Nalanda University (Ancient)

Nalanda was founded in the 5th century AD under the patronage of the Gupta emperors and grew over seven centuries into the world's first residential university. The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, who studied there from 631 to 645 AD, described an institution of extraordinary sophistication: a campus of interconnected monasteries, temples, lecture halls, and meditation rooms laid out in a planned grid, with the great library complex of Dharmaganja comprising three multi-storey buildings — Ratnasagara ("Ocean of Jewels"), Ratnadadhi ("Sea of Jewels"), and Ratnodadhi ("Jewel-Studded Ocean"). The library held hundreds of thousands of manuscripts covering Buddhist philosophy, Hindu texts, Vedic literature, logic (nyaya), grammar, medicine, astronomy, and the works of Nagarjuna, Asanga, and Dignaga. Students came from Tibet, China, Korea, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia, making Nalanda a truly international institution centuries before European universities existed. The Pala dynasty rulers maintained the university through the 12th century. In 1193, the Turkic military commander Bakhtiyar Khilji led a raiding force into Bihar. According to the contemporary historian Minhaj-i-Siraj, Khilji's troops sacked Nalanda, slaughtered the monks (whom they mistook for shaven-headed Brahmins), and set fire to the library. The fire reportedly burned for three months — a claim that, even if exaggerated, indicates the staggering volume of manuscripts held there. The destruction of Nalanda marked the effective end of organised Buddhism in India and the loss of a textual tradition of incalculable value.