Amb. Abhay Kumar, Indian diplomat, author and poet, speaks with Mayank Chhaya | SAM Conversation
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00:00Senior diplomat and prolific author and poet, Abhay Kumar, who has just been appointed
00:24as India's ambassador to Georgia, was born and raised within a whispering distance of
00:29the Nalanda University, arguably the world's first residential university. However, by
00:36his own admission, growing up, he was not quite aware of the great center of ancient
00:41learning and its profound civilizational impact on India. Decades later, he has filled that
00:48gap with a remarkable new book, Nalanda, How It Changed the World. Although many scholars
00:55have said the university as we know it now was founded in 420 C current era, which at
01:01one point had a library with 9 million books and 10,000 students, Abhay Kumar's research
01:08pushes the makings of the Nalanda as a center of learning by over a millennium, making it
01:15contemporaneous to Gautam Buddha. Abhay Kumar spoke to MCR from New Delhi.
01:21Welcome to Manchai Reports. It's always a great pleasure to have you.
01:27Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be with you again. It's a pleasure and joy for me
01:34to be on your show.
01:37Likewise. Congratulations again on your new book. This is number what? Do you remember
01:42how many you've written?
01:45It's my first book of history.
01:49Let's start with that. It's obviously as the title suggests, it's about Nalanda and how
01:54it changed the world. You know, my first indirect exposure to Nalanda was why had the 1970 film
02:02Johnny Mera Naam.
02:03I remember that song.
02:04Jagdish Raj and other constables walking in the background. Jagdish Raj, the eternal
02:17police inspector of Hindi cinema. And it struck me that it was a protected site, I suppose
02:23even then, but they allowed them to shoot a whole song there.
02:26Yes. And see, that's how Nalanda has survived in your memories.
02:31What about you? What is your first memory of Nalanda?
02:34Well, I am from Nalanda. So I think I remember visiting it with my parents and, you know,
02:44looking at those huge red bricks. And just it was like just an interesting sight. You
02:52know, I did not really know the significance of Nalanda when I visited in my childhood.
02:59And I thought that, you know, the huge stupa, which is actually Sariputra's stupa, I always
03:05thought it was the library, you know, the great library.
03:10So and yeah, going around, going inside the viharas and walking there. It was it was sort
03:22of a, you know, regular trip for us because it was the most accessible place apart from
03:27Rajgir or the answer is Rajgir, where I am from, actually. So so that's.
03:34You know, you come from a region absolutely steeped in glorious history.
03:40Exactly. I realized it much later, you know, the names that you mentioned, they're absolute
03:47the heart of Indian civilization.
03:50Exactly. And yet, till I was researching, till I started researching about Nalanda, I
03:58had no idea about 90 percent of the things, you know.
04:01I see. I see. Yes.
04:03Yes. Speaking of which, the popular view is that Nalanda was founded in 420 CE, current
04:10era, which at one point had a library with some nine million books and had 10,000
04:16students. What's been your finding as you research this book?
04:20Oh, well, I mean, Nalanda is much more ancient, actually, you know.
04:23Oh, really?
04:24Yes. So see, that's the story I tell in this book, you know, that most of most of the
04:29people, even in India, even very well-known scholars, you know, they say in Nalanda, you
04:35know, Mahavihara began in, you know, during the Gupta dynasty, you know, the Gupta
04:42empire. And but but actually it's not true.
04:47So and that's what my book is all about.
04:50So Nalanda's history goes back to Buddha's time.
04:54And you're talking about a millennium before this.
04:58Exactly. So 600 BC, which is almost 600 years before before Christ.
05:08Here you can see a serpent, you know, on the cover.
05:11Yeah. You might wonder what is the connection between Nalanda and the serpent, you
05:15know. So so Nalanda, you know, is was the favorite resort in the sense Amravana, you
05:24know, the mango groves of Nalanda was a place which was favorite of Buddha's to spend
05:32time there. So and there was a pond beside the, within the mango
05:41mango grove. And that pond had a snake and the snake was Nalanda.
