Day 490

 

I think these days I’m getting inclined to historical facts a bit. Actually, since I wrote my last post, an urge of exploring more historical things has increased in me. Well, Indian history is full of many facts and rumours. I think there are many rumours and stories being spread to hide few facts. Just like I wrote in my last post about the possible treasure at Jaigarh Fort. Till date, its very unclear about the outcome of the raid conducted by the Income tax department along with police and army. Movement of heavy trucks on the national highway from Jaipur to New Delhi is also unexplainable. Anyway, I don’t want to continue the last post. Today, I’m going to write on some new historical fact.

Indian history is full of invasions. From time to time, many foreign invaders have invaded India. It’s a long list of invaders. Few of them, stayed here and became ruler of India. Rest of them had looted India and have take numerous treasures back with them. One of those invaders who looted India was Bakhtiyar Khilji. Bakhtiyar Khilji attacked Nalanda in 1193 A.D. and it resulted in gruesome massacre and destruction of its library. Actually, Nalanda was a seat of knowledge. It was known as Nalanda Mahavira or Nalanda University. Actually, Mahavira means Buddhist monetary where a teacher teaches his students. According to Chinese traveller, Hieun Tsang, who came to India in 7^th century, in Nalanda Mahavira there were 10,000 monks and 1510 teachers. At that time, mathematics, grammar, Buddhism, philosophy, astronomy were the subjects which were been taught at Nalanda. No fees were been collected from the students studying here.

Here a question arises that why did Bakhtiyar Khilji attacked Nalanda University? Neither it was a seat of power nor it was a place to save any treasure. This is the thing which is out of my understanding. It’s said that Bakhtiyar Khilji ordered to burn the library of Nalanda University. Its also said that the entire library took three months to get completely burned. Its also said that the library was the biggest library in the world at that time and around 90,000 books were stored in that library. As we know that Buddhism has always followed the principle of non-violence. Still, on the order of Bakhtiyar Khilji, his army killed Buddhist monks and other students staying at Nalanda University.  

It’s said that students from China, Turkey, Persia, Korea, Japan and Sri Lanka used to come to Nalanda to study. But its so sad to know that Bakhtiyar Khilji ordered destruction of a centre of knowledge. In my view, it’s the most condemnable attack. I don’t think this to be a bravery act which is showed in the battle field. In this attack, at one side, ruthless and cruel invaders loaded with weapons were there against unarmed Buddhist monks and students. This invasion couldn’t be named as invasion because whenever there is an invasion then it’s considered that both sides had armies. But in case of Nalanda invasion, only Khilji had an army. Actually, in my view, this should be a barbaric act of Khilji but unfortunately, in history books, its known as Khilji invasion of Nalanda.

Well, there is a story behind this cruel attack of Khilji over Nalanda. It’s said that Khilji was very ill at one point of time. He was under the care of his personal physicians and he took a lot of medicines but there wasn’t any improvement in his health. With due passage of time, it got detoriated. Then Khilji was suggested to get treatment from Rahul Sri Bhadra, the principal of Nalanda Mahavira at that time. It’s said that Khilji wasn’t ready to get treatment from any non-Muslim physician. Initially, Khilji refused the suggestion of getting treatment from Rahul Sri Bhadra. But his health got more detoriated. At last, he agreed. Rahul Sri Bhadra was called and he examined Khilji. After the physical examination, Khilji put his condition that Khilji won’t have any medicine given by Rahul Sri Bhadra. Actually, the reason behind this condition was that Khilji wanted to test Rahul Sri Bhadra and Khilji humiliated the knowledge of Hindus as he thought that Hindus weren’t intellectual like Muslims. Rahul Sri Bhadra agreed to this condition of Khilji and he told Khilji that he won’t give him any medicine.

Rahul Sri Bhadra gave a copy of Quran to Khilji and told him to read few pages of Quran every day. Within a month, Khilji’s health improved. He was surprised that how he got healthy. Then it was revealed that Rahul Sri Bhadra had medicated the pages of Quran and hence the medicine had reached Khilji. Khilji was surprised to know this. He felt jealousy and insecurity that how a non-Muslim is more intelligent and intellectual than his Muslim scholars and physicians. To take revenge of this, Khilji decided to destroy the source of that knowledge which made Rahul Sri Bhadra such knowledgeable. Well, the library of Nalanda University was the source of knowledge of Rahul Sri Bhadra and many scholars like him and the scholars living in Nalanda University. Nalanda University had world’s largest library at that point of time. It was known as Dharamganj. Dharamganj comprised of three multistorey buildings. It’s said that the library had the collection of about 90 lakhs books. So, just to take revenge, Khilji decided to attack Nalanda University to destroy everything there.

Khilji’s army brutally massacred the monks and scholars residing at the university. Many scholars are believed to be burned alive. Khilji didn’t stopped here. He ordered to burn the entire library of the Nalanda University. It’s said that library took three months to completely burn down. Many manuscripts were in the original form.

Well, I think the attack of Nalanda by Khilji is nothing else but a personal ego issue. According to Khilji, non-Muslims weren’t equal to Muslims, forget being more knowledgeable or experienced. If this wasn’t the case, then why would he order the attack on Nalanda University? It was a place of learning, where Buddhist monks and scholars were staying with students. Nalanda University wasn’t a military school where army warfare was taught. It was a centre of knowledge, philosophy and religious studies. What type of bravery did Khilji showed by killing unarmed scholars and students?

The gruesome massacre at Nalanda was just a personal revenge of Khilji against non-Muslims. It was nothing more than egoistic win of Khilji. This is what I believe. But in our history text books, Khilji is portrayed as a glorified invader who invaded India and took its treasure with him. But the true history behind the Nalanda attack by Khilji isn’t mentioned in any history books. Irony is that a railway station in Bihar has been named in Khilji’s honour as Bhaktiyarpur Junction. To visit the ruins of the Nalanda University, one has to deboard the train at this Junction. Isn’t it sad that we are still using the name of a brutal, cruel invader for naming the railway station? I feel very sad.