Was Nalanda really the world's first university, and what ended it?

Not in the modern sense, and no single fire ended it. Nalanda was a renowned Buddhist mahavihara, or great monastery, in medieval Magadha, in modern-day Bihar. It is widely considered among the greatest centres of learning in the ancient world and is often called "the world's first residential university", but scholars have challenged that label: it was undoubtedly a major centre of learning, yet comparing it directly to a modern university is historically imprecise. It operated for almost a thousand years, from 427 CE until around 1400 CE, established by the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta I with numerous Indian and Javanese patrons, both Buddhists and non-Buddhists.

Its fame travelled with its visitors. The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited in 637 and 642, spending around two years there, and he returned to China with 657 Sanskrit texts and 150 relics carried by 20 horses in 520 cases. Yijing followed the sea route and spent ten years at Nalanda. The curriculum included major Buddhist philosophies as well as the Vedas, grammar, medicine, logic, mathematics, astronomy and alchemy.

How did it end? A popular story blames a single fire set by the troops of Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji around 1200. The record is more complicated. Nalanda was raided by Khalji, but the passage often cited for its destruction actually describes another monastery, Odantapura, a few miles away. And a monk born in 1289 is recorded as studying at Nalanda from the age of eight, so it was still working in the late thirteenth century.

In 2010 the Government of India passed a resolution to revive the ancient university, and a contemporary institute, Nalanda University, was established at Rajgir.