05:50So so that's that's one of the legends, you know, which is also recounted by the
05:56Chinese traveler Sun Tzang.
05:59And this is and serpent, you know, is also a symbol of renewal and and immortality.
06:09So I also tell the story of how Nalanda actually, you know, only the physical structure
06:16of Nalanda was destroyed.
06:21But the quest of Nalanda, the quest for knowledge remained, you know, it survived
06:26actually and was reborn into many Nalanda's across the world.
06:29So yes, so this is how I tell this story.
06:34But let's get back to the origin of Nalanda University.
06:39So I not only I mean, so many scholars, you know, they they say that, you know, the
06:45first Mahabihara structure, the archaeological evidence shows that the first Biharas were
06:51built during the Gupta dynasty.
06:56And Kumara Gupta I, who is well known as in as Sakraditya, he was the first one who
07:04built the monastery there.
07:06And this is actually not correct.
07:10So so see, there is another figure, Buddha's right hand man.
07:18You may know about him or may not.
07:19You know, his name is Sariputra.
07:21Yes. And Sariputra is and Moglayana.
07:25These are the two chief male disciples of Buddha and both come from Nalanda.
07:32And Sariputra was born in, you know, in Nalanda while Moglayana, he was born in a
07:39village nearby. And and it's Sariputra who actually, you know, when Buddha was
07:46enlightened, he went to, as you all know, Sarnath and, you know, turning of the
07:54Dharmachakra, you know, started there in Sarnath, Buddha's first sermon happens
08:00there. And then Buddha comes to Rajagraha, which was anyway his favorite abode.
08:08And he spends his time at Venubana and at Griddhakut Parvat, you know, the vulture
08:13peak. And and and he's patronized by the no other than Bimbisara, the king of Magadh
08:22and father of Azad Satru, you know, who later founds Pataliputra.
08:28Where does Bindusara figure in this?
08:31Not Bindusara, Bimbisara.
08:34Much later, Bimbisara is the father of King Ashoka.
08:37Right. Emperor Ashoka, that is three hundred years later.
08:42OK, OK.
08:43This is Bimbisara, who is who is a major figure in both Jainism and Buddhism.
08:50And he patronized both.
08:52So so that's how, you know, and it's in Rajagraha that after so when you have become
08:59enlightened, you know, you are in search of people whom you can tell what is
09:04enlightenment, because even if you are enlightened, you need others to propagate
09:11what you have learned, what you have realized as an enlightened being.
09:16And so the first five disciples of Buddha, but the five, you know, ascetics who are
09:23also looking for enlightenment along with Buddha and they become his disciple.
09:28But they are just five persons, you know, Buddhism needs to grow.
09:33So he comes to Rajagraha again, comes back.
09:36Buddha is a very, very intelligent man.
09:39Yeah, he comes to the royal capital, Rajagraha, where he gets a Bimbisara, the king of Magad.
09:49He offers him a bamboo grove called Venuvan as a retreat where Buddha can spend time.
09:59And Buddha goes to this hill, Rajagraha is full of hills, there are five hills in Rajagraha.
10:05And he goes to a hilly place where he sits.
10:11And this place is called Gridha Kutpa, a very sacred place.
10:14So this is where he meets at Venuvan, he meets Sariputra.
10:19And Sariputra actually has another guru that time.
10:23He's not a follower of Buddha.
10:25He has, he's a disciple of Sanjay Belati Putta, who is a contemporary of Buddha and
10:34another great philosopher.
10:36So, yeah, so a rival of Buddha, you know, and so is Mahavira, a rival of Buddha.
10:42So there are six main, main gurus that time or six main seekers who are active in Rajagir.
10:50And Rajagir being the capital city, New York of that time, everybody flocks to Rajagir.
