Re-establishment of Nalanda University after 1500 years. 18 countries joined India

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Nalanda University The Phoenix of India

Nalanda international university , The oldest university in the world a symbol of Indian culture, a glorious history of India, a treasure trove of knowledge from 1500 years ago, was today rebuilt by the Government of India. Along with the golden history of Nalanda, there are also black splatter of its invasion. Nalanda University, which was destroyed three times by foreign invaders, has risen again like a phoenix party born out of ashes.

new campus of nalanda

Nalanda University has more than 10,000 students from all over the world were taught by more than 1500 teachers , the students are mainly from China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Persia, Turkey and Sri Lanka. In Nalanda, along with Mahayana Buddhism, subjects like 4 Vedas, Shabdavidya ( grammar and philosophy) Hetuvidya (logic),astronomy, mathematics, Chikitsavidya ( medicine) and physics were taught and researched. The world got many scholars from Nalanda University like Nagarjuna, Aryabhata .

Acharya Nagarjuna was a famous Indian philosopher, mathematician and alchemist. He was the follower of Buddhism. -Nagarjuna is known as the Einstein of India because he propounded the idea of Shunyavada like Einstein's theory of Relativity.

Aryabhata made a huge contribution to mathematics by extracting the exact value of π in 4 decimal places. He explained lunar eclipses and solar eclipses, the rotation of the earth on its axis, the reflection of light through the moon, the sinusoidal functions, the solution of the single variable quadrilateral equation, the diameter of the earth, etc..

The word Nalanda means no stopping of the gift of knowledge or lotus . From the 5th century to the 13th century, Nalanda University made its mark around the world for almost 800 years. Nalanda had a collection of about 9 million books and all the books were authentic and were not copied anywhere else in the world.

Establishment: Nalanda was established by King Kumaragupta I in 427 CE in the state of Magadha, now Bihar. The special thing about it is that nobody has to pay to study there. The king himself would take care of everything. This shows how important education is to them.

Nalanda was a 30 acre university with a nine storied library called Dharma Kunj( the Mountaion of truth ). Those nine floors were divided into three parts called Ratnasagara, Ratnodadhi and Ratnaranjak with 9 million authentic handwritten books.

The history of Nalanda University was discovered by Xuanzang and Yijing of China. They both came to India in the 7th century. He also described it as the largest university in the world. they both are Chinese traveller .

How and when Nalanda University fell

According to records, Nalanda University was destroyed three times by the invaders, but it was rebuilt only twice.

first invasion: During the reign of Skandagupta (455-467 CE), the first destruction was caused by Huna under Mihirkul. But Skandagupta's heirs repaired the library and built a large building.

second invasion: The second destruction was carried out by Gaudas dynasty of Bengal in the first half of the 7th century. At this time the Buddhist king Harshavardhana (606-648) repaired the university.

third invasion: most devastating attack was in 1193CE when the Turkish general Ikhtiaruddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji and his army destroyed the ancient Nalanda University. It is believed that the burning of religious texts shocked Buddhism, which emerged as the dominant religion in India, for hundreds of years and has not completely recovered from it since then.

ruins of Nalanda university

There is an interesting story behind why Khilji destroyed Nalanda. Definitely read :

Once Khilji fell very ill. He was treated extensively by his hakim (physicians), but he could not recover and was on the verge of death. Then someone advised him to see the head of Ayurveda department of Nalanda University, Acharya Rahul Sribhadra and seek treatment. But Khilji was not ready for it. He had more faith in his officials. He was not prepared to believe that Kafir (non Muslim ) had more knowledge than their physicians or that they could be more competent. But to save his life, he had to call Rahul Sribhadra, the head of the Ayurveda department at Nalanda University. Then Bakhtiyar Khilji put a strange condition in front of Vaidyaraj( a practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine) and said that I will not take any medicine given by him. He asked to cure without medicine. Vaidyaraj thought and accepted his condition and after a few days he took the Quran and reached Khilji and told him the page number of this Quran... read this much and it will be fine.

Bakhtiyar Khilji read the Quran as told by Vaidyaraj and was cured. It is said that Rahul Sribhadra applied a medicine coating on some pages of the Quran, he read those pages with saliva and got better. Khilji became disturbed by the fact that an Indian kafir(non Muslim) and teacher had more knowledge than his physicians. Then he decided to eradicate the roots of knowledge, Buddhism and Ayurveda from the country. As a result, Khilji set fire to the great library of Nalanda and burned about 9 million manuscripts.

It is said that Nalanda University had so many books that it kept burning for three months. After this, on the orders of Khilji, the Turkish invaders also killed thousands of religious scholars and monks of Nalanda.

In his book Tabakat-e-Nasiri, Minhajuddin Siraj, who was then the Chief Qazi of Delhi, says while writing about Nalanda that "Nalanda University is also reported to have been burned to death by Khilji and his Turkish army thousands of monks and scholars because he did not want Buddhism to spread. He wanted to spread Islam. He set fire to the Nalanda library, burned all the manuscripts and kept burning for many months."

The decline of Nalanda was not just the decline of Nalanda or India. The whole world was left without a great deal of knowledge. This one regressive act took the world many years back. Nalanda was a proof of India's ancient intelligence and Khilji ended the whole of Nalanda ,just to bring a new ideology.

If there are so many books to read, then who will read my book, then I finish all the books, so there is nothing left to read but my book. In Indian culture, Vidya(knowledge) is considered and worshiped as God, because vidya is the one who always teaches us something new, takes us further.

In India, even if a book is trampled or a book is accidentally dropped, we immediately fall at its feet and apologize. In a country like this, a person comes from outside and burns 9 million books without any respect for intelligence and new learning and knowledge. What happened to Nalanda was very sad. Among the 90 lakh books burning here, our generation has lost this precious knowledge forever. But one thing everyone should keep in mind is that India has always been one step ahead. India opened a university for the world when the world had no idea

Australia
Bangladesh

Rihabilitation:

India's missile man Dr A P J Abdul Kalam first came up with the idea of rebuilding Nalanda in 2006. And along with India, many countries in Asia as well as abroad have decided to work together in it and Nalanda's new campus is almost built and opened for students from all over the world.