Why Did Khalji destroy Nalanda University? | The Secrets Behind The Destruction Of Nalanda University

Do you know that hundreds of years ago there was a university in India where all the people of the world wanted to study, but later this university was burned to ashes? But would you like to know why this was done to this university, so let's talk about this Nalanda University today, why it was burnt so badly? 

Nalanda University was considered an education hub from 500 CE to 1200 CE and it developed when the Gupta Dynasty was ruling India. This was the first international residential university in the world where people from many parts of the world used to come to learn. It was believed that during its peak years there were about 2,000 teachers or scholars and about 10,000 students. This institute provided knowledge and education in many fields like philosophy, arts, and science, especially in astronomy, mathematics, anatomy, etc. There were also ten Buddhist temples on the premises of Nalanda University and the university was considered to be the largest Buddhist monastery. In that era, this place was also considered a sacred place for Jains but then what actually happened, which led to the burning of this university.

This was in 1202 AD when Muḥammad Bakhtiyar Khalji, a Turkic invader, captured some areas of North India ruled by Buddhists. Once he had fallen quite ill, due to which he got enough treatment from his princes, but still, his health was getting worse day by day. Then someone advised him to get treatment from Acharya Rahul Sribhadra, head of the Ayurveda department of Nalanda University but Khalji relied more on his princes because he felt that Indian physicians did not have much knowledge and their masters were more capable. 

But then he had to call Acharya Rahul Sribhadra due to his condition being very bad, but Khalji put a strange condition in front of him that he should get him cured without giving any medicine, which seems to be truly impossible. Acharya thought a lot on this matter and then accepted his condition. After a few days, Acharya again came to Khalji and gave him a page of the Quran to read and said that by reading this page you will be fine. On hearing this, Khalji started thinking in his mind that how can someone be cured by reading such a page, it is ridiculous.

But still, Khalji read that page at the behest of Acharya and he quickly recovered as Acharya is said to have applied medicine on some pages of the Quran and asked Khalji to read the same page. Due to which while he was reading the page the medicine entered into his body through his nose and he got cured. After recovering Khalji was completely shocked to learn that Indian scholars and teachers were more knowledgeable than his princes and countrymen, and this thought constantly haunted him. Due to which he decided to destroy all the roots of Ayurveda and Buddhism and burnt down the great library of Nalanda University which had about 9 million manuscripts. And this is how we lost India's greatest treasure forever.