10:56So Sariputra, what he does when he listens to one of Buddha's disciple, he immediately
11:03feels that this is more insightful.
11:06And he goes with Mogleyaina, who is his childhood friend from Nalanda, which is just
11:1115 kilometers from Rajagir, a suburb of Rajagir that time.
11:15And he joins Buddha, he becomes his disciple.
11:19And he not only becomes a disciple, but he brings 500 other followers of Sanjay to
11:26Buddha. So Buddha, you know, Buddha being a very intelligent man, he tells that
11:33Sariputra will be my right hand disciple, he will be my right hand man.
11:37And he's he's known as the Dharma Senapati or the General of Dharma.
11:43I see.
11:44The Sariputra, who is the who is the commander in chief, you know, who lays the
11:48foundations of a religion, you know, codifies what Buddha says, you know, and so along
11:56with Mogleyaina.
11:57So it's the Sariputra who who plays a critical role in the establishment of Buddhism as a
12:04religion. Imagine if you can have 500 persons, that's it's like getting a five, five
12:09lakh people, you know, from one to another.
12:13And in today's age, so so you can imagine the kind of influence Sariputra builds.
12:23And he is the right hand man.
12:26And it is actually Sariputra's, you know, stupa, which Ashoka builds when Ashoka, you
12:34know, after the Kalinga war, he comes to fold of Buddhism.
12:38I see.
12:39Yeah, he he then gets all the, you know, eight stupas of Buddha opened and get his
12:47remains and spreads it all across the world.
12:51And he sends his remains to 84,000 stupas, it is said.
12:57So so it is Emperor Ashoka who builds a stupa for Sariputra in Nalanda.
13:05And and today the largest structure you see is actually Sariputra's stupa in seven
13:11successive phases.
13:12Oh, I see.
13:13OK. Yes.
13:14And the entire Nalanda University is built around that stupa because that's the most
13:20sacred site. And earlier, you know, constructions from third century BCE to fourth
13:28century AD, they're all clustered constructions around clustered layout of monasteries or
13:35viharas. So so so Ashoka not only founds a stupa, he builds a stupa, but he also founds
13:43a vihara, not of concrete.
13:46But but those days, you know, viharas were built of perishable materials, wood and other
13:54things. And it's there where avidharma is started, you know, being taught Buddhist
14:02avidharma, you know, is is the canonical texts of Buddhism.
14:09And and this is how the the the reputation of Nalanda spreads as a center for learning
14:20avidharma, you know, and it starts growing.
14:23And this is third century BCE.
14:26And so so and now the Archaeological Survey of India has found the remains of the Mauryan
14:32structure, which is at the core of Sariputra's stupa.
14:35That site is which is the nucleus, the core of Nalanda Mahavihara is Sariputra's stupa,
14:41the site number three, which is the largest structure even today.
14:45And and so so it's actually in the third century BCE, you can say that Nalanda Mahavihara
14:54begins, not Mahavihara, that I'll tell you later, but a vihara begins, you know, a vihara.
15:01And yes, no, I'm sorry to interrupt.
15:05It's it's remarkable that you should mention it, because like I said in our exchange, the
15:11Dalai Lama once told me that the source of all Buddhist knowledge that we have is from
15:17Nalanda. So the way you're describing, it's pretty clear that that's a fountainhead of
15:23everything that we think of Buddhism today.
15:26So, well, we have to wait another another like a millennia to reach there.
15:33I understand, but I thought I'd just slip that in because it is remarkable.
15:38It's true because, you know, that's 100 percent true because, you know, Nalanda is the
15:45mother and father and grandmother and grandfather of Tibetan Buddhism, which follows
15:50Bajrayana Buddhism.
15:52Right. And Bajrayana is a unique evolution of Nalanda.
15:56It has happened, Bajrayana actually has evolved from Nalanda.
