The Lost Treasures – Part 2: The “Burning” history of the Library of Nalanda

"An azure pool winds around the monasteries, adorned with the full-blown cups of the blue lotus; the dazzling red flowers of the lovely kanaka hang here and there, and outside groves of mango trees offer the inhabitants their dense and protective shade" – Xuanzang, Chinese scholar & pilgrim, while his visit to Nalanda University & Library

Imagine sitting in such surroundings & losing yourself to the pleasures of reading. Why will philosophy not come to you? Why will sublime thoughts not touch you? You are after all sitting in what can be called “pure serendipity”. Truly, the pleasure of reading is enhanced in a beautifully ambient surrounding. Such was the glory of the ancient Nalanda Library, nestled in the legendary Nalanda University, until….

A continuation from my series on The Lost Treasures – I am now going to bring you the not so popularly known history of the lovely library of the ancient Nalanda University.

Before taking you into the history of Nalanda library, it is important to know a bit about Nalanda University first, where this magnificent library was housed.

Nalanda (today in the Indian state of Bihar, a little away from city Patna), was a contemporary of its equally famed Takshshila University in mediaeval India. Founded by King Sakraditya of Gupta dynasty, the University flourished under Gupta & Pala empires through royal grants & in fact once had 200 villages of its own, provided as a grant.

In fact the two universities are credited to the being the “first ever” Universities in the World, or the first ever educational institutes that established the concept of a University, as we know it today. Of course, this credit is not given to these seats of learning so easily, as Western media largely credits Bologna (1088 AD), or Paris (1091 AD) to Oxford University (1167 AD) & Cambridge University (1209 AD) as the oldest Universities – source www.speakingtree.in

This is also the case because Oxford & Cambridge have continued and are flourishing in their legacy to this date, but Nalanda & Takshshila universities that were founded in 5^th century & 7^th century BC respectively, are lost treasures of the World today. While Takshshila (whose alumni consisted of the first economist of the world & legendary politician cum Kingmaker, Chankaya; the legendary Sanskrit grammarian, Sage Panini; & the legendary Yoga exponent Sage Patanjali), was destroyed & razed to grounds by the attacks of the Huns; Nalanda faced its own evils & perished completely, shortly after Oxford was founded & before Cambridge was initiated.

But now that I somehow have tried to establish the magnitude of Nalanda’s educational & cultural legacy in your mind, let me tell you a little about the University’s & its Library’s structure.

 

STRUCTURE: Today the University’s ruins that still exist in Bihar (and are a heritage site) are said to be a mere 10% of what the actual institute was. The real university is said to have been erected on a 10 sq.mile area (roughly 35 acres), as established by explorer Sir Alexander Cunningham, who first found its ruins in 1861. It was an imposing structure with multi-storeys & its summit was extended in towering peaks that went above the clouds, so that the students could see the cosmic birth of clouds everyday unfolding in front of their eyes. The University was built in traditional Buddh style architecture with stupas (round mounds or domes). It provided absolutely free of cost education, as the University was built & was flourishing on grants, but used extremely strict codes of entrance exams that would filter true seeker of knowledge from those who could just pretend to be true seekers.

LIBRARY:  The account of Nalanda University will take more than a post to establish its legacy & opulence. But let me take you to its hidden treasure – the Nalanda Library.

Every educational institute’s heart is its library. If I go on to say, that an institute’s bearing is the way its library is built & managed, it will not be an exaggeration. Just like your heart speaks about your individual personality, so does a library speak about a University.

Nalanda Library was housed exactly in the heart of the University. Legend has it that it was not easy to get inside the Library to savour its many illustrious gems. Any new person entering into the Library was asked trick questions (ranging from life’s philosophy to anthropology to even grammar & mathematics) by the dwarpaal (entrance keeper – a knowledgeable person himself/herself in this case). This rule was subjected to all students, cast, colour, creed, status irrespective. Only on being satisfied at this level was a student allowed entry in this temple of knowledge. The Nalanda alumni treated this Library as the heart or rather Holy Grail of all knowledge.

The Library aka the “Dharmaganja”  or the Piety Mart was divided into three parts:

·        Ratnasagar  - The Sea of Gems

·        Ratnadadhi – The Ocean of Gems

·        Ratnaranjak – The Colour of Gems

Out of the three, the Ratnadadhi was a 9 storey high magnificent & imposing structure that was also the most prime section & housed their most sacred scriptures.

