
• 1204: Bakhtiyar Khalji attacks Nadia; Shakyashribhadra travels to Tibet.
• 1234–1236: Dharmasvamin finds a small community still at Nalanda.
• 1915–1937: Archaeological excavations uncover the site.
• 2016: Nalanda becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

The fall of Nalanda marked the end of one of the world’s oldest and most influential centres of learning. It symbolises the decline of Buddhism in India and the transfer of Indian Buddhist scholarship to Tibet and the wider Asian world.