16:01So, you know, so now I'll come to the next stage that how to come to the Bajrayana, we
16:07have to go to the seventh and eighth century AD or so we are almost like a thousand years
16:13earlier right now.
16:15Can you imagine? We are one thousand years in history back from that point.
16:19Right. So in the first to second century AD, after Ashoka, you know, 300 years later, you
16:26have a great philosopher named Nagarjuna.
16:29Absolutely. Yes.
16:30Great, great figure.
16:31Yes. Yes.
16:32So he's considered a great figure even today in the West as a great philosopher and a very
16:39original thinker. And he comes up with his philosophy of Madhyamaka or the middle path,
16:47which comes from Buddha's teachings.
16:49But Nagarjuna being a philosopher, he develops his own philosophy, Madhyamaka and his book
16:55called Madhyamaka Karika, which is Madhyamaka philosophy is also known as Sunyata,
17:03you know, where the ultimate reality is Sunyata.
17:07And I'm hinting to you at the origin of zero, you know.
17:12Indeed, indeed.
17:13Yeah, we are almost coming to Aryabhatta only.
17:17Yes. So that is that is 500 years later.
17:20I know. I know.
17:21So look at the connections.
17:24Yes. But Sunyata is I have just done a number of paintings on Sunyata.
17:28Sunyata, the crux of Sunyata comes from, you know, Hridaya Pragya Paramita Sutra, which
17:35was which was which is said as a legend that the Bodhisattva Abhlokiteshwara shared this
17:44knowledge with Sariputra, no other than nobody else, Sariputra at Hridakut Parvat at Rajgira.
17:50In presence of Buddha, Buddha nodding to his, Buddha does not say anything here, but it's
17:57the Abhlokiteshwara Bodhisattva who is sharing this.
18:00And it is said that Nagarjuna actually later on, because there is a 600 years difference
18:06between Sariputra and Nagarjuna.
18:08So to, you know, as we know how we try to find some good antecedent to everything.
18:15So Nagarjuna tells that he it was actually Abhlokiteshwara told these things to Sariputra.
18:20And then I have retrieved this knowledge from the Nagas, you know, the kings.
18:26And but actually it seems that Nagarjuna wrote those himself, you know, and and attributed
18:35it to, you know, to Nagas, you know, and Abhlokiteshwara and so on.
18:40It's a probability.
18:42But Nagarjuna is a major player in Mahayana Buddhism.
18:45So he's he's the one who who is he's considered as the originator of Pragya Paramita Sutra
18:52and Pragya Paramita Sutra or the perfection of transcendent wisdom is the major is the
18:58key, key sutra in the in the Mahayana Buddhism and lays the foundation of Mahayana Buddhism.
19:05And Nagarjuna being, you know, staying and teaching at Nalanda, you know, in a vihara,
19:15you know, so that brings Nalanda as the birthplace of this Pragya Paramita Sutras.
19:22But attributed to Rajgraha, which is just 10, 15 kilometers.
19:27Yes. And so see what happens.
19:29That is in first to second century AD.
19:33And then you have, you know, various patrons, patrons of, you know, various rich people,
19:43men, women, both, you know, donating to the monastery.
19:46And suddenly, see, if you want today to found an university, to establish an university,
19:51you will not establish an university suddenly to any random place.
19:56You will do it, which has a tradition, which could potentially be a place which is renowned or, you know.
20:04So now we come to the King Sakraditya, you know, who is considered as a as the founder of the of the Nalanda Mahavihara.
20:16So that is Kumar Gupta I.
20:18And he's identified as Kumar Gupta I in the 5th century AD.
20:24And that's that's what we find the structures today.
20:30Oh, I see. So that's why the date 427 C that people talk about.
20:34Exactly. So that is.
20:36But they do not know the background that how come, you know, Kumar Gupta came suddenly one day and decided to establish.
20:43No, it doesn't work like that.
