THE FIRST TWO DESTRUCTIONS OF NALANDA-THE MYTH AND THE REALITY
There are many marxist,leftist historians who bring up the first two destructions by supposedly hindu kings to show how hindus “hated” buddhists and to justify Bakhtiyar Khilji’s destruction of Nalanda.
The first two destructions were supposedly done by the Huns king Mihirakula and the Gauda king Sashanka.
FIRST DESTRUCTION BY MIHIRAKULA
He was an Alchon huns king who ruled most of north western India and parts of Afganistan from 515 CE to 540 CE.
The disputed extent of his empire(as per the Gwalior inscriptions)
He belonged to the Huns tribe which was a Central asian nomadic tribe and were considered “mlechhas” as per the vedas..
While the destruction done by him to Nalanda might not be false but him being a “hindu” king is also highly disputed.
DISPUTE OVER MIHIRAKULA’S BELIEFS
According to Chinese Buddhist monk Hiuen Tsang,Mihirakula initially was interested in Buddhism and sought for a buddhist teacher from the monasteries in his domain.They did not send him a learned scholar and thus Mihirakula felt insulted and probably started destroying monasteries in his kingdom.
Hieun Tsang
He was later believed to have “patronized” shaivism but many hindu texts from his time and later on never praised him and called him cruel for his violent acts and compared him with Kala(death).
The 12th century Kashmiri hindu text Rajatarangini constantly demonise him.
Yet we cannot be sure if hindus of his time really hated him.
The Buddhist texts also equally demonised him like Pushyamitra Sunga.
These Buddhist texts are actually notoriously based on propaganda as they demonised kings who did not patronise buddhism.But still nothing is much known about Mihirakula’s actual beliefs because he was constantly hated in both hindu and buddhist texts and kings like Yasodharman and Guptas considered him a “mlechha” or outsider.
Thus Mihirakula is in the same position as Khilji.The difference was that Mihirakula might have been more accepting of hindu beliefs yet even that is disputed.
Chinese buddhist texts written by Song Yun even mention that Mihirakula did not believe in any religion and was most probably an atheist.
He also mentioned that the Brahmins who lived in his kingdom did not like him either.
Thus this narrative that Nalanda was destroyed because of the hatred of Brahmins(or hindus) for buddhists does not stand at all.
Later after Mihirakula’s empire was taken over by the Guptas,they themselves rebuilt the University being devout Vaishnavite hindus.
The alleged second destruction by Sashanka of Gauda
coins depicting Sashanka
Sashanka was the first king of the independent kingdom of bengal who ruled from 600 CE to 636 CE..
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE “SUPPRESSION OF BUDDHISM” NARRATIVE
A 12th century text mentions that he was a buddhist hater,this is again similar to Sunga and Mihirakula.
They mention that he might have uprooted the Bodhi tree also.
Bodhi tree
But many reputed historians like R C Majumdar states that the accounts are doubtful because they were written centuries after the alleged persecution.
Moreover,powerful buddhist rulers like Harshavardhana also ruled during his time who would not have led that happen.
It is popularly believed that Harshavardhana later rebuilt Nalanda ..
Harshavardhana ruled from 606 to 647 CE and his empire started as the kingdom of Kannauj which reached first to Bihar then bengal and other regions ..
Thus he had a strong hold over regions where Nalanda was located and thus Sashanka reaching Nalanda and destroying it is less likely.
These alleged invasions cannot be brought up all the time whenever the discussion is about Bakhtiyar Khilji because even if it was true,they were still rebuilt to their original glory but after the third destruction by an islamic invader,they never came back to their original glory!