NALANDA 

1. Background

• Old Pataliputra is an ancient city founded at the confluence of the Sone and Ganga rivers.
• Originally founded by the Magadhan ruler Ajatshatru, Pataliputra was what Delhi was to become more than a Millenium later-capital of a succession of dynasties which took pride in its fort, culture, language, law and order and even local self-government.
• The Greek traveller Megasthenes who came as an ambassador to the court of the Mauryas praised Pataliputra's local self-government and the sense of honesty among locals. 
• His book Indika is all but lost, but it has been quoted by several historians.

2.  A city of dynasties 

• The early images of Pataliputra an important city during the time of the Magadhan rulers, which then became the capital of the Nandas and later the Mauryas, the Guptas and the Palas.
• Chandragupta Maurya was born here, and Asoka ruled from here, as did Chandragupta I, II and Samudragupta.
• Much later, it was a place of prime importance for Aurangzeb who briefly named it Azimabad after his grandson Mohammed Azim.
• With such pedigree, Pataliputra could as well have been the capital of Modern India.
• After all, in the 16th century, its fortunes were revived under the Afghan King Sher Shah Suri when the city came to be christened Patna.
• Almost 500 years later, the city is still called by that name and has in its way inspired historians, non-fiction writers and novelists to trace the vicissitudes on its timeline.
• Yet, its story is best related by a succession of foreign travellers in ancient and medieval India, each of whom found something amazing about the city which grew out of a village called Pataligram.

3. Travellers

• There was political power and the attendant pelf but uniquely, there was an element of culture, a literary magnet that drew many.
• The universally respected Nalanda University was but a few kilometres from it.

3.1 Monk Hiuen Tsang and Fa-Hien 

• Famous Chinese monk Hiuen Tsang spent six years here.
• His account is probably the best memory of the rule of Harsha Vardhan in the first half of the 7th century.
• Before Hiuen Tsang, there was Fa-Hien, another Chinese traveller who graced the city in the fourth century.
• Fa-Hien wrote about it in A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms wherein he called Patna, "the City of flowers" or as a well-respected author.
• Amitava Kumar wrote in his engaging book, A Matter of Rats (Aleph), "It is the Indian Florence".

3.2 Sher Shah Suri

• A few centuries later came the Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri, originally called Farid Khan. 
• He is said to have been a brave man who killed a tiger with his bare hands.
• This named, Shar Shah, built a fort in Patna and Mosque. 
• The fort has crumbled and the mosque reminds us of the times that were.
• Talking of times, Patna did not always enjoy the best of moments in history. or at least some travellers didn't.

3.3 Ralph Fitch and Francis Buchanan

• While British traveller Ralph Fitch came to Patna in 1586 and described it as "a very long and great Town with a flourishing trade in cotton, sugar and opium".
• Scottish physician Francis Buchanan described it in an unflattering expression, "difficult to imagine a more disgusting place".

For Prelims & Mains