Integrity Score 570
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The rediscovery of what today is accessible to the modern tourist easily upon the purchase of tickets from the counter, was never easy due to its almost total decimation having been noted even contemporarily by Dharmaswamin, the Tibetan monk, who visited around 1234 A.D., only to find the site totally razed to the ground with its foundation stones having been thrown into the Ganga by the invading Turushkas. Vikramshila was last seen existing in the time of his elder Chag dGra-bcom, (1153-1216 A.D.) and Pandita Sakyasribhadra of Kashmir (1145-1225 A.D.), and thus is believed as probably having been destroyed around the end of the 12th century. The impact of the destruction was so complete that as the remains gradually crumbled and lied unattended under the debris, traces were obliterated even from collective local memory and tradition. The challenges in identification of the site were also enormous since literary accounts too were rather meagre when compared to those for the Nalanda University. However, from Tibetan sources like the writings of Lama Taranath (1575-1634 A.D.), the Tibetan Tangyur, a text entitled ‘Guru Guna Dharmakara’ along with the travel accounts of the Tibetan monks Nag-Tcho and Dharmaswamin, and other sources including but not limited to the two inscriptions discovered from the monastery of Tabo in Spiti, by Mr. Franke, and some Sanskrit texts like Sarangdhara Srotra Tika and the Vrhat Svayambhu Purana, the pen picture of then Mahavihara ascribed as having been founded to the north of Magadha, on a hill on the southern banks of the Ganga, by the Pala ruler Dharmapala (783-820 A.D.), was reconstructed.
To be continued...