The Library towers were especially a work of indulgent architecture; imposing & intricate as they were, they were also inlaid with thousands of precious gemstones & its base was made of semi-precious stones to magnify its sheer grandeur when the sun’s rays would start falling on these columns. Legends say that when the Sun’s first rays would fall on these towers, the whole University would experience a celestial glow of warmth & radiance. In the night, the moon would cast various shadows in its silver glow, that would bounce off these gilded towers and make them glow with a cosmic charisma. Who would not love to read in this ambience J Just the mere thought is exciting enough. In fact the legendary Chinese pilgrim & scholar Fa-Hein has documented that the pinnacles of Ratnadadhi would go all the way up above the clouds, where the students could sit surrounded by serenity all across & savour the gems of knowledge.

TEXTS IN THE LIBRARY:  It is not exactly known as to how many texts did Nalanda Library exactly store, but it said to be hundreds of thousands. The texts were not only religious scriptures, but also contained several scriptures & noted works on the subject of grammar, logic, literature, astrology, astronomy, medicine, etc. (source www.wikipedia.org ). Fa-Hein, a great seeker of knowledge & prime recorder of Nalanda University) reportedly took back copies of 657 volumes of sacred texts with him, that he spent his later years into translating in Chinese dialect. Many of these texts are still preserved by Chinese government as prized source of old heritage. In fact Chinese scholars like Fa-Hein & the brilliant Huein-Tsang are mainly attributed with recording the magnificence of Nalanda in its golden epoch.

The Library also maintained a very meticulous bibliography & catalogue of its many texts that were kept on iron shelves wrapped up in light mulmul cloth. Additionally, the librarian’s task was not only to issue texts to knowledge seeking students but also guide the students in their quest to finding the correct knowledge.  

DESTRUCTION: As mentioned earlier in my post on the Library of Alexandria, knowledge simply surpasses men who derive pleasure in the basic & banal desires of plundering & amassing/annexing pieces of lands. Since the attainment of knowledge is a lost concept to such men, they resort to what they know best – the primal need for using violence to snatch/ destruct what they do not have the capacity to understand. It is indeed a shame that more texts are written about such men, glamourising their “glory”, while the real glory of such gems is often ignored or mentioned in the passing.

Nalanda fell to a similar fate. In 1193 AD an invasion by Turk invader Bakhtiyar Khilji was a death knoll to this sea of knowledge. Khilji plundered the obvious riches of Nalanda, lynching, burning and beheading numerous monks & students, who had come from far off places like Tibet, China, Greece, Persia, Sri Lanka, etc. The remaining few monks fled for their lives. Not being satisfied with this horror, he razed Nalanda & its library to the ground. Thousands of sacred scriptures, the precious works of literates, thinkers, philosophers, alchemists of aeons was burnt in his lust for power & control.

It is also said that the black smoke that emitted from the library burning hung around the area for good 6 months before clearing off – a black cloud that was probably lamenting on the irreparable loss of precious gems that Khilji could neither see nor fathom. Khilji, who was against Buddhism, or peace of any sort, ensured that proper aid was not given to Nalanda to aid its resurrection. However, a Buddhist sage, Murtibhadra is credited to having restored some glory of Nalanda library again, but it was again burnt by members of opposing faith.

It is ironical how all religious scriptures teach us the path to harmony, peace, tolerance, faith & ultimately salvation – but we use the same teachings, make them ego issues, pit them against each other & wage wars to defeat the same logic espoused by our scriptures in the first place.

TODAY: Nalanda, that once housed 15000 students & 2000 teachers in its heydays (Gupta & Pali empire), was reduced to merely 70 students being instructed by just one 90 year old teacher, Rahul Shribhadra, as recorded by Tibetan translator & scholar, Chang Lotsawa in 1235 AD. Looted & completely destroyed, this was probably the last attempt for the institute to hold onto its remaining shreds of dignity & continue. This attempt was again uprooted completely by another invasion of Turkish soldiers, leaving the world bereft of ancient Indian scientific & philosophy thoughts in Mathematics, Science, Astronomy, Alchemy & Anatomy…it is all lost forever!!

In 2006, the Chinese government initiated talks of joining hands with Singapore, Japan, Korea, and India to come together & resurrect this seat of learning as these were the countries where Nalanda’s education left its most indelible mark.

I sincerely hope this happens, & Nalanda touches the heights of its glory days yet again.