20:47And you have you have these major other but not only Nagarjuna, but you have, you know, the great philosopher Asanga and Vasubandhu and Aryadeva.
20:57You know, Nagarjuna's disciple is Aryadeva.
21:01Then you have Asanga and Vasubandhu, both they are cousins from Gandhar and they come to come to Nalanda, you know.
21:09So one of them is a founder of another school of philosophy called Yogachara.
21:15And so these are the two major philosophies taught at Nalanda, Madhyamaka and Yogachara for centuries, for almost 700, 800 centuries.
21:23And it is actually from Yogachara that the Vajrayana evolves, the tantric Buddhism, what we call.
21:29So, yes.
21:31So it's the it's and that's a unique contribution of Nalanda.
21:34So when the Laila says that, you know, all the knowledge that comes from Nalanda, he talks about the great luminaries of Nalanda from Nagarjuna up to Atisha.
21:44You know, I think he has listed 17 or 18 luminaries.
21:48But in my book, I mentioned more than two dozen luminaries of Nalanda with their biographies.
21:55And what contributions did they make?
21:58What are their books?
21:59You know what exactly they do?
22:01You know, this Buddhism has a direct link.
22:05Tibetan Buddhism has a direct link to Nalanda, actually, you know.
22:08So it has traveled from Nalanda, you know, great masters like Santarakshita and Padmasambhava.
22:15They are the major contributors.
22:17Again, a big name, Padmasambhava.
22:19Yes, but not only religion, but also the Tibetan script actually owes its origin in Nalanda.
22:25The person called Thonmi Sambatha, who comes to Nalanda, you know, takes the scripts to Tibet and it becomes the Tibetan script.
22:34You know, I must interject here, I'm sorry about that, because when the Chinese, while talking about taking over Tibet, they pretend as if there is a sort of a linguistic continuity between their language and Tibetan, which is completely untrue.
22:50Now that you're telling me that the script came from here, conclusively shows that what they are saying has been consistently wrong.
23:01Right. So here, you know, like I mentioned this, you know, the great luminaries, how has it traveled?
23:11You know, and one of the great contributions of Nalanda, I mentioned that, how did that happen?
23:18And you can see that, you know, there is a, if you read, if you look at the Tibetan script, you know, and it's how it has traveled from Nalanda, you will find, you know, the whole journey and the link, the person who did it.
23:34So let me read this passage.
24:04Oh, I see. Tell me one thing, how long did you, I mean, it obviously seems like monumental work from the way you're describing it, your book. How long did you take to write this?
24:28About more than two years. I mean, it's been a lot of research work and I was not aware of these things until I started reading and finding these things. Yes. So, I mean, what do you say, Deepak Thale and Nehira, right?
24:44So I am from Nalanda, but I was not aware of the, and most of the people are not aware of the, who were the great masters of Nalanda? Who were the great luminaries? How, what contributions did they make? So most of the people I came across, they were, you know, these names were really, you know, very new to me and, and what contributions they had made, you know, like Dinanaga or Bhavaviveka or Chandrakirti.
25:13Or Dharmakirti, you know. Right. So many of them and their contributions are huge, actually. Yeah. And I'm jumping a bit, but we mentioned earlier about Aryabhat. Did he ever head the university in the sixth century CE?
25:35Well, Aryabhat is considered a luminary of Nalanda. See, Aryabhat was, he used to live in Kusumpur, which is another name of Pataliputra. And he certainly, you know, taught to be studying and teaching at Nalanda, because Nalanda was not just limited to study of Buddhism, you know, various schools of Buddhism.
26:04But Nalanda was very strong in mathematics, astronomy, in logic and grammar and so on. So, he is, you know, he is considered to be a teacher at Nalanda, may not be heading the monastery, but teaching at Nalanda.
26:22Okay. Okay. So, but he was obviously a major figure given his background in mathematics. Right. Yeah. He is a major, he was born in 476 CE and was active in 6th century BC. And he is the person who is, you know, is the first person, his seminal book is called Aryabhatiya.
