The University of Nalanda c9.176

c9.176

Thus ends the history of Nālandā and the kings who patronised it in various ways. Not only the Pālās, who ruled over Magadha for some four centuries, contributed their mite according to the vicissitudes of time in which they flourished, to the maintenance and preservation of art and culture as embodied in Nālandā but others also the Gurjara-Pratihāras and others who now and then invaded Magadha, contributed their mite or shall we say, forced the University to acknowledge their suzerainty and even record it. One of the votive stupas³, unearthed at Nālandā, contains a reference to Māhindrapāladēva. And he is now definitely identified⁴ with not one of the Pālā Kings as Kielhorn,⁵ Smith⁶ and M.M.H.P. Shastri⁷ once thought, but as a Gurjara-Pratihāra who had annexed Magadha in or about the 10th century A.D.