The last lesson at Nalanda

[Guest guest]

The last lesson at Nalanda

 

http://www.indianexpress.com/storyOld.php?storyId=31704

 

I had to attend a wedding at Patna and managed a side trip to Nalanda.

As I walked into the ruins, a huge dark sadness descended on me.

Nalanda, the greatest ever Buddhist university, with its hundreds of

monks and thousands of books, was destroyed by Bakhtiyar Khalji’s

Turki troops around 1200 AD. As I looked at walls still blackened by

the bonfires of books, I began my search for answers. The museum

nearby gives you a glimpse of Nalanda’s sanctity and fame across the

Buddhist world: Tibet, China, Japan and most of Southeast Asia. While

inside, I saw a group of Tibetan monks walking through, placing sacred

white scarves on some statues.

 

Back home, I downloaded the pages of the past. Buddhism was not

swallowed up by Sanatana Dharma, as we now believe. It thrived, with

sincere patrons like Harsha. Even the infamous Jaichand built a

monastery to honour his Guru, Srimitra. No, what finished Buddhism off

was that it revolved around the Sangha. To alien invaders, a

monastery’s imposing walls and towers made it an obvious military

target. After Odantapura, the monastery near Nalanda, was razed and

all the monks beheaded, the Turks found no treasure and certainly no

arms. All they found were books, and with none left to explain their

meaning, they were burnt and Odantapura turned into a military camp.

Let me quickly add that Bakhtiyar Khilji’s Turkic forefathers, the

White Huns of Mihirakula — behaved no differently towards the Sangha

although they were Shiva-bhakts. It was with the greatest difficulty

that the Guptas and others managed to save their lands from their

depredations in the sixth century.

 

As I browsed, a terribly poignant account of the last lesson at

Nalanda emerged. Incredibly, it was by Nalanda’s last student: A

Tibetan monk called Dharmaswamin. He visited Nalanda in 1235, nearly

forty years after its sack, and found a small class still conducted in

the ruins by a ninety-year old monk, Rahul Sribhadra. Weak and old,

the teacher was kept fed and alive by a local Brahmin, Jayadeva.

Warned of a roving band of 300 Turks, the class dispersed, with

Dharmaswamin carrying his nonagenarian teacher on his back into

hiding. Only the two of them came back, and after the last lesson (it

was Sanskrit grammar) Rahul Sribhadra told his Tibetan student that he

had taught him all he knew and in spite of his entreaties asked him to

go home. Packing a raggedy bundle of surviving manuscripts under his

robe, Dharmaswamin left the old monk sitting calmly amidst the ruins.

And both he and the Dharma of Sakyamuni made their exit from India.