26:45Right. And Aryabhatiya is the first, he, you know, Aryabhatiya is just 121, actually, slokas. And in these, he mentions the, he uses, you know, for the first time, zero as a digit. So, he is the person who has made zero, used zero as a concept, as a digit.
27:10Right. And later on, you know, Brahmagupta, who is active. He perfected that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He used it as a number, like any other number, one, two, three. Right. And Surya Siddhanta, which is actually an improvement of the works of, based on the works of Aryabhat, Aryabhatiya.
27:29Yeah. And later on, you know, Surya Siddhanta travels to Arab world, becomes Sindhim. Right. And from which algebra, geometry and algebra comes. Absolutely. And algebra comes, you know, from Al-Khwarizmi, who improved his work, you know, brought some of his own innovations. And, and that's how zero travels, actually, not only zero, but the numbers, you know, one, two, three, four, we use are actually not numbers originated in Bihar, probably in Nalanda.
27:58You know, during the modern era. Think about that. Are you able to establish sort of a link between the idea, the philosophy of shunyata and shunya, zero being what we are talking about? Yes. Because, see, the idea of shunyata comes, comes through these Buddhist texts, you know, and it tells, it talks about emptiness, you know, emptiness of inherent existence, actually.
28:25So, and you see, it happens, you know, that idea, idea originates in Rajgir Nalanda intellectual complex. And you have also the numbers originating there, you know, in that, which is later. Shunyata comes in 6th century BC, during the Buddha himself, you know, Buddha himself talks about shunyata.
28:47And in his prakritya samutpada doctrine, and the doctrine of codependent origination, that's what it means. And, and, and then, you know, you suddenly have a person using this concept, you know, which is, which is empty, I mean, which is what is shunya, shunya is basically empty, emptiness.
29:13And so, so I, and so I see that link, because, you know, you cannot have this digit without a philosophy, you know, behind it. So, so I see a link between, you know, the shunyata of Nagarjuna being used as a, being given an expression by Aryabhat, then as a digit.
29:42And then, then, then by, by number.
29:48Right.
29:49And there's a clear path how the, how these numbers and zero has traveled to, to the West, actually.
29:56And think about this, this is evolving over centuries.
29:59Right.
30:00And how the knowledge would have been disseminated in those days of the kind of communication that we are used to, obviously. So it's quite extraordinary that the sheer oral transmission of these profound ideas.
30:15Yes, not only that, you know, you have actually, you know, we owe a lot to Buddhism itself, you know, so the, the, the scholastic method we know today, or the recursive argument method, we call it, it originates in that region as well, where you have, which leads later to medieval scientific inquiry, you know, in, in the medieval times, how do you do science?
30:41So you ask question after question, you know, your argument followed by a sub argument followed by a sub argument.
30:47So that's how the science began by asking questions. And you can see from the, the evidence of the works of Vasubandhu, you know, how, how recursive argument, Nagarjuna himself, how Nagarjuna uses recursive argument.
31:07And later on, that leads to the scientific inquiry. And not only that, you have a huge contribution in medicine, actually, alchemy, astronomy, you know, from Nalanda.
31:22You know, I'm digressing a bit. You know, it looked, I think I'll come back to that question in a bit. But I, I was reading up on it. One of the things that people mentioned is about in around the 1190s, when it was destroyed by the marauding, marauders led by the Turkish Afghan military general Bakhtiar Khilji.
31:48Now, that's so many centuries after the origin of what we are talking about. Is there some substance to that, that he did indeed ransack that area?
31:58Yes, 100%. You know, see, so what happened that, you know, the Pala rulers of Bengal and Magadh actually, the Pala dynasty, you know, they, they were patrons of Nalanda.
32:16But they also, I think, were a bit jealous of Nalanda because Nalanda was so old that it was not really, you know, under full control.
