Library at Nalanda university contained many major Buddhist texts

Photo: Nalanda, the Ancient Seat of Learning

Southeast of Patna, in the state of Bihar, India, Nalanda University was a central place of learning between the 5th and 12th centuries of the Common Era.

In this place, founded by Kumaragupta I, there lived and studied thousands of teachers and students from all over the Buddhist world, as well as Greece and Persia. The Buddha is reputed to have visited and taught here, and it is considered a source of various streams of Buddhism.

The libraries, housed in three tall buildings, were renowned and large, and were said to have contained thousands of books; unfortunately, the texts were destroyed by fire when the monastery complex was sacked by invading Muslim forces under Bakhtiyar Khilji at the end of the 12th century CE.