11/03/2026
I live in a small part of Bihar, Sheikhpura.
Barely 40 km from Kundalpur, the sacred land where Lord Mahavira was born.
About 95 km from Bodh Gaya, where Gautam Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree and awakened to the truth of life. And nearly 110 km from Nalanda, the land that once held the world’s greatest university, whose libraries burned for months when it was destroyed.
Just imagine that.
Within a radius of a few hours lies a geography that once shaped the intellectual spine of the world.
Kings, monks, philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, and travelers from China, Tibet, Korea, and Greece once walked this soil in search of knowledge. Nalanda was not just a university. It was a living civilization of ideas. Thousands of students studied here. Hundreds of teachers taught here. Debates lasted for days. Research was carried out centuries before the modern world even understood what a university should look like.
And then something unexpected caught my attention.
Groups of government school children from Bihar had arrived for their school trips. Dozens of buses. Children running through the same corridors where scholars once walked slowly, deep in thought.
For a moment, the contrast struck me deeply.
The same land that once hosted the brightest minds of the world now struggles with basic literacy in many of its villages. The same soil that once held libraries so vast that they burned for months now has classrooms where books are still a luxury.
Yet, as I watched those children laughing, asking questions, clicking pictures near the ruins, something else became clear.
History had not died here. It was waiting.
Those children may not fully understand the weight of the place they were visiting today. But somewhere in their minds a seed must have been planted. A silent reminder that the land they belong to once led the world in thought, philosophy, science, and learning.
Maybe the ruins of Nalanda are not just reminders of what we lost.