32:27So, so they founded monasteries nearby Nalanda, like one monastery at Odantpuri, which is just, just, you know, kilometers away, around 20 kilometers away from Nalanda and, and other monasteries, you know.
32:48So, according to the Persian historian, Minhazi Siraj, you know, who has written his work called Tabakht-e-Nasri, which is, he mentions the invasion of Odantpuri monastery, which is a nearby monastery from Nalanda, in his, by Bakhtiar Khilji in 1193 CE.
33:12Yes. And it was the two brothers, Samsuddin and Nizamuddin, who served as Bakhtiar Khilji's and participated in the plunder of Odantpuri and Vikramsila, the other monastery, which is far away, but in Odantpuri particularly.
33:30And they tell him, you know, because Minhazi Siraj, he does not go directly, he's not part of the Bakhtiar Khilji's troop. He's writing about, he's writing the accounts of what happened there.
33:44And two of the, two of these people who participated in the raid of Odantpuri, they tell him about that what happened. And so, so you can, I mean, people say that, you know, there is no direct evidence of Bakhtiar Khilji going to Nalanda.
34:03But can you imagine someone who is raiding all the Buddhist monasteries, a plunderer, for the wealth of, has gone to Odantpuri and has left another, the most renowned, most famous monastery, which is just kilometers away, you know, 20 kilometers away, has left that, does not touch it.
34:23So, it's not, it's beyond common sense. And, you know, there are evidence of destruction of Nalanda by fire. And yes, and, but see, but Nalanda was too large. You can see today, JNU, right? Can you really destroy JNU by fire? I don't think so.
34:43So, it's a, it's a, or any other large university, it's a, you can raid it, you can take away the, all the equipments from there, but it's physically impossible to destroy the monastery in one or two go.
35:02But there are, you know, eyewitness accounts of this, of, you know, raid of Nalanda because when Bakhtiar Khilji left after raiding Odantpuri, he stationed his troops in Odantpuri. And later on, a Tibetan monk called Dharma Swamin, he visits Nalanda and he gives an eyewitness account of how these troops raided Nalanda from time to time.
35:29I see.
35:30Yes, in 1235. So, that is about, you know.
35:35About 30 odd years from Khilji that we are talking about.
35:4040 years, you can say. 40 years later than Khilji, he writes in 1235 that Nalanda was again attacked by the Truskas of Odantpuri. And how his, you know, a person called Jayadeva was arrested and put in prison by them, where he learned about that, when he learned about their plan to raid Nalanda again.
36:01I see.
36:02So, he, this guy Jayadeva, he succeeded in alerting Pandit Rahul Sri Bhadra, who was still teaching in 1235. And all the 70 monks studying there left the Mahabharata except Dharma Swamin.
36:20And Dharma Swamin, he hides in a temple of Gyananatha in monastery itself. And a band of 300 Truska marauders raided the Nalanda Mahabharata. However, they could not find them and returned with whatever they could gather.
36:38Okay.
36:39So, there were continuous raids happening.
36:41I see.
36:42So, whoever says that, you know, and see, Buddhist monasteries, they were a network of systems. So, if you destroy Odantpuri and Vikramsila, do you think that Nalanda would not be affected?
36:55You know, where they, you have a law and order situation in 20 kilometers radius, where, and Nalanda was completely peaceful, everything was going on.
37:07No, it's inconceivable. Yeah, I agree.
37:09It's inconceivable. So, this is the thing. But Nalanda was not completely destroyed by the troops, as you can see, by Bhaktiarkhalji, because it's still intact, still functioning.
37:19But only 300 monks, he said, just 40 years left. It was largely destroyed, but not completely destroyed. The teaching had begun.
37:29And there's evidence of, you know, the last student of Nalanda being the Dhyana Bhadra, who was ordained at Nalanda in the early 14th century.
37:41So, Nalanda continued in a way, you know, in a lean way to function for another century or so.
