The University of Nalanda c11.141

c11.141

We take note of Buddhakīrti not because he was a very distinguished scholar of Nālandā but because, in him, we find the last connecting link between the Universities of Nālandā and Vikramaśilā and because he was perhaps the last great scholar that the University produced before it was destroyed by the Moslems. The connecting link is found in the fact that our pandit was a contemporary of Abhyākara Gupta of the Vikramaśilā University. The latter flourished towards the end of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth century A. D.³ Soon after, in this period,—may be these pandits were witnesses,—the famous Universities were razed to the ground, monks slain, and the vast and gigantic libraries burnt by the Moslems.