Nalanda Mahavihar: Did Bakhtiar Khilji Destroy it? Ram Puniyani The campus of Nalnda was inaugurated formally by Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi on 19 th June (2024) in presence of Ambassadors of many countries like Myanmar, Srilanka, Vietnam, Japan, Korea among others. Most of these countries are the ones where Buddhism was spread by the preachers sent by Emperor Ashok. Inially the idea of reviving Nalanda as a premier global University was floated by the then President A.P.J Abul Kalam in 2006 and later rafied by Bihar Assembly and UPA Government. On the occasion; Modi stated that this University was burnt by foreign invaders in 12 th Century. He was just parrong the popular percepon that Bakhyar Khilji, the courer of Mahmud Ghori had burnt it. This percepon is an add-on to the other such ‘social common sense’ that Muslim invaders destroyed the Hindu Temples and spread Islam by force. Incidentally the propagaon of these understandings began with the introducon of communal historiography by the Brish and later picked up with big gusto by the communal streams, Muslim communalism and Hindu Communalism. While the propagaon of myths propagated by Muslim League against Hindus is playing havoc in Pakistan, in India it is RSS which has played this up, leading to Hate against Muslims in our society to the extent that Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel had to write this about RSS, “All their speeches were full of communal poison. It was not necessary to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organize for their protecon. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji.” When Modi was mouthing that Nalanda was burnt by foreign invaders, this falls in the same category of falsehoods which are used to spread the Hatred against Muslims. Nalanda had a glorious residenal University, spread out in a large area in Rajgir Bihar, built by Gupta's in the sixth century. It was a Buddhist center as Archeological evidence shows. Primarily it was for study of Buddhist philosophy, in addion Brahminical scriptures, mathemacs, logic and health science were also taught. Its tradion of open discussion and logic were so high that it aracted students and scholars from various desnaons. It was supported by the Kings, later with the coming of Pala and Senaa dynasty its patronage was reduced and withdrawn. Patronage was redirected to new Universies, like Odantpuri and Vikramshila in parcular. This was the beginning of the decline of Nalanda. Who set fire to the great library housing millions of books, Manuscripts and rare collecons? While it is being aributed to Khilji, parcularly aſter the coming of the Brish, there is no single primary source menoning this. Khilji’s primary goal was to loot and plunder. On route from Ayodhya to Bengal he did aack Kila-i-Bihar thinking this is a forte with wealth. On the way he plundered wealth and killed people. Nalanda was not on the route, rather far away from the route, and he had no reason to aack a University. Most of the primary sources related to history of that me do not menon Khilaji coming to Nalanda. Tabakat-a-Nasiri wrien by Minhaj-e-Siraj has no menon on these lines. Two Tibetean Scholars, Dharmaswamin and Sumpa were keenly studying the history of India, parcularly related to Buddhism, in their books also; Khilji is not menoned as the one who either came to Nalanda or burnt it. Taranath, another well known Buddhist scholar from Tibet also does not menon any such fact. Interesngly Buddhist structures of importance like Ajanta, Ellora, and Sanchi stupa were also not the subject of ire of ‘invaders’! Nor do the Indian historians Jadunath Sarkar and R C Majumdar endorse