37:49Right.
37:50Right.
37:51As you know, I talked about digression earlier, perhaps nothing to do with the theme of what we are talking about.
37:58But I've always been fascinated by and I've written quite a bit on the concept of Kshanika from moment to moment to moment.
38:07The idea that not existence is basically from moment to moment to moment.
38:13So, the question we're being asked by other scholars, if it is moment to moment, what exists between those two moments?
38:19Now, these are very profound debates happening 1500 years ago. I'm talking about in Kshanika in particular.
38:26Have you ever looked at something like that in your interest in this region? The idea of Kshanika.
38:36I mean, see, the idea of time itself, you know, is very interesting and profound.
38:43You know, what is time actually?
38:45And is it made of really, you know, these small units or is it sort of an illusion?
38:53Yeah.
38:54Which we try to perceive it through, you know, seconds or minutes or hours.
38:59And is there really a transition, you know, between past, present and future?
39:06You know, or is it a continuum, you know, and all the moments exist simultaneously?
39:13Exactly.
39:14So that's these are some but for practical purposes, we try to do that.
39:18We divide time because, you know, we are there are two levels of reality, even in Madhyamaka philosophy of Nagarjuna.
39:25You know, you have the conditional reality and you have the ultimate reality.
39:30So the conditional reality is how we experience the world.
39:34But there is beyond that an ultimate reality.
39:36So that time also has different layers.
39:40You know, we have the practical time of 24 hours and so on.
39:44And then there is the eternal time.
39:46Yeah.
39:47Yeah.
39:48And we all see measured time from Earth's perspective.
39:50Right.
39:51We are living on Earth.
39:52So Earth going around the year, you know, and Earth rotating on its own axis.
39:57If we live on Mars, probably we will have a different life.
40:00It will be very different.
40:01Yes.
40:02If we live on Mars, it's different even on the moon.
40:04Exactly.
40:06Just last couple of things.
40:07How do you look at someone like the Scottish surveyor, Francis Buchanan Hamilton?
40:14I mean, in modern sense, it was he who was supposed to have rediscovered in 1812.
40:22Is that an accurate view?
40:26Well, so see, I mean, Nalanda was forgotten for quite some time, for at least 400 years,
40:35from early 14th century to 1800 century.
40:39And it was the writings of Sun Tzu, you know, the Chinese traveler, which was actually
40:47translated into French by a French, you know, scholar.
40:55And then after this French text was then translated into English and read by people,
41:03then they came to know about this great university, which was in Bihar.
41:11So it was the Francis, you know, Buchanan Hamilton, who explored the site of Bada Gaon.
41:18Because Nalanda was not called Nalanda.
41:20It was called Bada Gaon or the great village.
41:23I see.
41:24It had, Nalanda had disappeared from the, the name Nalanda itself had disappeared.
41:29And it was called Bada Gaon.
41:31And he went to Bada Gaon and explored the site of Bada Gaon in 1811 and 12 and found
41:40some Hindu and Buddhist statues.
41:42And it was Markham Kitto who established the connection between the site and the ruins
41:48of Nalanda Mahavihara in 1847.
41:51So almost, you know, 40 years later, it's Markham Kitto who establishes.
41:58And in 1853, actually, the French sinologist Stanilas Julian, well-versed in Sanskrit
42:06and Mandarin, publishes, published a French translation of Xuanzang's, the tongue records
42:13on the Western region.
42:14So that's the chronology.
42:17And then you have a great guy who, who goes to Nalanda and as an explorer, Alexander Cunningham.
42:24And yes.
42:26And who tries to identify the sites visited by Xuanzang and links them.
42:31No, that's extraordinary.
42:34I'm so glad you did it.
42:36My many congratulations.
42:38I'll pretty soon pick it up and would love to read it.
42:42It's a great book.
42:44You know, I am so delighted that I could write this book.
42:49It's amazing.