It was AD 1193 when Nalanda was attacked. And it was over eight centuries earlier that the University had embarked on its unique mission. Islam had not even opened its eyes then. For centuries bygone, the sages of this land of Indus and Ganges had speculated on the unraveled mysteries of the eternity. Yet, on every attempt they had failed, conceding to the limits of human mind to even sanely contemplate ‘that’, let alone finding and proclaiming the unseen. Philosophers came and went - leaving behind layer over layer of wisdom and offerings. And this time in Nalanda, it was Buddha who had taken over the command - a deep, serene and peaceful Buddha, trying to find clues not on the material horizons but in the abyss of dark resonating souls of humans. He had given in to the endless mystification and helplessness but could not find a hint of the infinite. Defeated, he ceded to let love and karma drapes all his senses. How insipid he must have looked to the outside world - the ignorant world!
And so was the society that he was part of - a society fully aware of the human limitations to practice any truth, secular or divine - and yet a society capable of picking up all the threads of wisdom in order to spin something meaningful. It was a society that embraced perplexity, and yet believed that man, with compassion and peace in his thoughts, must march on forever. No wonder, the man of Ganges dangled between numerous ends and at times the confused ones. Every stream of thought that had enriched the land had found an equal voice. The order ran from the majestic speculation of the Upnishads, celebration of nature in Vedas, the sex and passion of Kamasutra, social backfires of Manusmriti and many more. It was here, in the extreme dazzle, where Nalanda existed - a greatest center of learning with an aim to clear some intellectual darkness from the world and to make some space for the humans to live in. Nalanda’s country was not a land where ignorance was bliss - it was a place where turmoil of intellect was an ecstasy, a celebration.
Alas, Buddha’s meditation did not last long! A criminal and antithesis of sanity rose to prominence not very far from this place. They say his name was Muhammad - a self proclaimed final Prophet who had direct orders from the grand old man himself – The Allah. Allah, the founder cum guard of the concentration camp located somewhere that Buddha did not know and had rejected to reflect onto this weedy and despicable thought. But the Prophet alleged he was final, his Allah was final and his words were meant to be final too. And yet, what was not final was the greed of the booty and desire to slain the infidel. Muhammad, incapacitated to control his epileptic nerves had no stamina to reflect on the perplexity that Buddha faced. Unable to withstand the placid sight of the eternal bliss, frantic Muhammad rolled Buddha’s head in no time. Buddha vanished, Nalanda vanished and the Ganges was soon to be filled with his blood, to be followed by pollution for long time to come.
And so was the frenzy of the army of Muhammad behind him. Charged with insanity and psychopathic verses of the Koran, it did not take very long for them to plunge this area into darkness. First, there was light, they brought ‘Jahaliyat’! It is said there were thousands of volumes of books that burnt for months, to the delight of the lunacy of the invaders. It is also said, that the Muslim invaders were looking for Koran that they could not find. Of course they could not find the Koran, that there was no place for Koran in those books!
Nalanda, located in the heart of the grand civilization was ruthlessly plundered, and the civilization itself was taken captive. The insane had no remorse when they had turned its people into the ‘atoms of dust’. No time was lost to build a profound and ugly layer of the final religion and the final order that soon started to suffocate the ‘ever in flux’ land. Things that were being experimented with found no rejuvenation and had started to rot under the burden of the ‘ugly final’.
But the oppressed were no less resilient beasts either. They did not perish so convinced were they of their beliefs, and chose to live like atoms of dust amidst pollution, waiting patiently for a new dawn to emerge. Cutting long story short, it happened after 1,200 years since the first Muslim invaded their territory, though they could have easily waited for another millennium. Broken and defiled they were, but their DNAs had remarkably carried over the stories and ballads of their forefathers for generations, the stories told secretly to each other, the stories that an outsider still never dare to ask a ragged Sadhu. That’s right, Nalanda actually never perished even though the attackers tried there utter best. It only laid buried and unconscious for all these years. And so did the grand civilization of Indus and the Ganges.
Their much-awaited dawn has finally started to break. After 1,200 years of obliteration, the civilization has started to breathe again. See what a tragedy - as it comes out of slumber and rub her eyes, she finds none of her old companions in sight! The Egyptians, The Arabians, The Persians, The Mesopotamians and The Constantinoples have all gone! While Nalanda slept, the others were ruthlessly wiped out one by one, even though they were not less mighty. Reluctantly, the civilization of Nalanda wakes up into a different world now, a world that is always in haste to proclaim whatever it has in hand as “final”. There are no confusions of the intellects in this new world, but only the aggressive assertions, so deeply rooted is the doctrine of the ‘finality’ now.
However, there is a hope and ‘New Nalanda’ is the beacon of that hope - the light of the east, the speculating and mystic other half of the successful rational west, the extension of the Greek school- the only unscathed soul from the onslaught of Islam. A university with a hope to build yet another brave, compassionate and peaceful world, and not just the production powerhouses that reduce men and nature into the slaves of the systems - a learning center that shall never say ‘final’ but shall always assert ‘endure’. The atoms of dust have started to settle as well. What new world they create is yet to be seen. One can only hope they embrace a new vision of the world and new fervor to their energies. Do they need to drag all those Gods with them for ‘divine intervention’? One can only hope they build something new by themselves. But should they be obdurate to keep Gods with them, let there be a billion Gods this time then and not fifty million. Let there be a billion manifestations, one from each mind. Let one ‘atma’ flows through all of them again and let each of them manifest the ‘Brahman’ with his or her own grand intelligence.
Such is the beacon of hope that ‘New Nalanda’ is.
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