[Buddha-l] Nalanda's destruction

[Dan Lusthaus]

Warner,

Raverty used a range of sources, including several mss. which he and others 
considered quite early as well as more recent ones, and even printed 
editions (not surprisingly, he found some of the older mss. to be more less 
error-ridden than the more recent editions; it was the sorry state of the 
printed edition that spurred his interest in procuring additional mss.). It 
is likely further mss. have been discovered since the 19th c. His 
annotations indicate he was the sort of thorough philologist and historian 
that characterizes some of the best work done in the 19th c. Just from what 
I have looked at so far, it seems a very solid work.

Incidentally, while during the 20th c many scholars relied on Taranatha as a 
source for historical India, his star no longer shines very brightly -- it 
is now recognized that he is a problematic, late source of much erroneous 
information.

Andre Wink can be very informative. Please let us know what you discover.

>and yes, Elverskog definitely does not address the account in the
> Tabakat-i Nasiri. That whole opening chapter doesn't really make an
> argument about Nalanda.

He makes the claim, as I quoted earlier, that the story of Nalanda is 
untrue, but, since it would be impossible to back that claim up with serious 
evidence, as you say, he "doesn't really make an argument," just a bald 
claim, with insinuations that it was operating and doing fine long after it 
was destroyed.

Most sources suggest that Vikramasila in Bengal was probably the last major 
Buddhist university operating in India, which contributed to Tibetan 
Buddhism through the 13th c; Kashmir retained some Buddhist centers that 
also stayed in contact with Tibet at least through the 15th c.

But one has to beware of certain inflated claims (which constitute much of 
the hot air in Elverskog's book). For instance, a 2010 dissertation at 
Harvard by Arthur McKeown offers the possibly misleading title: "From 
Bodhgaya to Lhasa to Beijing: The Life and Times of Sariputra (c1335-1426), 
Last Abbot of Bodhgaya." If "last abbot of Bodhgaya" suggests to you that 
Bodhgaya was a healthy or even failing insitution that Sariputra inherited 
but was unsuccessful in maintaining its continuity, then the title is 
misleading. Bodhgaya was already a desolated ruin when he arrived there. He 
persuaded some the local royalty to donate to "rebuilding" it, and then took 
his fund-raising campaign on the road to Tibet and Lhasa. McKeown of course 
makes that clear in the dissertation itself, but to suggest that Bodhgaya 
(which, incidentally is also in Bihar) were functional in the 14th c is 
misleading, an gross exaggeration at best. I wouldn't exactly call Sariputra 
a huckster, but he does remind me of the well-heeled and seemingly 
respectable group currently trying to reestablish Nalanda University in 
India and hitting up potential donors around the globe (of course, when you 
hear their actual plans, it has very little to do with Buddhism or promoting 
Buddhist studies -- they are more interested in Islamic studies, actually --  
but they use the name and reputation to elicit interest and mega-$$). For 
Sariputra, making the rounds of Buddhist countries like Tibet and China, 
fundraising in the capital cities with the claimed purpose of sending money 
back to Bodhgaya to keep it going -- one only has to look at the current 
international interest and investment in Bodhgaya to see how lucrative that 
might be. (The dissertation is well worth reading -- lots of good 
information on the pan-asian situation of Buddhism at that time.)

Dan